Boys are generally greatly pleased with seeing ships and the water. In fact, the view of a harbor, filled with boats and shipping, forms usually for all persons, old as well as young, a very attractive scene.

There was once a boy named Antonio Van Tromp. They commonly called him Antony. Sometimes they called him Van Tromp. He lived in a certain sea-port town, where his father used to come in with a ship from sea. His father was captain of the ship. Antonio used to be very fond of going down to the pier while his father’s ship was unloading. One day he persuaded his cousin, who was several years younger than himself, to go down with him.

The boys played about upon the pier for an hour very happily. The seamen and laborers were unloading the ship, and there were a great many boxes, and bales, and hogsheads, and other packages of merchandise lying upon the pier. There were porters at work carrying the goods away, and sailors rolling hogsheads and barrels to and fro. There was an anchor on the pier, and weights, and chains, and trucks, and other similar objects lying around. The boys amused themselves for some time in jumping about upon these things. At length, on looking down over the edge of the pier, they saw that there was a boat there. It was fastened by means of a rope to one of the links of an enormous chain, which was lying over the edge of the pier. On seeing this boat, they conceived the idea of getting into it, and rowing about a little in the neighborhood of the pier.

There were no oars in the boat, and so Van Tromp asked a sailor, whom he saw at work near, to go and get them for him on board the ship.

“Not I,” said the sailor.

“Why not?” asked Van Tromp.

“It is ebb tide,” said the sailor, “and if you two boys cast off from the pier in that boat, you will get carried out to sea.”

“Why, I can scull,” said Van Tromp.

“Oh no,” said the sailor.

“At least I can pull,” said Van Tromp.

“Oh no,” said the sailor.

The boys stood perplexed, not knowing what to do.

All along the shores of the sea the tide rises for six hours, and while it is thus rising, the water, of course, wherever there are harbors, creeks, and bays, flows in. Afterward the tide falls for six hours, and while it is falling, the water of the harbors, creeks, and bays flows out. When the water is going out, they call it ebb tide. That is what the sailor meant by saying it was ebb tide.

Sculling is a mode of propelling a boat by one oar. The oar in this case is put out behind the boat, that is, at the stern, and is moved to and fro in a peculiar manner, somewhat resembling the motion of the tail of a fish when he is swimming through the water. It is difficult to learn how to scull. Antony could scull pretty well in smooth water, but he could not have worked his way in this manner against an ebb tide.

Pulling, as Antony called it, is another name for rowing. In rowing, it is necessary to have two oars. To row a boat requires more strength, though less skill, than to scull it.

The boys, after hesitating for some time, finally concluded at least to get into the boat. They had unfastened the painter, that is, the rope by which the boat was tied, while they had been talking with the sailor, in order to be all ready to cast off. When they found that the sailor would not bring them any oars, they fastened the painter again, so that the boat should not get away, and then climbed down the side of the pier, and got into the boat.

Unfortunately, when, after untying the painter, they attempted to make it fast again into the link of the chain, they did not do it securely; and as they moved to and fro about the boat, pushing it one way and another, the rope finally got loose, and the boat floated slowly away from the pier. The boys were engaged very intently at the time in watching some sun-fish which they saw in the water. They were leaning over the side of the boat to look at them, so that they did not see the pier when it began to recede, and thus the tide carried them to a considerable distance from it before they observed that they were adrift.

At length Larry—for that was the name of Antony’s cousin—looking up accidentally, observed that the boat was moving away.

“Antony! Antony!” exclaimed, he, “we’re adrift.”

As he said this, Larry looked very much terrified.

Antony rose from his reclining position, and stood upright in the bottom of the boat. He looked back toward the pier, which he observed was rapidly receding.

“Yes,” said he, “we’re adrift; but who cares?”

When a boy gets into difficulty or danger by doing something wrong, he is generally very much frightened. When, however, he knows that he has not been doing any thing wrong, but has got into difficulty purely by accident, he is much less likely to be afraid.

Antony knew that he had done nothing wrong in getting into the boat. His father was a sea-captain, and he was allowed to get into boats whenever he chose to do so. He was accustomed, too, to be in boats on the water, and now, if he had only had an oar or a paddle, he would not have felt any concern whatever. As it was, he felt very little concern.

His first thought was to call out to the sailor whom they had left on the pier. The boys both called to him long and loud, but he was so busy turning over boxes, and bales, and rolling hogsheads about, that he did not hear.

“What shall we do?” asked Larry, with a very anxious look.

“Oh, we shall get ashore again easily enough,” replied Antony. “Here is a large sail-boat coming up. We will hail them, and they will take us aboard.”

“Do you think they will take us on board?” asked Larry.

“Yes, I am sure they will,” said Antony.

Just then the boat which the boys were drifting in came along opposite to a large sail-boat. This boat was sloop-rigged; that is, it had one mast and a fore-and-aft sail. She was standing up the harbor, and was headed toward the pier. The sail was spread, and the sail-boat was gliding along smoothly, but quite swiftly, through the water.

There were two men on board. One was at the helm, steering. The other, who had on a red flannel shirt, came to the side of the boat, and looked over toward the boys. We can just see the head of this man above the gunwale on the starboard side of the boat in the picture.

“Hallo! sail-boat!” said Antony.

“Hallo!” said the flannel shirt.

“Take us aboard of your boat,” said Antony; “we have got adrift, and have not got any oar.”

“We can’t take you on board,” said the man; “we have got beyond you already.”

“Throw us a rope,” said Antony.

“We have not got any rope long enough,” said the sailor.

As he said these words, the sail-boat passed entirely by.

“What shall we do?” said Larry, much alarmed.

Larry was much smaller than Antony, and much less accustomed to be in boats on the water, and he was much more easily terrified.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Antony; “we shall get brought up among some of the shipping below. There are plenty of vessels coming up the harbor.”

So they went on—slowly, but very steadily—wherever they were borne by the course of the ebbing tide. Instead of being brought up, however, as Antony had predicted, by some of the ships, they were kept by the tide in the middle of the channel, while the ships were all, as it happened, on one side or the other, and they did not go within calling distance of any one of them. At last even Antony began to think that they were certainly about to be carried out to sea.

“If the water was not so deep, we could anchor,” said Antony.

“We have not got any anchor,” said Larry.

“Yes,” replied Antony, “there is a grapnel in the bow of the boat.”

Larry looked in a small cuddy under the bow of the boat, and found there a sort of grapnel that was intended to be used as an anchor.

“Let us heave it over,” said Larry, “and then the boat will stop.”

“No,” replied Antony, “the rope is not long enough to reach the bottom; the water is too deep here. We are in the middle of the channel; but perhaps, by-and-by, the tide will carry us over upon the flats, and then we can anchor.”

“How shall we know when we get to the flats?” asked Larry.

“We can see the bottom then,” said Antony, “by looking over the side of the boat.”

“I mean to watch,” said Larry; and he began forthwith to look over the side of the boat.

It was not long before Antony’s expectations were fulfilled. The tide carried the boat over a place where the water was shallow, the bottom being formed there of broad and level tracts of sand and mud, called flats.

“I see the bottom,” said Larry, joyfully.

Antony looked over the side of the boat, and there, down several feet beneath the surface of the water, he could clearly distinguish the bottom. It was a smooth expanse of mud and water, and it seemed to be slowly gliding away from beneath them. The real motion was in the boat, but this motion was imperceptible to the boys, except by the apparent motion of the bottom, which was produced by it. Such a deceiving of the sight as this is commonly called an optical illusion.

“Yes,” said Antony, “that’s the bottom; now we will anchor.”

So the two boys went forward, and, after taking care to see that the inner end of the grapnel rope was made fast properly to the bow of the boat, they lifted the heavy iron over the side of the boat, and let it plunge into the water. It sank to the bottom in a moment, drawing out the rope after it. It immediately fastened itself by its prongs in the mud, and when the rope was all out, the bow of the boat was “brought up” by it—that is, was stopped at once. The stern of the boat was swung round by the force of the tide, which still continued to act upon it, and then the boat came to its rest, with the head pointing up the harbor.

“There,” said Antony, “now we are safe.”

“But how are we going to get back to the shore?” inquired Larry.

“Why, by-and-by the tide will turn,” said Antony, “and flow in, and then we shall get up our anchor, and let it carry us home again.”

“And how long shall we have to wait?” asked Larry.

“Oh, about three or four hours,” said Antony.

“My mother will be very much frightened,” said Larry. “How sorry I am that we got into the boat!”

“So am I,” said Antony; “or, rather, I should be, if I thought it would do any good to be sorry.”

In the mean time, while the boys had thus been making their involuntary voyage down the harbor, Captain Van Tromp, on board his ship, had been employed very busily with his accounts in his cabin. It was now nearly noon, and he concluded, accordingly, that it was time for him to go home to dinner. So he called one of the sailors to him, and directed him to look about on the pier and try to find the boys, and tell them that he was going home to dinner.

In a few minutes the sailor came back, and told the captain that he could not find the boys; and that Jack, who was at work outside on the pier, said that they had not been seen about there for more than an hour, and that the boat was missing too; and he was afraid that they had got into it, and had gone adrift.

“Send Jack to me,” said the captain.

When Jack came into the cabin, the captain was at work, as usual, on his accounts. Jack stood by his side a moment, with his cap in his hand, waiting for the captain to be at leisure to speak to him. At length the captain looked up.

“Jack,” said he, “do you say that the boys have gone off with the boat?”

“I don’t know, sir,” said Jack. “The boat is gone, and the boys are gone, but whether the boat has gone off with the boys, or the boys with the boat, I couldn’t say.”

The captain paused a moment, with a thoughtful expression upon his countenance, and then said,

“Tell Nelson to take the glass, and go aloft, and look around to see if he can see any thing of them.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” said Jack.

The captain then resumed his work as if nothing particular had happened.

Nelson was the mate of the ship. The mate is the second in command under the captain.

When Nelson received the captain’s order, he took the spy-glass, and went up the shrouds to the mast-head. In about ten minutes he came down again, and gave Jack a message for the captain. Jack came down again into the cabin. He found the captain, as before, busy at his work. The captain had been exposed to too many great and terrible dangers at sea to be much alarmed at the idea of two boys being adrift, in a strong boat and in a crowded harbor.

“Mr. Nelson says, sir,” said Jack, “that he sees our boat, with two boys in it, about a mile and a half down the harbor. She is lying a little to the eastward of the red buoy.”

A buoy is a floating beam of wood, or other light substance, anchored on the point of a shoal, or over a ledge of rocks, to warn the seamen that they must not sail there. The different buoys are painted of different colors, so that they may be easily distinguished one from another.

The captain paused a moment on hearing Jack’s report, and looked undecided. In fact, his attention was so much occupied by his accounts, that only half his thoughts seemed to be given to the case of the boys. At length he asked if there was any wind.

“Not a capful,” said the sailor.

“Tell Nelson, then,” said the captain, “to send down the gig with four men, and bring the boys back.”

The gig, as the captain called it, was a light boat belonging to the ship, being intended for rowing swiftly in smooth water.

So Nelson called out four men, and directed them to get ready with the gig. The men accordingly lowered the gig down from the side of the ship into the water, and then, with the oars in their hands, they climbed down into it. In a few minutes they were rowing swiftly down the harbor, in the direction of the red buoy, while Captain Van Tromp went home to dinner. On his way home he left word, at the house where Larry lived, that the boys had gone down the harbor, and would not be home under an hour.

While these occurrences had been taking place on the pier, the boys had been sitting very patiently in their boat, waiting for the tide to turn, or for some one to come to their assistance. They could see how it was with the tide by the motion of the water, as it glided past them. The current, in fact, when they first anchored, made quite a ripple at the bows of the boat. They had a fine view of the harbor, as they looked back toward the town from their boat, though the view was so distant that they could not make out which was the pier where Captain Van Tromp’s vessel was lying.

Of course, as the tide went out more and more, the surface of the water was continually falling, and the depth growing less and less all the time. The boys could easily perceive the increasing shallowness of the water, as they looked over the side of the boat, and watched the appearance of the bottom.

“Now here’s another trouble,” said Antony. “If we don’t look out, we shall get left aground. I’ve a great mind to pull up the anchor, and let the boat drift on a little way, till we come to deeper water.”

“Oh no,” said Larry, “don’t let us go out to sea any farther.”

“Why, if we stay here,” said Antony, “until the tide falls so as to leave us aground, we may have to stay some hours after the tide turns before we get afloat again.”

“Well,” said Larry, “no matter. Besides, if you go adrift again, the water may deepen suddenly.”

“Yes,” said Antony, “and then we should lose hold of the bottom altogether. We had better not move.”

“Unless,” added Antony, after a moment’s thought, “we can contrive to warp the boat up a little.”

So saying, Antony went forward to examine into the feasibility of this plan. He found, on looking over the bow of the boat, that the water was very shallow, and nearly still; for the tide, being nearly out, flowed now with a very gentle and almost imperceptible current. Of course, as the water was shallow, and the rope that was attached to the anchor was pretty long, the anchor itself was at a considerable distance from the boat. The boys could see the rope passing obliquely along under the water, but could not see the anchor.

Antony took hold of the rope, and began to draw it in. The effect of this operation was to draw the boat up the harbor toward the anchor. When, at length, the rope was all in, Antony pulled up the grapnel, which was small and easily raised, and then swinging it to and fro several times to give it an impetus, he threw it with all his force forward. It fell into the water nearly ten feet from where it had lain before, and there sinking immediately, it laid hold of the bottom again. Antony now, by pulling upon the rope, as he had done at first, drew the boat up to the anchor at its new holding. He repeated this operation a number of times, watching the water from time to time over the bows of the boat, to see whether it was getting deeper or not. While Antony was thus engaged, the attention of Larry was suddenly attracted to the sound of oars. He looked in the direction from which the sound proceeded, and saw, at a considerable distance, a boat coming toward them.

“Here comes a boat,” said Larry.

Antony looked where Larry pointed.

“Yes,” said he, “and she is headed directly toward us.”

“So she is,” said Larry.

“I verily believe it is our gig,” said Antony.

“It is,” he added, after looking a moment longer, “and there is Jack on board of her. They are coming for us.”

In a few minutes more the gig was alongside. Two of the sailors that had come down in the gig got on board of the boys’ boat with their oars, and then both boats rowed up the harbor again, and in due time the boys reached home in safety.

The moral of this story is, that in all cases of difficulty and danger it is best to keep quiet and composed in mind, and not to give way to excitement and terror. Being frightened never does any good, excepting when there is a chance to run away; in that case, it sometimes helps one to run a little faster. In all other cases, it is best to be cool and collected, and encounter whatever comes with calmness and equanimity.