Voyage of the Liberdade by Joshua Slocum
page 18 of 122 (14%)
page 18 of 122 (14%)
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not come that day, but Captain Speck's little friend, Garfield, said:
"The flags were set for the angels to come and take the Captain to Heaven!" Need more be said? And the flags blew out all day. Then it became us to erect a memorial slab, and, hardest of all, to write to the widow and orphans. This was done in a homely way, but with sympathetic, aching hearts away off there in Santa Fè. Our time at Rosario, after this, was spent in gloomy days that dragged into weeks and months, and our thoughts often wandered from there to a happy past. We preferred to dwell away from there and in other climes, if only in thought. There was, however, one happy soul among us--the child whose face was a sunbeam in all kinds of weather and at all times, happy in his ignorance of the evils that fall to the lot of man. Our sailing-day from Rosario finally came; and, with a feeling as of casting off fetters, the lines were let go, and the bark hauled out into the stream, with a full cargo on board; but, instead of sailing for Rio, as per charter, she was ordered by the Brazilian consul to Ilha Grande (Great Island), the quarantine station of Brazil, some sixty-two miles west of Rio, there to be disinfected and to discharge her cargo in quarantine. A new crew was shipped and put aboard, but while I was getting my papers, about noon, they stole one of the ship's boats and scurried off down the river as fast, no doubt, as they could go. I have not seen them or my boat since. They all deserted,--every mother's son of them! taking, beside the boat, a month's advance pay from a Mr. Dutch Harry, a |
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