ce, and that we should
embark upon these rafts and so try to make the shallop and the skiff,
which would bear us in safety to the islands.

It was not tempting to make rafts and trust them and ourselves upon them
to the sea that was churning and creaming beneath us, but it seemed to
be well-nigh the only thing to do, and it was the Captain's orders, and
we prepared to set to work and execute his commands. But we had scarce
begun to tie a couple of planks together before it was plain that our
labour would be in vain. For even while the man had been telling his
tale the weather had grown much rougher, and we could see that the skiff
was unable to remain longer near to us, but had to turn back for her own
safety to the islands. I felt very sure that Captain Amber must be in
anguish, having thus to leave us, his dear Lancelot and some seventy of
his sailors and followers, on board a vessel that might cease to be a
vessel at any moment.

Now we were in very desperate straits indeed, and some of us seemed
tempted to give ourselves over to despair. If it had not been for the
steadiness of those that were under Lancelot, I feel sure that the most
part of the sailors would have paid no further heed to Jensen's
counsels, but would have incontinently drunk themselves into stupor or
madness, and so perished miserably.

But our men, if they were resigned to their fate, were resolved to meet
it like Christians and stout fellows, and as we were the well-armed
party the others had, sullenly enough, to fall in with our wishes. And
Lancelot's wishes were that all hands should employ themselves still in
the making of those rafts, so that if the weather did mend we should be
able to take advantage of the improvement ere it shifted again. Though
the water was beating up in great waves all about us, we were so tightly
fixed upon our bank that we were well-nigh immovable, and it was
possible for us to work pretty patiently and persistently through all
the dirty weather. But though we worked hard and well, it took up the
fag-end of that day and the whole of the next to get our two rafts ready
for the sea, which was by that time more ready for them, as the storm
had again abated.

CHAPTER XXII

WE LOSE CORNELYS JENSEN

It was on the night when we had well-nigh finished our two rafts that a
very unexpected thing happened--a thing which I took at the time to be a
piece of good fortune, but which, as it happened, proved to be a
mis