RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
much as if we had torn the whole bottom out of the launch. The engine had stopped; it was inky dark; the children all began to cry; and, to add further discomfort to the situation, it began to rain in torrents. The launch swayed sickeningly this way and that, then the engine started again, whereupon came a most furious clatter aft. There is no denying that it made us blanch with fear, but it proved to be only a blade of the propeller which had been bent and was striking the boat with each revolution.
Three times more we slid into the mud; the last time we stuck and no effort that could be made would get us out, so we were forced to abandon the launch and wedge ourselves altogether into the little cutter. You may picture for yourself the scene of men, women and children, in the rain and with no light save the faint flicker of lanterns, dropping off a big launch into a small rowboat over an inky stream supposed to be filled with crocodiles.
When we reached the mouth of the river the captain began to show signs of nervousness, though he had been entirely self-controlled throughout the worst of our troubles. We couldn’t see where we were going, but we could distinctly feel that the open bay lay not far ahead of us. What we wanted was to have the Sumner’s searchlight turned on our path, but the only thing we had with us with which to convey this desire to the ship’s officers were red rockets, the last resort of the sailor in distress. There was nothing else to do; the launch captain began firing them off, and a weirder scene than was revealed by their momentary glare can hardly be imagined. They produced the desired effect, however, and in less than ten minutes a great shaft of light, straight from the bridge of the Sumner, was sweeping the banks of the river and bay shore and affording us just the kind of assistance we required.
But that was not the end. Less than half-way to the Sumner we met a lifeboat, equipped with all the parapher-
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