gh they might at any time have found their way to the spirit-room,
they never for a moment left the pumps, and only took the grog I served
out to them.

Even the longest night must have an end. It was with no little
satisfaction and gratitude also that I hailed the first faint streaks of
light in the eastern sky. As the light increased, and I saw that we
were surrounded by a number of vessels, with the Charon at no great
distance, my spirits rose, and instead of wishing at once to abandon the
Leviathan I bethought me that it still might be possible to get some of
her cargo out of her before she went to the depths below, if go she
must. Grampus agreed with me that this object might be effected. I
signalled my intentions accordingly to the Charon, and very soon I had
the satisfaction of seeing the commodore speaking a number of the
merchantmen. They quickly replied, and he then signalled to me to set
to work and get up the cargo as fast as I could. I could have wished to
be supplied with more men, but, weak-handed as I was, after my faithful
fellows had taken such food as could be found for breakfast, we set to
work and rigged tackles and cranes to hoist up the indigo and
sarsaparilla and anything on which we could lay hands. It was heavy
work, for the old ship was still rolling very much, and we were all
pretty well knocked up with what we had gone through in the night. The
appearance of half-a-dozen boats or more, however, pulling towards us
gave us fresh spirits. We sang away cheerily as we got saroon after
saroon of indigo up on deck. This was, however, only part of the
labour; the greatest difficulty was to lower them into the boats. The
wind fortunately fell, and I was able to get up altogether during the
day no less than 123 saroons of indigo, valued at sixteen thousand
pounds. Why more assistance was not given me I cannot say. I do not
like to dwell on the subject. In the evening the masters signalled to
their boats to return, and my people and I were left alone once more on
board the rotten old ship, with only the jolly-boat in which to make our
escape should she go down. As the sun set the sky looked very windy,
and there was considerably more sea than there had been all day. I
called Grampus to my councils. He agreed with me in not at all liking
the look of the weather. The people were ready to stay by me as long as
I thought fit to remain on board, but they had already begun to express
a wish