Читать книгу The Fortunate Island, and Other Stories онлайн

2 страница из 68

Max Adeler.

ssss1

ssss1

When the good ship “Morning Star,” bound to Liverpool from New York, foundered at sea, the officers, the crew, and all of the passengers but two, escaped in the boats. Professor E.L. Baffin and his daughter, Matilda Baffin, preferred to intrust themselves to a patent india-rubber life-raft, which the Professor was carrying with him to Europe, with the hope that he should sell certain patent rights in the contrivance.

There was time enough, before the ship sank, to inflate the raft and to place upon it all of the trunks and bundles belonging to the Professor and Matilda. These were lashed firmly to the rubber cylinders, and thus Professor Baffin was encouraged to believe that he might save from destruction all of the scientific implements and apparatus which he had brought with him from the Wingohocking University to illustrate the course of lectures which he had engaged to give in England and Scotland.