t sustenance, and I must think of them.

So I undid that belt of mine which fastened me to my gridiron, and I
straddled my craft with a sudden keen eye for sharks, of which I never
once had thought until now. Then I tightened the belt about my hollow
body, and just sat there with the problem. The past hour I had been
wholly unobservant; the inner eye had had its turn; but that was over
now, and I sat as upright as possible, seeking greedily for a sail. Of
course I saw none. Had we indeed been off our course before the fire
broke out? Had we burned to cinders aside and apart from the regular
track of ships? Then, though my present valiant mood might ignore
the adverse chances, they were as one hundred to a single chance of
deliverance. Our burning had brought no ship to our succor; and how
should I, a mere speck amid the waves, bring one to mine?

Moreover, I was all but motionless; I was barely drifting at all. This
I saw from a few objects which were floating around me now at noon; they
had been with me when the high sun rose. One was, I think, the very
oar which had been my first support; another was a sailor's cap; but
another, which floated nearer, was new to me, as though it had come to
the surface while my eyes were turned inwards. And this was clearly the
case; for the thing was a drowned and bloated corpse.

It fascinated me, though not with extraordinary horror; it came too late
to do that. I thought I recognized the man's back. I fancied it was
the mate who had taken charge of the long-boat. Was I then the single
survivor of those thirty souls? I was still watching my poor lost
comrade, when that happened to him against which even I was not proof.
Through the deep translucent blue beneath me a slim shape glided; three
smaller fish led the way; they dallied an instant a fathom under my
feet, which were snatched up, with what haste you may imagine; then on
they went to surer prey.

He turned over; his dreadful face stared upwards; it was the chief
officer, sure enough. Then he clove the water with a rush, his dead hand
waved, the last of him to disappear; and I had a new horror to think
over for my sins. His poor fingers were all broken and beaten to a pulp.

The voices of the night came back to me--the curses and the cries. Yes,
I must have heard them. In memory now I recognized the voice of the
chief mate, but there again came in the assisted imagination. Yet I
was not so sure of this as before. I thought