the hold by a savage
captain, I should have felt myself like a martyr, and been able to lay
my sufferings on others. When I was able to reflect more calmly on my
situation, I remembered that the storm must inevitably some day or other
come to an end. I had read of storms lasting a week, or even a
fortnight, and sometimes longer, but if I could hold out to its
termination, as by means of the biscuits and olives I might do, I hoped
that I should at last effect my liberation. I must not, however, take
up more time by further describing the incidents of this memorable
portion of my existence.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Still in the hold--Dreamland again--Chicken-pie--Return of the rats--I
improve my plans for catching them--Two rats at one meal--My state of
mind--"Mercy! Mercy!"--While there's life there's hope--I recommence
my exertions to get out of the hold with some success--Purer air--My
weakness returns--I recover my strength--Still no outlet--I perform my
ablutions--My desire to live at all hazards returns--"Where ignorance
is bliss 'tis folly to be wise"--The yarn of Toney Lawson--The evil
effects of getting drunk--The "Viper"--Toney obliged to give in--
Toney's thoughts of escape--The fate of the "Viper" determines the
question--Toney's wonderful escape.

Perhaps one of the most painful circumstances connected with my
imprisonment was the impossibility of calculating how the time went by.

I remember that I suddenly awoke after dreaming that I was at a jolly
picnic with old friends near Roger Riddle's cottage. That the cloth was
spread with pies and tarts, a cold sirloin of beef, a dish of fowls, and
a tempting ham, and that we were eating and drinking, and laughing and
singing, in the merriest way possible. I had just had the breast and
wing of a chicken and a slice of ham placed on my plate, and was running
over to get the mustard-pot, when to my surprise it became covered with
feathers, and off it flew. I was jumping up to catch hold of it, not
wishing thus to lose my dinner, but instead found myself in total
darkness, and gradually came to the disagreeable consciousness that I
was in the hold of the "Emu," and that I had only a few small biscuits
and three olives remaining of my stock of provisions, independent of the
pickles in the corner of my handkerchief.

The ship, however, was perfectly quiet. The gale must have ceased some
time before, to allow the sea to go down. By putti