faint sheen of her
light upon the briskly rippling surface of the sea; and although we
scanned the whole visible horizon in search of a light that should
indicate the position of the schooner, our search was unrewarded.

To be brief, we saw no more of that schooner. As the night progressed
the wind increased until by morning it was blowing so strongly that we
could do nothing but run before it. Luckily, our craft proved to be an
unexpectedly good sea boat, and scudded dry, although her behaviour was
at times so unlike that of the boat of normal model that we were
somewhat puzzled as to what was going to happen next. We scudded all
that day, and the whole of the succeeding night, by which time the wind
had raised what was, to us, such a formidable sea that we deemed it wise
to heave to, lest some heavier sea than usual should break aboard and
swamp us. With great difficulty and considerable danger to ourselves,
we therefore lowered the arrangement of planks that served us as mast
and sail combined, and, bending our painter to them, rode to them as to
a sea anchor.

By this time I was feeling really ill. Hard work and exhaustion were
telling upon me with increasing severity almost hourly, and now upon the
top of these came bitter anxiety.

My heart ached for my companions, especially the women folk. They did
their utmost to seem cheerful, but it was pitiable to see the dreadful
languor of their movements, their hollow cheeks, the dark markings under
their eyes and, above all, the terrible look of suffering and despair
that was beginning to reveal itself in the eyes themselves. Yet not a
word of discouragement or complaint passed their black and cracking
lips; they simply lay about, moving as little as possible, and endured
silently. As for me, I could think of nothing, do nothing to help them.
It was horrible!

That gale lasted four interminable days before it blew itself out, which
it did later in the afternoon; and about sunset of the same day we
consumed the last scrap of food that remained to us. Then, with moans
of utter despair, those poor dear women crawled into their lair beneath
the deck--to die, as they and I verily believed. As for Julius, he was
nearly as bad as they were, but those last days in the wreck and the
nine days in the boat had wrought a miracle in him. All the perversity
and selfishness of character that had before distinguished him had gone,
and he had come out of the fires of adver