lied in the same tone, and as if he had been in his ordinary
condition.--"Have you a pigeon to carry your orders with such celerity?"
The cries and the confusion soon roused us from this languor; but when
tranquillity was somewhat restored, we again fell into the same drowsy
condition. On the morrow, we felt as if we had awoke from a painful
dream, and asked at our companions, if, during their sleep, they had not
seen combats, and heard cries of despair. Some replied, that the same
visions had continually tormented them, and that they were exhausted
with fatigue. Every one believed he was deceived by the illusions of a
horrible dream.

After these different combats, overcome with toil, with want of food and
sleep, we laid ourselves down and reposed till the morrow dawned, and
showed us the horror of the scene. A great number in their delirium had
thrown themselves into the sea. We found that sixty or sixty-five had
perished during the night. A fourth part at least, we supposed, had
drowned themselves in despair. We only lost two of our own numbers,
neither of whom were officers. The deepest dejection was painted on
every face; each, having recovered himself, could now feel the horrors
of his situation; and some of us, shedding tears of despair, bitterly
deplored the rigour of our fate.

A new misfortune was now revealed to us. During the tumult, the rebels
had thrown into the sea two barrels of wine, and the only two casks of
water which we had upon the raft. Two casks of wine had been consumed
the day before, and only one was left. We were more than sixty in
number, and we were obliged to put ourselves on half rations.

At break of day, the sea calmed, which permitted us again to erect our
mast. When it was replaced, we made a distribution of wine. The unhappy
soldiers murmured and blamed us for privations which we equally endured
with them. They fell exhausted. We had taken nothing for forty-eight
hours, and we had been obliged to struggle continually against a strong
sea. We could, like them, hardly support ourselves; courage alone made
us still act. We resolved to employ every possible means to catch fish,
and, collecting all the hooks and eyes from the soldiers, made
fish-hooks of them, but all was of no avail. The currents carried our
lines under the raft, where they got entangled. We bent a bayonet to
catch sharks; one bit at it, and straightened it, and we abandoned our
project. Something was absolutely necess