kled in
brine and stinted themselves to a few swallows of water from the wooden
breaker or tiny cask.

"Hunger and thirst are strange to ye, Jack," said young Hawkridge as
they lay stretched side by side. "Hanged if I ever did get enough to eat
till I boarded the _Plymouth Adventure_. Skin and bone I am. I'll not
call this a bad cruise unless we have to chew our boot-tops. A pesky
diet is leather. I've tried it."

"Truly, Joe?" cried Jack in lugubrious accents. "We may have more heart
when morning comes. A piping easterly breeze, such as is wont to come up
with the sun in Charles Town, and we can steer for the coast all taut
and cheery."

"I dread the sun, Jack. For men adrift the blaze of it fries them like
fish on a grid. A pint of water a day, no more, is the allowance. 'Twill
torture you, but castaways can live on it. They have done it for weeks
on end. Here's two musket balls in my pocket. I can whittle a balance
from a bit of pine and we must weigh the bread and meat."

"Two musket balls' weight of food for a meal?" protested Jack.

"Not a morsel more," was the grim answer. "Granted we be not washed off
this silly raft and drowned when a fresh breeze kicks up the sea, we may
hold body and soul together through five or six days."

"But some vessel will sight us, Joe, even if the plight is as dark as
your melancholy fancies paint it. And I thought you a light-hearted
mariner in danger."

"The sea is a cruel master and she hath taught me prudence," was the
reply. "A vessel sight us? I fear an empty sea so soon after the storm.
And honest ships will be loth to venture out from port if the word sped
that Blackbeard was cruising off Charles Town bar."

Jack Cockrell forsook the attempt to wring comfort out of his hardy
companion who refused to delude himself with vain imaginings. However,
it is the blessed gift of youth to keep the torch of hope unquenched and
presently they diverted themselves with chatting of their earlier
adventures. Jack was minded of his pompous, stout-hearted uncle, Mr.
Peter Arbuthnot Forbes, and wondered how he had fared, whether he had
set out to return to Blackbeard's ship with the store of medicines from
Charles Town when the great storm swooped down. Forgotten were Jack's
hot grievances against the worthy Secretary of the Council who had
sought to take a father's place. Piracy had lost its charm for young
Master Cockrell and meekly would he have obeyed the mandate to go to
school i