"We could let the pail down, but I doubt very much whether we could get any water," said Forester. "It is quite difficult to drop the pail in such a manner as to get any water when the vessel is under way."
"I should like to try," said Marco.
"You can find out whether the water is salt easier than that," said Forester. "You can let a twine string down, and wet the end. That will take up enough for a taste."
"Well," said Marco, "if I've got a string long enough." So saying, he began to feel in his pockets for a string.
He found a piece of twine, which he thought would be long enough, but, on trial, it appeared that it would not reach quite to the water. Forester then tied it to the end of his cane, and allowed Marco to take the cane, and hold it over the side of the vessel; and by this means he succeeded in reaching the water, and wetting the end of the string. He could, after all, succeed in wetting only a small part of the string, for it was drawn along so rapidly by the motion of the boat, that it skipped upon the surface of the water without sinking in.
At length, however, after he had got the end a little wetted, he drew it up and put it in his mouth.
"How does it taste?" said Forester.
The question was hardly necessary, for the faces which Marco made showed sufficiently plain that the water was bitter and salt.
"Yes, it is salt," said he. Then, suddenly casting his eye upon a long dark-looking substance, which just then came floating by, he called out,