“Unless we eat soon there is an end!”
The spectres nodded.
“We cannot live another day!”
The spectres passively assented.
The mouth of one of them was marked with a dark stain, where he had been endeavouring to masticate the leather of his shoe.
Jean Petit, not looking from one to the other, but holding all three with his eyes, continued:
“Others have been as we.”
There was a long pause. The whale boat rose slowly upon a wave crest and slid silently into the hollow.
The sun poured out his fires upon the ocean in intense silence.
“Others,” murmured Jean Petit, finishing his sentence, “have done it.”