Just at this time, however, the visitors gave but little heed to anything connected with the abandoned craft save the provisions, and these they sampled generously, beginning with nuts and ending with jam; each one eating until it was an absolute impossibility to swallow another mouthful.
During the varied but hearty meal they failed to notice that the brig had heeled over slightly, or that there was considerable more motion than when they first came aboard. The feast drove all thoughts of the general condition of affairs from their minds until it was finished, and then Jim said:
"Now, what's to be done? It seems a pity to leave this craft and all these things; but I don't s'pose we could tow her in to the Shoals."
Even though Harry and Walter knew nothing about seamanship, they understood how ridiculous it would be to make any attempt at towing a three-hundred-ton brig with a crazy little boat like the Sally, and their merriment was so great when Jim made this remark that he thought it necessary to defend himself by saying:
"I've seen folks tow bigger vessels than this; an' I was only thinkin' how fine it would be to take her in, for since there's nobody aboard we'd own everything."
"Well, so long as it can't be done we'd better go back," Walter said as he suddenly remembered his neglect of duty and the very grave reason why he should be at the hotel before his mother returned.
Neither Harry nor Jim believed there was any necessity for making a hurried departure, and fully half an hour more elapsed before they were ready to go on deck. Even then they would have delayed still further had not a violent motion of the vessel caused Jim to cry, as he sprang toward the companion-way:
"The wind has freshened, and if we want to get back to-night it's time we were off!"
Then, as he gained the deck, fear and surprise took the place of his suddenly aroused anxiety. The wind had sprung up and must have done so a long while before, for now there was no sign of land in either direction, unless, indeed, a dark smudge far down to windward might be the island which had been so close aboard a few hours previous, and the Bonita was working on a zigzag course seaward. Owing to the fact that the head-sheets were flowing, each time she fell off sufficiently to get the wind abaft the beam she would fill her topsails and gather way, then come to, stop, and again fall off; making, as a sailor would say, "boards and half-boards."
Harry and Walter were so thoroughly amazed and alarmed by this sudden disappearance of the land, as it were, that they gave no heed to anything around them, but stood by the port rail amidships, searching in vain with their eyes for the island.
Jim's knowledge of seamanship was decidedly limited; but he understood fully why the Isle of Shoals was no longer in sight, and his one thought was how they could leave the vessel, which was literally running away with them. Springing to the main chains where the Sally had been made fast, a single glance was sufficient to show of what little service she would be to them just then. Leaking as she did, and towed now and then at a rapid rate, the little craft was filled with water, nothing save a very small portion of the bow upheld by the painter being visible.
Hardly knowing what he did, the young fisherman ran fore and aft in a distracted way until Harry, aroused from his stupefaction by Jim's apparently aimless movements, asked in a sharp tone of nervous irritation:
"What are you doing? Are we to stay here without trying to get back?"
"I wish you would tell me what we can do;" and Jim stopped short as he plunged his hands deeply in his pockets, looking Harry squarely in the face. "The Isle of Shoals must be a dozen miles away by this time; the Sally is swamped, an' there's nothin' in the shape of a boat on board."
"But we can't stay here and be carried out to sea!" Walter cried in a shrill tone of fear.
"If you think it's possible to swim back we won't stay; but I don't know of any other way to get there!"
For an instant Walter acted as if he intended to make the attempt; and then, as Harry seized his arm to prevent him from leaping overboard, the poor boy gave way to the most passionate grief, he began to realize the full consequences of his disobedience, and could he have been transported to the land just at that moment, Bessie would have opened her eyes wide in surprise at the great display of brotherly affection.
