stance of us, as soon as possible."

I dropped down into my old place at the tiller without another word--for
the thought went through me like a knife that something had happened to
Captain Ravender. I should consider myself unworthy to write another
line of this statement, if I had not made up my mind to speak the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth--and I must, therefore,
confess plainly that now, for the first time, my heart sank within me.
This weakness on my part was produced in some degree, as I take it, by
the exhausting effects of previous anxiety and grief.

Our provisions--if I may give that name to what we had left--were reduced
to the rind of one lemon and about a couple of handsfull of
coffee-berries. Besides these great distresses, caused by the death, the
danger, and the suffering among my crew and passengers, I had had a
little distress of my own to shake me still more, in the death of the
child whom I had got to be very fond of on the voyage out--so fond that I
was secretly a little jealous of her being taken in the Long-boat instead
of mine when the ship foundered. It used to be a great comfort to me,
and I think to those with me also, after we had seen the last of the
Golden Mary, to see the Golden Lucy, held up by the men in the Long-boat,
when the weather allowed it, as the best and brightest sight they had to
show. She looked, at the distance we saw her from, almost like a little
white bird in the air. To miss her for the first time, when the weather
lulled a little again, and we all looked out for our white bird and
looked in vain, was a sore disappointment. To see the men's heads bowed
down and the captain's hand pointing into the sea when we hailed the Long-
boat, a few days after, gave me as heavy a shock and as sharp a pang of
heartache to bear as ever I remember suffering in all my life. I only
mention these things to show that if I did give way a little at first,
under the dread that our captain was lost to us, it was not without
having been a good deal shaken beforehand by more trials of one sort or
another than often fall to one man's share.

I had got over the choking in my throat with the help of a drop of water,
and had steadied my mind again so as to be prepared against the worst,
when I heard the hail (Lord help the poor fellows, how weak it sounded!)--

"Surf-boat, ahoy!"

I looked up, and there were our companions in misfortune tossing abreast
of us; not so