n this morning
there was none of the cheerful chat which had accompanied the previous
meal. The repulsive food was devoured in silence, due probably in part
to the absence of any hopeful topic of conversation, and also,
doubtless, to a great extent in consequence of the dry, sore, swollen
sensation in the men's throats. For my own part my throat was in such a
state that it was with the utmost difficulty I succeeded in swallowing
my own allowance.

Hawsepipe, the doctor, and I struck up as lively a conversation as we
could, touching the probability of our soon being picked up, and I
embraced the opportunity of mentioning casually that in consequence of
the great amount of easting in the wind I feared we should not reach
land quite as soon as I had at first anticipated. I was almost sorry
immediately afterwards that I had mentioned it, when I saw the
despairing look which came into the faces of my fellow-sufferers, and
the yearning glances upward at the pitiless sky, which showed not the
faintest fleece of cloud--not the remotest promise of a single drop of
pure, fresh water wherewith to moisten our parched and baked tongues and
throats. The thirst-agony now began to paint its effects upon us more
and more palpably every hour; our lips being dry, black, and gashed with
deep cracks; while our tongues were dry and swollen until they seemed
too large for our mouths. The skin upon the faces of my companions was
burnt, parched, and shrivelled by the sun, seamed in every direction by
cracks, and peeling off in many places; while their eyes glowed and
sparkled like coals of fire with the fierce fever which consumed them.
The sharks which had stuck to us with such frightful and ominous
pertinacity had their number augmented this day by the arrival of three
new-comers.

"Six of 'em," muttered the seaman who was steering the raft when the
three new arrivals appeared; "that means as six out of us seven is
doomed."

Another endless day of indescribable agony--another long night of
torment; and again up rose the sun in a pitiless, cloudless sky.

Oh! how fervently I longed and prayed for an overcast sky and a pelting
rain, even though it were accompanied by the wildest hurricane which
ever blew; the worst that could happen to us in such a case would be
drowning, the prospect of which seemed to be bliss itself compared with
this slow fiery torment of thirst.

On this day Tom Miles and Ned Rodgers, two of the four seamen, sud