Turned Adrift Part 3

The mention of sharks gave me an idea, and I asked my companions whether perchance any of them happened to have any small stuff about them out of which we might contrive to make a fis.h.i.+ng line; whereupon Chips, with a smile, requested me to vacate my seat in the sternsheets for a moment, and, opening the locker in the after thwart of the boat, produced an excellent cod line, with hooks and sinker all complete, explaining that as soon as he gathered an inkling of what Bainbridge intended on the previous day, he contrived, while engaged in knocking up a temporary pen for the sheep, to filch the said line out of the cook's galley and to secrete it, afterward seizing an opportunity to transfer it to the gig's locker when he learned that she was about to be turned over to us.

There happened to be a piece of dry shrivelled bait still transfixed upon one of the hooks; we therefore dropped it over the side, paid out the line, made fast the inner end to one of the thwarts, and forthwith forgot all about it in the small bustle of getting breakfast.

But while we were still engaged upon the meal we suddenly became aware that our fis.h.i.+ng line was being violently agitated, and upon hauling it in found that we had been fortunate enough to hook a young dolphin about two feet long. Now, raw dolphin is not exactly an appetising dish, especially to those who, like ourselves, possessed nothing keener than a really strong, healthy hunger; still, there was the fish, so much to the good as supplementary to our rather meagre breakfast allowance, and-- well, in short we--at least the boatswain, carpenter, sailmaker, and myself--managed to eat nearly half of him. Cunningham had not yet arrived at the starvation-point where raw fish could be devoured with a relish, and he declined to share our banquet, for which I did not blame him; but really, after I had succeeded in so far conquering my prejudice against raw food as to nibble cautiously at my portion, I found that it was by no means so repulsive as I had imagined. And although it was certainly not at all inviting it was undoubtedly nutritious; and when at length I finished my breakfast, not only was my hunger completely satisfied, but I felt refreshed and invigorated after my meal.

Breakfast disposed of, Simpson once more s.h.i.+nned aloft and took another look round; but there was still nothing in sight--indeed, how should there be, seeing that there was no wind to fan anything into our ken?

He could not now even discern the faint appearance to the eastward which he had imagined might indicate the position of the longboat, but that of course might be due to the fact that, like ourselves, they had lowered their now useless canvas. With not a breath of air stirring it was intensely hot, the rays of the unclouded sun beating down upon us fiercely as the breath of a furnace, and I inwardly execrated that scoundrel Bainbridge and his lawless crew as I thought of the crowded longboat and the hapless women and children--to say nothing of the wounded skipper--pent up in her, with nothing to protect them from the pitiless heat and glare.

"Well, s.h.i.+pmates," I said, "we shall do ourselves no good by lying here idly sweltering. This calm may last for a week, for aught that we can tell; there is not the slightest sign of a breeze springing up, so far as I can see. I propose, therefore, that instead of doing nothing we strike the mast, out oars, and go in search of a wind. There is no need," I continued, seeing signs of a protest on the faces of my companions, "for us to exert ourselves very greatly; and we can scarcely make ourselves hotter than we are, do what we will. I therefore suggest that we throw out the oars and paddle quietly ahead upon our proper course. We ought to be able to get three knots out of the boat with little exertion, and every mile of progress means so much to the good: moreover, I want you all to remember that we cannot afford to lie idly here; our stock of provisions will only last a certain time, and just picture to yourselves what our condition will be if, through suffering ourselves to be delayed by calms, these provisions--and our water-- should become exhausted before we reach land or are picked up. My idea is that four of us should pull while the fifth steers, and that at the end of one hour by the watch he who steers should relieve one of us at the oars, so that every four hours each of us will get one hour's rest.

Now, what say you, lads? It is Mr Cunningham's watch, therefore let him take the first spell at the yoke lines."

It was easy enough to see that the others did not like the idea of working at the oars in that blistering sun, nor was that to be wondered at; but my reminder to them of the possibilities in store for us should our provisions and water be exhausted before relief in some shape or other came to us had its effect. With many grumblings and imprecations at the inopportune calm, they set to work to strike the mast, s.h.i.+p the rowlocks, and get out the oars; and five minutes later, myself pulling stroke, and Cunningham in the sternsheets with the yoke lines in his hands and his compa.s.s charm on the seat beside him, we were moving quietly and easily to the westward at a speed of quite three knots.

Fortunately for us the gig was a particularly good boat of the whaleboat type, built for speed, long and flat on the floor, with beautiful lines; and apart from the low swell, which did not trouble us at all, the water was smooth as oil. When, therefore, we had once got way upon the boat it was an easy matter to keep her going without very much exertion. But hot! Only those who have been exposed in an open boat at sea in a tropical calm can in the least understand or appreciate what we suffered. The sun's rays, striking almost vertically down upon our heads, and reflected upward again from the s.h.i.+ning surface of the water, scorched us like fire, and before the first hour had pa.s.sed my face was _so_ painful that I scarcely dared touch it. And oh, how we perspired!

In less than ten minutes my singlet and drawers--which were all that I had on, having like the rest stripped off all the rest of my clothing-- were as wet as though I had been overboard. And the natural result of such profuse perspiration was that we soon became intolerably thirsty.

I don't know which of us was the first to suffer from this cause, but I know that I had not been at my oar more than twenty minutes when I began to feel that I would willingly give everything I possessed for a good long cooling draught of spring water. However, I clenched my teeth and said nothing, for I knew perfectly well that if the word "thirst" were once mentioned all hands would instantly begin to clamour for water, and I might have the greatest difficulty in restraining the others from making a raid upon the breakers, regardless of consequences.

But, after all, my self-restraint was of little practical value, for presently the carpenter flung the loom of his oar athwart the boat until it rested upon the gunwale, and, tossing his clenched fists above his head, cried in a husky, unnatural tone of voice:

"Great jumpin' Gehosophat, how thirsty I am! Mr Temple, I votes we knock off long enough to have a drink all round. I'm as dry as a limekiln inside; my tongue's beginnin' to rattle again' my teeth, an'--"

"The more reason why you should keep it quiet, Chips," I retorted sharply. "Thirsty! Of course you are; so are we all, for that matter: but there is no reason why we should yelp about it. And as for having a drink, you know as well as I do that, with the small quant.i.ty of water which we have in the boat, it has been necessary for us to pledge ourselves solemnly to take no more than a certain quant.i.ty daily, and we must wait for our next drink until dinner-time comes along--"

"But, Mr Temple," interrupted the sailmaker, who with the others, myself included, had now c.o.c.ked his oar, "our proper 'lowance of water is 'alf a pint at each meal, and another 'alf a pint at some other time.

Can't we 'ave that there hextry 'alf pint now?"

"No, you certainly cannot," I answered, as well as I was able to speak for the saliva that gathered in my mouth at the mere thought of that nectar-like half-pint of water. "If you did, you would be as thirsty as ever within the next half-hour, and then you would be sorry enough that there was no more water coming to you, except at meal times, for the rest of the day. But I'll tell you what I'll do. It is now," glancing at my watch, "within three minutes of nine o'clock. At ten we will take a spell of ten minutes, and each man shall then have the third part of half a pint of water, with a suspicion of rum in it as a pick-me-up.

Then at twelve we shall dine, and each man shall have his half-pint; at three o'clock we will have another third of half a pint; at six we shall have supper; and at nine o'clock, if we find that we really require it, we will have the remaining third of half a pint. Now, that is the best I can do; it is the only thing that we dare do, and we must just make the best of it."

"Yes," agreed Cunningham, "you are quite right, Mr Temple; we must be satisfied with our strict allowance, and ask for no more. But there is one thing we may do to ease our thirst, and it is wonderfully efficacious. Let each man take off his clothes, saturate them with salt water, and put them on again soaking wet. If we do this, say, once every half-hour, we shall find ourselves marvellously refreshed, and quite able to wait for a drink until the proper time for it arrives."

"Ay," said I, "I have heard of that trick before, and a splendid one it is, too, I believe, although I have never had occasion to try it until now. Let us test it at once, lads. I remember once hearing a man say that if s.h.i.+pwrecked people would only keep their clothes thoroughly saturated with salt water, they could practically manage to do without drinking at all." And without further ado I stripped off my singlet and pants, wrung the perspiration out of them, plunged them over the side, and put them on again, my example being immediately followed by the others. Then, the time having arrived for Cunningham to take a spell at the oar, he exchanged places with the sailmaker, and we again proceeded.

The sensation of coolness imparted by the contact of our wet clothing with our bodies was very refres.h.i.+ng, and as long as it lasted we were able to pull a quick, steady stroke that put us along at the rate of about three knots with little or no fatigue. The worst of it was that it did not last long, for within ten minutes the sun had dried our clothes again, and we began to perspire once more. But we soon found a simple remedy for this by ceasing work just long enough to enable us to pour two or three buckets of water over each other, and then getting to work again; and although these frequent stoppages no doubt had the effect of r.e.t.a.r.ding our progress to some extent, I do not think our actual loss of speed was very great, for the refreshment derived from these often-repeated sousings was such that we were able to put a good deal more life and vigour into our work than would otherwise have been possible. As regards the alleged abatement of thirst, although I did not experience any perceptible relief during the first half-hour of the experiment, I certainly did afterwards, and so did the others; and although at ten o'clock we each avidly took our third of half a pint of water, there were no further complaints of thirst. And here let me mention, for the benefit of any reader who may be so unfortunate as to find himself at any time in a similar predicament, that I then made the important discovery that the most effectual method of a.s.suaging thirst with a very limited quant.i.ty of water is not to gulp it down and have done with it, but to sip it slowly, about a teaspoonful at a time, and retain each sip in the mouth at least half a minute before swallowing it. The amount of comfort--not to say enjoyment--relief, and refreshment thus obtainable is nothing short of marvellous.

But, despite every device that we could think of to obtain relief, our sufferings during that day were terrible; for although, by a.s.siduously sousing each other with salt water at frequent intervals, we contrived to avoid the worst torments of thirst, our faces, arms, and hands--in fact all the exposed portions of our bodies, were so frightfully scorched by the sun that even before knocking-off work to take our midday meal we had begun to blister, and by nightfall our faces and arms were covered with blisters. And all through that interminable day we toiled on and on at the oars, with not a shred of cloud to be seen in any direction, the blazing sun scorching us remorselessly, and the sea all round us a polished, s.h.i.+ning, gently undulating, colourless plain, unbroken by so much as a solitary ripple, save those created by our oar blades, the pa.s.sage of the gig through the water, the occasional dash of half a dozen flying-fish out of the sea under the boat's stem, and once or twice the thin wake cut by the dorsal fin of a cruising shark.

But about three-quarters of an hour before sunset the carpenter, who was then steering the boat, shouted: "Hurrah, my bullies, there's a change of some sort comin' at last! See the edge of that there cloud liftin'

over the sea line ahead? That means wind, or I'll eat my hat; ay, and p'rhaps rain too. What do you think, Mr Temple?"

With one accord we all c.o.c.ked our oars, and, standing up, I took a good long look ahead, secretly welcoming, I will confess, the excuse to cease pulling for a minute or two; for my back was by this time aching frightfully, and the skin of my thumbs, just where they joined the hands, was so completely chafed away that the flesh was red, raw, and bleeding. Yes, there was the edge of a cloud, distinct enough, the white, clean-cut, sharp-edged upper portion of a big thunder cloud, unless I was greatly mistaken. And it was rising fast, too, so fast that, even as I stood gazing at it, it fully doubled its area and permitted us a glimpse of the soft, slaty-blue tint merging into the white.

"Yes," I agreed, replying to Parsons' question, "the change is coming all right, and it will not be very long before it is here. Lay in your oars, men. I think, in prospect of what that cloud promises, that we may venture to spare ourselves any further ash-flouris.h.i.+ng to-day, for we shall have a breeze before very long, with thunder, lightning, and rain as well, unless I am greatly mistaken. And we will pipe to supper at once, so that we may be able to get our meal in peace and quietness, and have it over and done with before the breeze comes. We are likely enough to have plenty of other matters than eating and drinking to think about and attend to when that happens."

The oars were laid in, willingly enough, for the other four were in just as bad a plight as I was. Cunningham, indeed, was far worse, for, unlike ours, his hands were soft and tender, and when, after the oars had been laid in, he stretched out his hands, palms upwards, and showed them to me, they presented a positively sickening sight. But when I murmured my regret and commiseration he only smiled and expressed the conviction that they would be all right again in a week, for he was one of the pluckiest men I ever met, grit all through, straight as a die, and with not a bad spot anywhere in him; he was, in fact, everything that we are apt to think a typical Briton should be.

We lost no time in getting the meal that we called by courtesy "supper"; and within half an hour had disposed of it, and were waiting patiently for whatever was to come. But while it was still calm and light I had the mast stepped, and sent the sailmaker aloft to take a good, comprehensive look round and see whether he could discover any sign of a sail; and no sooner had he, with much pain and tribulation, climbed to the top of his precarious perch than he sang out that he could just see, in the northern board, what looked like the heads of a s.h.i.+p's royals.

Of course he could not tell in which direction she was bound, for, like ourselves, she was becalmed, and slowly "boxing the compa.s.s," that is to say, her head was pointing first one way and then another; but while he was aloft, clinging to the boat's masthead, and watching the stranger in the hope of being able to make some further discovery concerning her, her people started to clew up and furl her royals, which circ.u.mstance Simpson duly reported. It served as a hint to us in the gig, for if the stranger had detected symptoms that her royals would presently be too much for her, it was high time for us to look after ourselves; and we accordingly proceeded forthwith to close-reef our lug, and otherwise make such preparations as were possible to enable us effectively to meet the onslaught of the threatened squall.

CHAPTER FOUR.

AT THE MERCY OF WIND AND SEA.

That a squall was indeed brewing was by this time perfectly evident; for while we had been getting our supper the cloud which had made its appearance on the western horizon had rapidly risen, and now hung, an enormous lowering ma.s.s of livid purple vapour, in the western heavens, covering an arc of the horizon of fully a hundred degrees, completely hiding the setting sun, and towering aloft until its upper edge was nearly overhead. Yet so far there was not a breath of wind, and the surface of the sea remained an unbroken, polished mirror, perfectly reflecting the hues of the overhanging cloud to the westward and the deep rich azure of the sky away down toward the east; and when Simpson again climbed the boat's mast to take a final look at the stranger, he reported her naked mastheads as standing up black, sharp, and motionless against the soft primrose tones of the northern sky.

Some ten minutes later, and just as the brief twilight of that region had begun to veil the scene, we saw a faint glimmer of lightning in the heart of the now slowly advancing cloud, and a few seconds after the low mutter of thunder reached our ears. And before the rumble of this had died away there suddenly darted from the bosom of the cloud a long, vivid, baleful, sun-bright flash that seemed to strike into the sea within a quarter of a mile of us, immediately followed by so stupendous a crash that it caused the very timbers of our boat to vibrate and tremble--or so I verily believed. And as though that flash had been a signal, the great cloud seemed suddenly to burst apart, and the next moment we were enveloped in a very deluge of rain, which fairly roared as it threshed the surface of the sea all round us.

"The bread! the bread!" I shouted. "Cover it with the tarpaulin and keep it dry. If we let it get wet it will be spoiled," and immediately we all made a dash for the two bags of biscuits and hastily enveloped them in a small sheet of tarpaulin that Chips had had the forethought to toss into the gig while she was being lowered from the davits.

"Now," said I, as soon as we had taken such precautions as were possible for the preservation of our bread, "spread out the sail, from gunwale to gunwale, right across the boat. This rain is far too precious to be wasted. That's your sort, bos'n, make a good deep sag in the middle of the sail--it will soon fill at this rate; and then we can all drink as much as we please, and put what more we can catch into the broached breaker, filling it until it overflows. Find the pannikin, one of you; there is enough for a drink round already."

The hollow sail filled with the sweet, tepid rainwater faster than we could drink it; and before the rain ceased we had each emptied the pint pannikin twice and had filled the broached breaker right up to the edge of its bung-hole. Then we had another drink all round, after which we bathed our smarting, blistered hands in the cooling liquid before emptying it into the sea. The downpour lasted for perhaps twelve minutes; then it ceased as suddenly as it had begun--as suddenly as though a tap had been turned off up aloft--and we had an opportunity once more to look around us. And, glancing instinctively to the westward in the first instance--for that was where we expected the wind to come from--the first thing we saw, in the fast-deepening twilight, was a broad belt of dark water, flecked here and there with white, about a mile distant, and advancing in our direction.

"Hurrah, lads!" I exclaimed, "here comes the breeze--a foul one it is true, but even a foul wind, so long as there is not too much of it, is better than none at all. Set the lug for a board on the port tack; since we can't go straight to our port I'll make a board to the nor'ard, which will at least be going in the right direction. Yes, bos'n," in reply to a question from that functionary, "keep the sail close-reefed; we shall have all the wind we want, and a little over, before very long, unless I am greatly mistaken."

The wind swooped down upon us in a fierce little flurry that careened the gig to her gunwale, despite the careful tending of the sheet by the boatswain; then, with all hands of us sitting well up to windward, the boat gathered way and darted off upon a course that was as nearly as might be due north-west, lying well down to it, with the spray from the short, choppy seas that the squall instantly whipped up showering in over her sharp weather bow at every plunge, and quickly drenching us to the skin. But there was worse to come, for the wind was freshening every moment and rapidly kicking up a short, steep, choppy sea, the surges of which smothered us with spray as the gig leaped viciously at them under the steadily increasing pressure of the wind upon her close-reefed lugsail; so that within a very few minutes it was taking one hand all his time to keep the boat free of water by continually baling with the bucket, although we eased the craft as much as possible by keeping the weather-leech of the sail as.h.i.+ver most of the time.

"Just our luck!" growled the boatswain, as he slacked the sheet to a still fiercer puff. "If this had been a fair wind, now, we could have shown whole canvas to it, and would have been reelin' off our seven, or even eight knots as easily as possible. But, as it is, we can't make no headway agin it; and the time ain't far off, in my opinion, when we'll have to up stick and run afore it."

"We'll not do that until we are obliged," said I. "I don't feel at all like losing, in the course of two or three hours, the ground that we have made by the hardest day's work that I ever did in my life. No, Murdock, when we can't face it any longer we will lash the oars together and ride to them as a sea anchor at the full scope of our painter. They will keep the boat head-on to wind and sea, and we shall ride as comfortably that way as any other; while, although our drift will probably amount to as much as three knots every hour, we shall not lose nearly as much ground as we should by scudding before--"

I was interrupted by the sailmaker, who was sitting far enough forward to be able to see some distance past the luff of the sail. Seaman-like, he was instinctively keeping a lookout, and he now suddenly turned and yelled:

"Sail ho! close aboard on the lee bow. Hard up, Mr Temple; hard up, sir, and keep her broad away, or that chap'll run us down."

There was an urgency and imperativeness in the man's tones which made it clear enough that there was no time for investigation. I therefore did the only thing that remained to be done under the circ.u.mstances, namely, trusted to the correctness of Sails's judgment and implicitly followed his directions, dragging the tiller hard up, and at the same time calling upon the boatswain to ease off the sheet still further. Under the pressure of her weather helm the boat at once fell broad off; and as she did so I saw, through the rapidly deepening darkness, a great black blotch swing into view past the luff of our sail, which the next instant resolved itself into the shape of a big, hulking brigantine, wallowing along down toward us with her topsail-yard down on the cap, her reef tackles bowsed up, and eight men on her yard busily engaged in reefing her topsail. It was not yet so dark but that those men must have seen us distinctly--in fact one of them paused in his work to flourish his hand at us; yet, but for the sailmaker's watchfulness, the craft would have driven right over us! There could be no doubt of the fact that her crew had seen us, for, in addition to the man who waved to us from the yard, there were two men pacing her monkey p.o.o.p aft who paused in their march to look at us as we drove past each other; yet, although we yelled to them frantically to heave-to and pick us up, they made no movement to do anything of the sort, and ten minutes later the craft vanished in the darkness. The light was too poor to enable us to read the name on her stern as she swept past us, but she had all the look of a Portuguese-built craft; and, justly or unjustly, the Portuguese have gained rather a sinister reputation for callousness and inhumanity in their behaviour toward people circ.u.mstanced as we were at that moment.

"I s'pose they thinks we're out here in a hopen boat for pleasure and the fun o' the thing," was the boatswain's sarcastic comment upon their behaviour, prefaced by a stream of profanity, as the vessel disappeared from our view.

As soon as we realised that the crew of the brigantine had no intention of heaving-to and picking us up we again brought the gig to the wind.

But we soon found that this would not do: the wind and sea were both rapidly becoming too much for us, and to continue fighting against them meant the speedy swamping or capsizal of the boat. We therefore adopted the plan which I had been expounding to the boatswain when the brigantine hove into view, securely las.h.i.+ng the four oars of the boat together in a bundle, bending the extreme end of our painter to the middle of the bundle, and launching the whole overboard, at the same time lowering the sail and striking the mast, when the drag of the boat upon the oars brought her head to wind and sea, and enabled her to ride in comparative safety and comfort, although a breaking sea occasionally slopped in over her bows, necessitating the frequent employment of the bucket as a baler.

There was very little sleep for any of us that night, for within an hour it was blowing really hard, with a heavy, steep sea that frequently broke aboard us, causing us intense discomfort as the water rushed aft and surged about our feet and legs to the wild plunging of the boat, and keeping one or another of us constantly busy baling to prevent the boat from being swamped. We were thankful that we had not the added discomfort of cold to contend with, for, hard though it blew, the wind was quite warm; yet, even so, it was unpleasant enough, since we were in the greatest peril every moment of that long, weary night, our utmost efforts being continually required to keep the boat above water. But, notwithstanding everything, it was a fine, exhilarating experience; for, added to the joy of battle with the elements, there was the wild grandeur of the scene, the great ma.s.ses of black cloud scurrying athwart the sky, with little patches of starlit blue winking in and out between, the roar and swoop of the wind, and the menacing hiss of the phosph.o.r.escent foam-caps as they came rus.h.i.+ng down upon the boat in endless succession, all combining together to form a picture the like of which, as viewed from a wildly leaping, half-swamped, spray-smothered open boat, it is given to comparatively few men to look upon.

The gale lasted all through the night, breaking at sunrise; but although the sky cleared with the coming of the dawn, the wind continued to blow so strongly that it was not until the sun had crossed the meridian that it again became possible for us to make sail upon the boat: and meanwhile we found that during the night it had hauled round from the north-west, and was therefore still practically dead in our teeth. But the moment that the sea had gone down enough to render sailing once more possible, we got under way and headed westward close-hauled upon the starboard tack, under a double-reefed sail; and I took fresh heart when presently I saw that, even under the exceedingly unfavourable conditions then prevailing--and they were about as unfavourable as they could possibly be--the boat was keeping a good luff, hanging well to windward, thanks to an exceptionally deep keel, and making about four knots of headway every hour.

My hopes rose high that even yet, despite the delays which we had already experienced, we might be able to cover the distance to the coast before our provisions gave out; for if we were doing well under almost the worst conditions that could possibly befall us, what might we not do when those conditions improved? And they certainly did improve as the afternoon wore on, for the wind eventually dropped sufficiently to permit us to shake out our reefs and sail the boat under whole canvas, while with the moderating of the wind the sea also went down and ceased to break, although the swell still ran very high. But it was only the heavily breaking seas that were really dangerous to us; and now that we no longer had them to fear we drove the gig for all that she was worth, luffing her through the fresher puffs, hawsing her up to windward fathom by fathom, and generally handling her as though we were sailing her in a race, as indeed we were in a sense--a race against time.

We continued to do exceedingly well all through that afternoon, and indeed up to about midnight; but the wind was softening all the time, and shortly after midnight our speed began to slacken, until by daylight of the next morning it had once more fallen to less than three knots.

Moreover, the weather was by no means satisfactory in appearance; there were no actual clouds to be seen in the sky, but instead of being a clear, deep, rich blue, as it ought to have been, and as it no doubt would have been had there been fine weather in prospect, the entire vault of heaven was veiled in a thick, steamy, colourless haze, through which the sun showed as a feeble, shapeless blotch of white. There was barely enough wind, still dead against us, to fan us along at a bare two knots; but I did not like the look of the sea, which, despite the almost total absence of wind, was in a strange state of unrest, the long heave of the swell being overrun by small, short, choppy miniature seas, which seemed to leap up at brief intervals without visible cause, and then curled over and fell in a casual, sloppy manner that suggested the idea that they would have liked to break but could not summon up the energy to do so.

But whatever else they may have failed to do, these sloppy seas managed to r.e.t.a.r.d the way of the boat through the water very considerably, and to fill our souls with exasperation; for they were distinctly hindering our progress, while we could see no valid reason why they should exist at all. They had the appearance of having sprung up solely to delay us, and for no other purpose whatever. More than once, when I felt exceptionally impatient at our miserably slow rate of progress, I had it on the tip of my tongue to propose that we should again take to the oars; but I did not actually speak the words, for in the first place I doubted whether the gain in speed would be sufficient to justify the expenditure of strength, and in the next place our hands were by this time in such a frightful condition of rawness that the idea of proposing what would make them very much worse seemed to smack of downright cruelty, unless I could urge some more valid reason than the mere desire to get ahead a little faster. And our situation just then was scarcely desperate enough for that.

It was very shortly after midday, and we were all gathered aft partaking of the meal that we dignified with the name of dinner, when the boatswain, who was sitting on the after thwart, facing me, suddenly paused in the act of conveying a piece of biscuit to his mouth, stared intently over my shoulder for a moment, and then sprang to his feet, shading his eyes with his hand.

"What is it, Murdock?" I asked, turning as I spoke in the direction toward which he was gazing, "do you--?"

"Sail ho!" interrupted the boatswain, pointing eagerly with his hand.