pace for it down below; and in a few seconds' time it had
all gone down to mix among the bilge-water, and jabble about during the
remainder of the voyage. The only traces it had left were in my wet
clothes, and the strong alcoholic smell that filled the atmosphere
around me, and almost hindered me from getting breath.

As the ship's head rose upon the waves, the cask was tilted upwards, and
this movement in ten minutes emptied it so completely that not a single
pint remained inside.

But I had not waited for this. The stave I had kicked out left an
aperture large enough to admit my body--it did not need to be very large
for that--and as soon as my coughing fit had ended, I squeezed myself
through to the inside of the cask.

I groped around for the bung, believing that this would be the best
place to cut across one of the staves. The hole, usually a large one,
would admit the blade of my knife, and would be so much of my work done
to hand. I found the place easily enough, and fortunately it was not on
the top, where I fancied it might be, but on the side, and just at a
convenient height. Closing the blade of my knife, I hammered on the
wooden plug with the half. After a few strokes, I succeeded in forcing
it outwards, and then set to work to make the cross-cut of the stave.

I had not made a dozen notches, before I felt my strength wonderfully
increased. I had been weak before, but now it appeared to me as if I
could push out the staves without cutting them. I felt in a measure
cheerful, as if I had been merely working for the play of the thing, and
it was of but little consequence whether I succeeded or not. I have
some recollection that I both whistled and sang as I worked. The idea
that I was in any danger of losing my life quite forsook me, and all the
hardships through which I had been passing appeared to have been only
imaginary--a chimera of my brain, or, at most, only a dream.

Just then I was seized with a terrible fit of thirst, and I remember
making a struggle to get out of the brandy-cask for the purpose of
having a drink from the water-butt. I must have succeeded in getting
out of the cask, but whether I actually did drink at the time, I could
never be certain; for after that I remembered nothing more, but was for
a long while as completely unconscious as if I had been dead!

CHAPTER FORTY NINE.

A NEW DANGER.

I remained in this state of insensibility for several hours, and was not
e