Dropping Aunt Jane's hand
I rushed on deck. There lay the various pieces of my baggage, and
in the distance the boat with the two brown rowers was skipping
shoreward over the ripples.
As for the _Rufus Smith_, she was under weigh, and heading out of
the roadstead for the open sea.
I dashed aft to the captain, who stood issuing orders in the voice
of an aggrieved fog-horn.
"Captain!" I cried, "wait; turn around! You must put my aunt and
me ashore!"
He whirled on me, showing a crimson angry face. "Turn around, is
it, turn around ?" he shouted. "Do you suppose I can loaf about
the harbor here a-waitin' on your aunt's fits? You come aboard
without me askin'. Now you can go along with the rest. This here
ship has got her course set for Frisco, pickin' up Leeward Island
on the way, and anybody that ain't goin' in that direction is
welcome to jump overboard."
That is how I happened to go to Leeward Island.
II
APOLLO AND SOME OTHERS
The _Rufus Smith_, tramp freighter, had been chartered to convey
the Harding-Browne expedition to Leeward Island, which lies about
three hundred miles west of Panama, and could be picked up by the
freighter in her course. She was a little dingy boat with such
small accommodation that I can not imagine where the majority of
her passengers stowed themselves away.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25