The Coral Island | Page 3

it was. That anchor did not "kiss the mud" for many long days
afterwards; and when at last it did, it was for the last time!
There were a number of boys in the ship, but two of them were my
special favourites. Jack Martin was a tall, strapping, broad- shouldered
youth of eighteen, with a handsome, good-humoured, firm face. He had
had a good education, was clever and hearty and lion- like in his
actions, but mild and quiet in disposition. Jack was a general favourite,
and had a peculiar fondness for me. My other companion was Peterkin
Gay. He was little, quick, funny, decidedly mischievous, and about
fourteen years old. But Peterkin's mischief was almost always harmless,
else he could not have been so much beloved as he was.
"Hallo! youngster," cried Jack Martin, giving me a slap on the shoulder,
the day I joined the ship, "come below and I'll show you your berth.
You and I are to be mess-mates, and I think we shall be good friends,
for I like the look o' you."
Jack was right. He and I and Peterkin afterwards became the best and
stanchest friends that ever tossed together on the stormy waves.
I shall say little about the first part of our voyage. We had the usual

amount of rough weather and calm; also we saw many strange fish
rolling in the sea, and I was greatly delighted one day by seeing a shoal
of flying fish dart out of the water and skim through the air about a foot
above the surface. They were pursued by dolphins, which feed on them,
and one flying-fish in its terror flew over the ship, struck on the rigging,
and fell upon the deck. Its wings were just fins elongated, and we found
that they could never fly far at a time, and never mounted into the air
like birds, but skimmed along the surface of the sea. Jack and I had it
for dinner, and found it remarkably good.
When we approached Cape Horn, at the southern extremity of America,
the weather became very cold and stormy, and the sailors began to tell
stories about the furious gales and the dangers of that terrible cape.
"Cape Horn," said one, "is the most horrible headland I ever doubled.
I've sailed round it twice already, and both times the ship was a'most
blow'd out o' the water."
"An' I've been round it once," said another, "an' that time the sails were
split, and the ropes frozen in the blocks, so that they wouldn't work, and
we wos all but lost."
"An' I've been round it five times," cried a third, "an' every time wos
wuss than another, the gales wos so tree-mendous!"
"And I've been round it no times at all," cried Peterkin, with an
impudent wink of his eye, "an' THAT time I wos blow'd inside out!"
Nevertheless, we passed the dreaded cape without much rough weather,
and, in the course of a few weeks afterwards, were sailing gently,
before a warm tropical breeze, over the Pacific Ocean. Thus we
proceeded on our voyage, sometimes bounding merrily before a fair
breeze, at other times floating calmly on the glassy wave and fishing
for the curious inhabitants of the deep, - all of which, although the
sailors thought little of them, were strange, and interesting, and very
wonderful to me.
At last we came among the Coral Islands of the Pacific, and I shall

never forget the delight with which I gazed, - when we chanced to pass
one, - at the pure, white, dazzling shores, and the verdant palm-trees,
which looked bright and beautiful in the sunshine. And often did we
three long to be landed on one, imagining that we should certainly find
perfect happiness there! Our wish was granted sooner than we
expected.
One night, soon after we entered the tropics, an awful storm burst upon
our ship. The first squall of wind carried away two of our masts; and
left only the foremast standing. Even this, however, was more than
enough, for we did not dare to hoist a rag of sail on it. For five days the
tempest raged in all its fury. Everything was swept off the decks except
one small boat. The steersman was lashed to the wheel, lest he should
be washed away, and we all gave ourselves up for lost. The captain said
that he had no idea where we were, as we had been blown far out of our
course; and we feared much that we might get among the dangerous
coral reefs which are so numerous in the Pacific. At day-break on the
sixth morning of the gale we saw land ahead. It was an island encircled
by a reef of coral on which the