food. Of all their stores, collected and cured
with so much care and ingenuity, not a morsel remained. Besides what
the chest contained there had been some loose flitches of the dried fish
lying about upon the raft. These had been carried into the boat, and
must have been capsized into the sea. While collecting the other
_debris_, they had looked for them in hopes that some stray pieces might
still be picked up; not one had been found. If they floated at all,
they must have been grabbed by the sharks themselves, or some other
ravenous creatures of the deep.

Had any such waifs come in their way, the castaways just at that crisis
might not have cared to eat them with the bitterness they must have
derived from their briny immersion; still they knew that in due time
they would get over any daintiness of this kind; and, indeed, before
many hours had elapsed, all four of them began to feel keenly the
cravings of a hunger not likely to refuse the coarsest or most
unpalatable food. Since that hurried retreat from their moorings by the
carcass of the _cachalot_ they had not eaten anything like a regular
meal.

The series of terrible incidents, so rapidly succeeding one another,
along with the almost continuous exertions they had been compelled to
make, had kept their minds from dwelling upon the condition of their
appetites. They had only snatched a morsel of food at intervals, and
swallowed a mouthful of water.

Just at the time the last catastrophe occurred they had been intending
to treat themselves to a more ceremonious meal, and were only waiting
until the sail should be set, and the boat gliding along her course, to
enter upon the eating of it.

This pleasant design had been frustrated by the flukes of the whale;
which, though destroying many other things, had, unfortunately, not
injured their appetites. These were keen enough when they first
reoccupied their old places on the _Catamaran_; but as the day advanced,
and they continued to exert themselves in collecting the fragments of
the wreck, their hunger kept constantly increasing, until all four
experienced that appetite as keenly as they had ever done since the
commencement of their prolonged and perilous "cruise."

In this half-famished condition it was not likely they should have any
great relish for work; and as soon as they had secured the various
waifs, against the danger of being carried away, they set themselves to
consider what chance they had t