most unsuspecting manner for a drink of water. When he
learned that the breaker was empty, and that we had not so much as a
drop of water with us, some notion of our actual situation seemed to
dawn upon him, and he became, all at once, grave and silent.

Hour after hour dragged slowly on, until the sun was in the zenith, with
no change for the better in our affairs. It was now clear that we must
give up the hope of reaching the island which we had left, for it was
certain that we had sailed farther since morning than the boat could
possibly have been drifted during the night, by the wind, or the
current, or both combined. Our calculations at the outset must
therefore have been erroneous, and we had not been sailing in the right
direction. If so, it was too late to correct the mistake; we could not
regain our starting-point, in order to steer from it another course. We
now held a second consultation.

Although we had but a general notion of our geographical position, we
knew that we were in the neighbourhood of scattered groups of low coral
islands. From the Kingsmills we were to have sailed directly for
Canton, and Max, Morton, and myself, would, before now, in all
probability, have commenced our employment in the American factory
there, but for Captain Erskine's sudden resolution to take the
responsibility of returning to the Samoan Group, with the double object
of rescuing the crew of the wrecked barque, and completing his cargo,
which, according to the information received from the master of the
whaler, there would be no difficulty in doing. From Upolu, we had
steered a north-westerly course, and it was on the fourth or fifth day
after leaving it, that we had reached the island where the mutiny took
place, and which Mr Erskine claimed as a discovery of his own. Its
latitude and longitude had of course been calculated, but none of us
learned the result, or at any rate remembered it. We knew only, that we
were at no great distance from the Kingsmills, and probably to the
south-west of them.

Arthur was confident, from conversations had with Mr Frazer, and from
the impressions left on his mind by his last examination of the charts,
that an extensive cluster of low islands, scattered over several degrees
of latitude, lay just to the south-east of us.

It was accordingly determined to continue our present course as long as
the wind should permit, which there was reason to fear might be but a
short time, as e