r! We can't hold out
for long. Get sail on your boat and stand an hour or two to the
east'ard. Ye may fall in with a ship; she w'was right in th' track
whin she s-struck. We can but lie to in th' gig an' pray that a ship
comes by."

"Aye, aye, sir." They stepped the mast and hoisted sail. "Good-bye
all: God bless ye, captain," they said as the canvas swelled. "Keep
heart!" For a time we heard their voices shouting us God-speed--then
silence came!

V

Daybreak!

Thank God the bitter night was past. Out of the east the
long-looked-for light grew on us, as we lay to sea-anchor, lurching
unsteadily in the teeth of wind and driving rain. At the first grey
break we scanned the now misty horizon. There was no sign of the
pinnace; no God-sent sail in all the dreary round!

We crouched on the bottom boards of the little gig and gave way to
gloomy thoughts. What else could be when we were alone and adrift on
the broad Pacific, without food or water, in a tiny gig already
perilously deep with the burden of eight of us? What a difference to
the gay day when we manned the same little boat and set out in pride to
the contest! Here was the same spare oar that we held up to the
judges--the long oar that Jones was now swaying over the stern, keeping
her head to the wind and sea! Out there in the tumbling water the
sea-anchor held its place; the ten fathoms of good hemp "painter" was
straining at the bows!

The same boat! The same gear! The same crew, but how different! A
crew of bent heads and wearied limbs! Listless-eyed, despairing! A
ghastly crew, with black care riding in the heaving boat with us!

Poor old Burke had hardly spoken since his last order to the mate to
sail the pinnace to the east in search of help. When anything was put
to him, he would say, "Aye, aye, b'ye," and take no further heed. He
was utterly crushed by the disaster that had come so suddenly on the
heels of his "good luck." He sat staring stonily ahead, deaf to our
hopes and fears.

Water we had in plenty as the day wore on. The rain-soaked clothes of
us were sufficient for the time, but soon hunger came and added a
physical pain to the torture of our doubt. Again and again we stood up
on the reeling thwarts and looked wildly around the sea-line. No
pinnace--no ship--nothing! Nothing, only sea and sky, and circling
sea-birds that came to mock at our misery with their plaintive cries.

A bitter night! A no less cruel da