ewed. It was impossible to hide the fact from them that they were
using the last drops of the water; but there were no murmurs, not a
mutinous voice was heard against the tiny portion that was served out so
as to make what was left last for another forty-eight hours. After
that?

Yes; no one dared try to answer that question. A man was always on the
watch by the flagstaff. But he swept the offing with the glass in vain.
There was no ship in sight that could be signalled for help, and no
sign of movement in the direction of the town.

"It's seems horribly lowering to one's dignity," said Roylance, "coming
here to occupy a rock and set the enemy at defiance, and then be
regularly obliged to give up and say, `Take us prisoners, please,' all
for want of a drop of water."

"If it would only rain!" cried Syd, as he thought of how bitter all this
would be to his father.

"Never will when you want it."

"It is degrading," said Syd. "But we must wait. What does Terry say?"

"Nothing. He has taken to chewing tobacco like the men, and I don't
want to be hard upon him, but he seems on the whole to be pleased that
we are in such a scrape."

"But you are too hard on him," said Syd. "There, let's go and sit with
poor Mr Dallas. We must keep him in good spirits."

"I haven't the heart to go," said Roylance, sadly. "He is suffering
horribly from the want of a drop of cold water, and we have none to give
him."

The long day dragged by, and was succeeded by a hot and pulseless night.
The last drop of water had been voted by common consent to the sick
man, and the sailors were face to face with the difficulty of passing
the next day. It would be maddening, they knew, without water on that
heated rock. They had tried to quench their thirst by drawing buckets
of water down on the natural pier and drenching each other, for they
dare not bathe on account of the sharks; but that was a poor solace, and
the poor fellows gazed at each other with parched lips and wild eyes,
asking help and advice in vain, and without orders climbed up high and
perched themselves on points of vantage to watch for a sail, the only
hope of salvation from a maddening death that they could see.

The look-out man by the flagstaff was ready with the bunting for
signals; and when he hauled it, all knew now that it would be no
flaunting forth of defiance, but an appeal for aid. But no ship came in
sight all that next long day.

"It's all over, Bel