"Gee! ain't this fine?" said L'Olonnois. "I never did think we'd be
really shipwrecked and cast away on a desert island. This is just
like it is in the books."
"Can we go huntin' now?" demanded Jean Lafitte, his mouth still full
of bacon. "And will you come along? There must be millions of them
ducks and geese. I didn't know there was so many in all the world."
"You may go, both of you, Jean Lafitte," said I, "if you'll be careful
not to shoot yourselves. As for me, I must go back once more to the
boat, I fancy."
Peterson and I now held a brief conference, and presently, leaving the
ladies in charge of Willy and the cook, we two, with Williams to run
the motor, with some difficulty launched the long boat and made off
through a sea none too amiable, to go aboard the Belle Helène once
more--which so short a time before I had thought we never might do
again.
"This is easier than pulling out in the dingey," grinned Peterson, as
we approached the Belle Helène. "Confound that deck-hand, he might
have got you drowned! I'll fire him, sure!"
"No," said I; "I've been thinking that over. There was a great deal of
confusion, and after all, he may have thought that we had John with
us. Besides, he's only young, and he's human. I'll tell you what
we'll do, Peterson--I'll dock him a month's wages, and I'll send his
wages to his mother. Meantime, let him carry the wood and water for a
week."
We found it not difficult now to go aboard the Belle Helène, for, in
the lessening seaway, she rolled not so evilly. Peterson sprang to the
deck as the bow of our boat rose alongside on a wave, and made fast
our line. When Williams and I had followed, we took a general
inventory of the Belle Helène. All the deck gear was gone, spare
oars and spars, a canvas or so, and some coils of rope. Beyond that,
there seemed no serious damage, unless the hull had been injured by
its pounding during the night.
"It's a mud-bank here, I think, Mr. Harry," said Peterson. "She may
have ripped some of her copper on the oyster reefs, but she seems to
bed full length and maybe she's not strained, after all."
"There's the line of channel guides," said I, pointing to a row of
sticks driven into the mud a couple of miles in length.
"Yes," said the old man, "the channel's not more than a biscuit toss
from here. We came right across it--if it hadn't been in the dark,
we'd have gone through into the lee of the island and been all right.
Now as it is, we're all wrong."