have reached the inside sooner, and then not a
morsel would have been left. No doubt it was for the purpose of getting
at the biscuits that they had swarmed once or twice into my chamber--for
that gave them free access to the box.

I now deeply regretted my negligence in not securing my store in a safe
way. I had already thought of doing so, but I never imagined these
creatures could make an entry from behind, and I knew that the web of
cloth completely shut them out on the inside.

Alas! it was now too late; regrets were idle; and, following out that
instinct which prompts us to preserve life as long as we can, I
transferred the fragments from the box to my little shelf inside; and
then, making all tight as before, I lay down to reflect upon my
situation, rendered gloomier than ever by this unexpected misfortune.

CHAPTER FORTY THREE.

SEARCH AFTER ANOTHER BISCUIT-BOX.

For many hours I remained brooding over the altered state of my affairs,
with no thought arising to cheer me. I felt so hopeless that I did not
even take stock of the biscuits, or rather the crumbs that were left. I
guessed roughly by the size of the little heap that it might sustain
life--keeping up the very small ration I had been hitherto using--for
about ten days--not more. Ten days, then, or at most a fortnight, had I
to live, with the prospect of certain death at the end of that time--and
a death that experience told me must be slow and painful. I had already
suffered the extreme of hunger, almost to death, and I dreaded to try it
again; but there appeared no hope of escaping from such a doom--at
least, none appeared at the moment.

The shock that followed the discovery of my loss rendered me for a long
time unable to think clearly. My mind was dejected and pusillanimous--
my brain, as it were, paralysed--so that whenever I took to thinking, my
thoughts only wandered, or centred on the terrible doom that waited me.

In time a reaction arrived, and I was better able to reflect on the
circumstances in which I was now placed. Gradually hope dawned again,
though it was only, of an indistinct and very indefinite character--
literally but a "ray." The thought that occurred to me was simply this:
that as I had found one box of biscuits, why might there not be a
second? If not immediately beside the first, it might be near. As
stated already, I believed that in the stowage of a ship, goods of the
same kind are not always placed toget