"You don't mind me quotin' pottery, cap'n, do you? For I really is main fond of it.
"'All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand.
No bigger than the moon.
"'Water, water everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink:
Water, water everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.'
"And again, sir, I may say:
"'There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye;
A weary time, a weary time,
How glazed each weary eye!'
"How that night wore along I cannot tell you, cap'n. No one rowed, no one steered.
"Next day our sufferings were fearful. Oh, cap'n, may you never know what it is to be afloat in a foodless boat on the bosom of a deserted ocean.
"'And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.'
"I served out more rum towards evening.
"Having swallowed it, Mearns, an able-bodied seaman, leant forward towards me and said hoarsely, with a mad gleam in his bloodshot eyes: