certainly my absence of mind had deprived me of
all enjoyment of the meal.

I wavered for a long while, as to whether I should take another biscuit
out of the box, or go to bed supperless. But the dread of the future
decided me to abstain; and, summoning all my resolution, I drank off the
cold water, placed my cup upon the shelf, and laid myself down for the
night.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

AN UGLY INTRUDER.

For a long while I did not sleep, but lay thinking over the mysterious
disappearance of the half biscuit. I say _mysterious_, for I was more
than half convinced that I had _not_ eaten it, but that it had gone in
some other way; though how, I could not even guess, since I was
perfectly alone, the only living thing, as I supposed, in that vessel's
hold which could have touched it. Ah! now I thought of my dream--of the
crab! Perhaps, after all, there might have been a crab?--and though it
was but a dream that I was drowned, yet the rest might be true enough,
and a crab might actually have crawled over me? It might have eaten the
biscuit?

It would not be its natural food, I knew; but shut up in a ship's hold,
where it could have no choice, it would be likely enough to eat such a
thing rather than suffer starvation. There might be a crab after all?

Partly by such a train of reflections, and partly by the hungry craving
of my stomach, I was kept awake for hours. At length I found myself
going off, not into a regular sleep, but a half sleep or doze, from
which every two or three minutes I awoke again.

In one of these intervals, during which I lay awake, I fancied that I
heard a noise, different from the sounds that habitually fell upon my
ear. The ship was running smoothly, and I could distinguish this
unusual sound above the soft sighing of the waves. This last was now so
slight, that the ticking of my watch appeared louder and more distinct
than I had ever observed it.

The sound which had attracted my attention, and which was something new
to me, appeared like a gentle scratching. It came from the corner where
my buskins lay empty and idle. _Something was scratching at my
buskins_!

"The crab, to a certainty!" I said to myself. The thought at once
drove away all ideas of sleep; and I placed myself in an attitude to
listen, and, if possible, lay my hands on the thievish intruder; for I
now felt certain that, crab or no crab, whatever creature was making the
scratching noise was the same that