"Ay, ay, sir," answered Robbins, shambling away with alacrity upon his
errand; and a few minutes later one of our guns rang out what I hoped
would prove a thrice-welcome message to our shipmates. Somehow I never
for a moment doubted that it was one of the frigate's boats that I had
seen; I felt as sure of it as though we had her already alongside,
although of course I could form no sort of surmise as to which of them
it would prove to be.

It took us but a very few minutes to run down to the boat, when, judging
our distance, we rounded-to and laid the topsail aback, so close to
windward of the little craft that one of our people was able to heave a
rope's-end into her, and we hauled her alongside. Then, to our supreme
disappointment, we discovered that it was _not_ either of the boats that
we were looking for, but the long-boat of a merchantman, with eleven
people in her, all of whom were in a very wasted and exhausted
condition, partly from famine and partly from wounds, most of them being
swathed about the head or limbs with bloodstained bandages.

Concealing our disappointment as well as we could, we helped the poor
creatures up over the side,--discovering, during the process, that the
rescued party were our fellow-countrymen,--and then, having removed
everything from the boat that promised to prove of the slightest value,
we cast her adrift, having no room on our decks for her. Meanwhile, the
unhappy strangers, being too weak to stand, had sunk down upon the deck,
pointing to their parched throats and feebly gasping the word "water";
in response to which appeal some of our own people had gone to work,
under my supervision, to supply them cautiously with small quantities of
water slightly dashed with brandy. This treatment had a wonderfully
stimulative and revivifying effect upon them, so much so, indeed, that
they managed to stagger to their feet and earnestly beg for food. This,
of course, we supplied them with forthwith, in the form of ship's bread
broken small and softened by steeping in weak brandy and water. I gave
them this pending the preparation of a more substantial and appetising
meal by the cook; and it was perhaps well that circumstances obliged me
to do so, for I afterwards learned that the administration of a solid,
substantial meal to people in their famished condition would probably
have had fatal results. Having satisfied to some small extent their
first ravenous craving for food and drink, w