He cast one last look at the peaceful heavens, and whispering, "Lord, receive us!" clasped his wife more closely to him, and jumped into the sea. Two or three heads turned at the plash; but no other notice was taken of the event. They were all too weak and despairing. The captain's wife gasped, with heart-broken sobs,--
"Poor dears! poor dears! Their troubles are over; they are happier than we are."
"Yes, my lady," said Joshua; "but I would not end my life like that. We are in the hands of the Lord; our lives belong to Him."
He stretched himself at full length upon the raft, and took Ellen's picture and the lock of hair from his breast, and kissed them again and again. They, and the Bible that Dan had given him, were his most precious possessions. When he looked up, Minnie and Little Emma were close to him. He took the child's hand; and they remained together during the long, long night.
A dreadful announcement was made the next day. The water that was served out was the last--one tablespoonful each exhausted the store; all the provisions were used up also. It seemed, indeed, as if the best thing they could do would be to die at once by their own hands. The rules made by the council were no longer thought of. Something to eat, something to drink: these were the only laws now. When the next man died, the sailors looked longingly at the body. The Lascar had his knife open, and was about to use it, when Captain Liddle called to him to stop.
"Why?" asked the Lascar, with a savage flourish of his knife.
"Why?" echoed the other men: there were only six of them left altogether.
"Because fish is better to eat than human flesh," said the captain.
"So it is," said one; "but we haven't any more fishing-line."
"Come now," said the captain, "even without that we can manage to catch a shark perhaps. Wait a few minutes. I'll think of a way."