It was now more dismal than ever. It was darker; and although the burning ship could do us no good, we were sorry to have her leave us. Nobody said much, but we all began to feel pretty badly. Morning came slowly, and we were wet and cold, and getting stiff. Besides, we were all very thirsty, and I, for one, was hungry; but there was no good reason for that, for it was not yet breakfast-time. Fortunately, after a while, Corny went to sleep. We were very glad of it, though how she managed to sleep while the raft was rising and falling and sliding and sloshing from one wave to another, I can't tell. But she didn't have much holding on to do. We did that for her.
At last daylight came, and then we began to look about in good earnest. We saw a top-sail off on the horizon, but it was too far for our raft to be seen from it, and it might be coming our way or it might not. When we were down in the trough of the waves we could see nothing, and no one could have seen us. It was of no use to put up a signal, the captain said, until we saw a vessel near enough to see it.
We waited, and we waited, and waited, until it was well on in the morning, and still we saw no other sail. The one we had seen had disappeared entirely.
We all began to feel miserable now. We were weak and cold and wretched. There wasn't a thing to eat or drink on the raft. The fire had given no time to get anything. Some of the men began to grumble. It would have been better, they said, to have started off as soon as they found out the fire, and have had time to put something to eat and drink on the raft. It was all wasted time to try to save the ship. It did no good, after all. The captain said nothing to this. He knew that he had done his duty in trying to put out the fire, and he just kept his mouth shut, and looked out for a sail. There was one man with us—a red-faced, yellow-haired man—with a curly beard, and little gold rings in his ears. He looked more like a sailor than any other of the men, and Rectus and I always put him down for the sailor who had been longer at sea, and knew more about ships and sailing, than any other of the crew. But this man was the worst grumbler of the lot, now, and we altered our opinion about him.
Corny woke up every now and then, but she soon went to sleep again, when she found there was no boat or sail in sight. At least, I thought she went to sleep, but she might have been thinking and crying. She was so crouched up that we could not see whether she was awake or not.
CHAPTER XX.
THE RUSSIAN BARK.
We soon began to think the captain was mistaken in saying there would be lots of ships coming this way. But then, we couldn't see very far. Ships may have passed within a few miles of us, without our knowing anything about it. It was very different from being high up on a ship's deck, or in her rigging. Sometimes, though, we seemed high enough up, when we got on the top of a wave.
It was fully noon before we saw another sail. And when we saw this one for the second or third time (for we only caught a glimpse of it every now and then), a big man, who had been sitting on the edge of the raft, and hardly ever saying a word, sung out: