The gale having abated, we hoisted the sail to the masthead, shipped our oars, and after receiving about a tablespoonful of rum per man, endeavoured to make the best of our way towards Newfoundland, in the hope of being picked up, ere long, by one of the many outward or homeward bound traders.
When day was fully in, we swept the sea with anxious eyes, but not a sail was visible!
Cast thus helplessly on the wide ocean, with a few biscuits, a small beaker of fresh water, and a gallon keg of rum, at a distance of three hundred miles from land, our prospects were gloomy in the extreme; and amid them all, the horrible story of the De Ruyter, and similar miseries endured by those of whom I had heard and read in such situations, haunted me.
Exertion warmed us: we now got our clothing wrung out and dried, the boat thoroughly baled, and by midday we were as comfortable as men so circumstanced might be. Cuffy, who had saved his violin, the only article of property he ever possessed, now proceeded to enliven us, as he had often done before, by singing a negro melody, to his own accompaniment; yet this was but ghastly mirth at best.
Our biscuits being soaked by the brine, excited a thirst which we were without the means of allaying. Moreover, the idea of being upon allowance in itself excites a thirsty craving; thus by the noon of the second day, the water in the beaker was nearly consumed, and we had no hope now but for rain.
I believe some hours elapsed before we were fully aware, or had realized a true sense of our dreadful situation.
How shall I describe the days that passed—and how the nights? Morning after morning only dawned to raise our hopes of success; and these faded as the day wore on; and then the nights were dark monotonous hours of bitterness and despair.
Yet they were the short nights of May; and it must be borne in mind that however warm they are upon the land, and in more temperate latitudes, they were cold and chilly when passed in an open boat, upon the mighty Atlantic. The evening of the fourth day deepened, and still not a sail was in sight. About nine o'clock, one of our forlorn party, whose clothing was thinner than the rest, and who had suffered much from hunger and exposure, died in the bottom of the boat, and we silently committed his body to the deep.
There were neither prayer nor funeral service, but we all stood up, and uncovered our heads, while Hans and a seaman launched the poor fellow into the sea.
Our last drop of water was now expended, for it had been poured between the parched lips of this sufferer, in vain.