We had no sooner set foot on deck, and got Sam disengaged from the hook, than the purser stepped up with book and pencil--“Tickets, gentlemen.”
We told him we hadn’t any tickets, and he ordered us to be set ashore in a boat. It was represented to him that this was quite impossible under the circumstances; but he replied that he had nothing to do with circumstances--did not know anything about circumstances. Nothing would move him till the captain, who was really a kind-hearted man, came on deck and knocked him overboard. We were now stripped of our clothing, chafed all over with stiff brushes, rolled on our stomachs, wrapped in flannels, laid before a hot stove in the saloon, and strangled with scalding brandy. We had not been wet, nor had we swallowed any sea-water, but the surgeon said this was the proper treatment. It is uncertain what he might have done to us if the tender-hearted captain had not thrashed him into his cabin, and told us to go on deck.
By this time the ship was passing the town of Arica, and we were about to go astern and fish a little, when she grounded on a hill-top. The captain hove out all the anchors he had about him; and when the water went swirling back to its legal level, taking the town along for company, there we were, in the midst of a charming agricultural country, but at some distance from any seaport.
At sunrise next morning we were all on deck. Sam sauntered aft to the binnacle, cast his eye carelessly upon the compass, and uttered an ejaculation of astonishment.
“Tell _you_, captain,” he called out, “this has been a direr convulsion of nature than you have any idea. Everythin’s been screwed right round. Needle points due south!”
“Why, you lubber!” growled the skipper, taking a look, “it p’ints d’rectly to labbard, an’ there’s the sun, dead ahead!”
Sam turned and confronted him, with a steady gaze of ineffable contempt.
“Now, who said it wasn’t dead ahead?--tell me _that_. Shows how much _you_ know about earthquakes. ’Course, I didn’t mean just this continent, nor just this earth: I tell you, the _whole thing’s_ turned!”
(French of George Le Faure: I. S: For Short Stories.)
Every day there came down to the long stone wharf a smiling fair-haired girl of seven, followed by an old, old man.