Sea and sky were around me; not a sail was in sight, and nothing living was near, save a few petrels tripping over the water, alongside of the fatal schooner.
Had I slept all night, and was this the dawn of a new day? Had I slept all day, and was this the approach of another night? I devoutly hoped not, as I most dreaded night upon the ocean; but the gradual sinking of the sun, and the increasing redness of the sky, ere long informed me that the time was evening. I now knew the west, and turned my haggard eyes to the south, for there the land and my home lay; but still the envious wind, though lighter now seemed to blow from that quarter.
Oh! how deeply and earnestly, by thoughts unuttered, I prayed in my heart that it would change and blow toward the shore—any shore—or any part of the coast of England, and bring me so near that I might have a chance of escape of life and preservation by swimming—by putting to the test that skill and those powers of activity I had acquired at Eton, in the waters of the Thames.
The sea was comparatively smooth, but still the empty schooner rolled and lurched fearfully; the more so, that the fore-and-aft foresail was hanging so loosely in the brails.
A hundred years seemed to have elapsed since I had heard the dear voices and seen the loved faces of those I had left at home—of my father, my mother, of Dot, and of Sybil; while the events of my early schoolboy days seemed to have occurred but yesterday.
All time was chaos and confusion!
In my sorrow and despair, I never thought, unless with anger, of Jan van Zeervogel, the poor Dutch skipper, whose interests were so much involved with the loss or safety of his little schooner, with which the flood-tide had made so free. I thought only of my own danger, and my mother's sorrow for the mystery that would overhang my fate.
Now hunger assailed me, creating a new terror lest I should perish by want of food; and all I had read or heard of wrecks, rafts, and castaways crowded on my memory, to aggravate the real perils which surrounded me.
Once more I sought the cabin, and on finding an axe broke open what appeared to be a press or locker. Therein were several cups, bottles, and drinking glasses, placed in perforated shelves; but nothing eatable save a single hard and mouldy biscuit, which the rats abandoned on my approach, and nothing drinkable save the remains of the brandy in which the peaches had been preserved—and I viewed the jar with horror, as the primary cause of all my sufferings and dangers;—I say the remains, for it had fallen from the table and been broken to pieces; so nothing remained of its contents, except about a gill in a fragment, and the peaches which lay in the lee or lower side of the cabin.
What would I not have given for a single drop of pure cold water, to alleviate that choking thirst which is ever the sequel to sickness, excitement, and sorrow! But there was not a drop on board, as the scuttle-butt had broken its lashings, in one of the lurches of the schooner, and fallen overboard to leeward. So I soaked the mouldy biscuit in the brandy, ate it, and went on deck, in time to see the sun set at the watery horizon, from whence he cast a long and tremulous line of yellow splendor along the dancing waves, to where the schooner floated in her loneliness.