Masterman Ready; Or, The Wreck of the Pacific

by Frederick Marryat

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

  That night Ready sat up for two or three hours working by candle-light(William keeping him company), very busily engaged fitting up thefishing-lines with leads and hooks. At last two were complete.

  "What bait must we use, Ready?"

  "I should think that the best would be one of the fish out of the shellswhich are in the sand; but a piece of pork fat will, I dare say, do aswell."

  "And whereabouts would you fish, Ready?"

  "The best place, I should think, would be at the farthermost end of thepoint, where I got the boat through the reef--the water is deep thereclose to the rocks."

  "I was thinking, Ready, if those gannets and men-of-war birds would begood eating."

  "Not very, William; they are very tough and very fishy: we must try forthose when we can get nothing better. Now that we have got in the seedsand potatoes, we must all set to to-morrow morning to fell and carry thetimber. I think Mr Seagrave had better use the axe with me; and youand Juno can, when I have shown you how, hang the timber to the axle,and wheel it out to the place where we have decided upon building thehouse. And now we had better go to bed."

  William, however, had made up his mind to do otherwise: he knew that hismother would be very glad to have some fish, and he determined, as themoon shone bright, to try if he could not catch some before he went tobed; so he waited very quietly till he thought Ready was asleep as wellas the others, and then went out with the lines, and went down to thebeach, where he picked up three or four shells, and, breaking thembetween two pieces of rock, took out the fish and baited his hooks. Hethen walked to the point. It was a beautiful night; the water was verysmooth, and the moonbeams pierced deep below the surface. William threwin his line, and as soon as the lead touched the bottom he pulled it upabout a foot, as Ready had instructed him; and he had not held his linemore than half a minute, when it was jerked so forcibly, that notexpecting it he was nearly hauled into the water; as it was, the fishwas so strong that the line slipped through his hand and scored hisfingers; but after a time he was able to pull it in, and he landed onthe beach a large silver-scaled fish, weighing nine or ten pounds. Assoon as he had dragged it so far away from the edge of the rocks as toprevent its flapping into the water again, William took out the hook anddetermined to try for another. His line was down as short a time asbefore, when it was again jerked with violence; but William was thistime prepared, and he let out the line and played the fish till it wastired, and then pulled it up, and found that the second fish was evenlarger than the first. Satisfied with his success, he wound up hislines, and, running a piece of string through the gills of the fish,dragged them back to the tents, and hanged them to the pole, for fear ofthe dogs eating them; he then went in, and was soon fast asleep. Thenext morning William was the first up, and showed his prizes with muchglee; but Ready was very much displeased with him.

  "You did very wrong, William, to run the risk which you did. If youwere resolved to catch fish, why did you not tell me, and I would havegone with you? You say, yourself, that the fish nearly hauled you intothe water; suppose it had done so, or suppose a small shark instead ofone of these gropers (as we call them) had taken the bait, you must havebeen jerked in; and the rocks are so steep there, that you would nothave been able to get out again before a shark had hold of you. Think amoment what would have been the distress of your father and the agonyand despair of your poor mother, when this news should have arrived."

  "I was very wrong, Ready," replied William, "now that I think of it; butI wanted to surprise and please my mother."

  "That reason is almost sufficient to plead your pardon, my dear boy,"replied Ready; "but don't do so again. And now let us say no more aboutit; nobody will know that you have been in danger, and there's no harmdone; and you mustn't mind an old man scolding you a little."

  "No, indeed, Ready, I do not, for I was very thoughtless; but I had noidea that there was danger."

  "There's your mother coming out of her tent," replied Ready."Good-morning, madam. Do you know what William has done for you lastnight? Look, here are two beautiful fish, and very excellent eatingthey are, I can tell you."

  "I am quite delighted," replied Mrs Seagrave.

  Tommy clapped his hands and danced about, crying, "Fried fish fordinner;" and Juno said, "Have very fine dinner to-day, Missy Caroline."

  After breakfast they all set out for the grove, where Ready had beencutting down the trees, taking with them the wheels and axle, and acouple of stout ropes. Mr Seagrave and Ready cut down the trees andslung them to the axle, and Juno and William dragged them to the spotwhere the house was to be built.

  They were not sorry when dinner was ready, for it was very hard work.

  That night, tired as they were, Ready and William went out, and turnedeight more turtle. They continued felling the cocoa-nut trees anddragging the timber for the remainder of the week, when they consideredthat they had nearly enough, and on Tuesday morning they commencedbuilding the house.