112 
HOW THEY GOT LOST. 
he was only sorry they had not fulfilled their threat of 
tying them when they behaved badly; and, as the men 
entered at the moment and heard themselves thus con- 
demned, they advanced with a most sheepish expression 
of countenance and waited to be? questioned. 
“Well, what have you got to say for yourselves?” 
asked Stevens, severely.' 
“ Got lost, sir. We tried to cross through the woods 
to t’other beach, and was in them all night,” &e. &c. &e. 
The reader must imagine the rest. 
Now came some more hot and tasteless tea; then a 
general shaking of hands; then the furious harking of 
dogs; then a dark and dismal poling-match down the 
winding creek; and finally — the schooner. The next 
day we were again under way, heading for Gaspar 
Island, where we filled our water-tanks with rain-Mmter 
from the cavities of rocks, and finally crowded sail 
for our port of rendezvous, — Hong-Kong, China, — dis- 
tant some eighteen hundred miles. 
The time passed heavily enough now that we had 
nothing to do ; hut two weeks cannot last forever, and 
we finally found ourselves in smooth water. We en- 
tered at night, and our pilot, being a great jackass, 
allowed us to drift afoul of an English vessel’s hawse, 
which gave us work until the change of tide : then we 
got clear of her and anchored, kicked the offending 
Celestial into his boat, and turned in for the nifirht. 
