Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/294

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CASTAWAYS

were only Nutley and me to row and only two oars and a piece of a third, and the sea was making fast Seeing we couldn't reach Lundy, we tried keeping her headed south, thinking we'd fetch Penzance or somewhere down there. But the wind blew us straight out and we couldn't do a thing. The Lieutenant died about four o'clock. He'd been rather badly hurt, 'though I didn't know how badly then. I wasn't very fit myself. Nutley was the only one of us in decent shape, I guess."

"Milton, poor chap, died the next forenoon. You wouldn't believe that we could have blown all the way from about ten miles this side of Lundy to where you found us and never seen a sail. That's what we did, though. Practically, at any rate. That first night—meaning the second night, really—we saw lights twice and used up all the matches we had trying to make a flare. After that we had all we could do to keep in the boat, for a beastly storm came up and we thought we were done for. Not that we'd have cared much, anyway. We saw Fastnet Light through the rain, but it was ten miles away at least. The next morning we were out of sight of land and didn't know where we were. We hadn't any water and hadn't any food, and—oh, it was pretty bad, Troy! Grogan kept

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