Читать книгу The Castaways of the Flag: The Final Adventures of the Swiss Family Robinson онлайн

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The boatswain spoke to the young man lying by his side.

“No, no. I watched the horizon until the sun went down. No land in sight—not a sail! But what I didn’t see this evening will perhaps be visible at dawn.”

“But, bo’sun,” his companion answered, “we must get to land somewhere in the next forty-eight hours, or we shall have succumbed.”

“That’s true,” John Block agreed. “Land must appear—simply must. Why, continents and islands were made on purpose to give shelter to brave men, and one always ends by getting to them!”

“If the wind helps one, bo’sun.”

“That is the only reason wind was invented,” John Block replied. “To-day, as bad luck would have it, it was busy somewhere else, in the middle of the Atlantic or the Pacific perhaps, for it didn’t blow enough here to fill my cap. Yes, a jolly good gale would blow us merrily along.”

“Or swallow us up, Block.”

“Oh no, not that! No, no, not that! Of all ways to bring this job to a finish, that would be the worst.”

“Who can tell, bo’sun?”

Then for some minutes the two men were silent. Nothing could be heard but the gentle rippling under the boat.