A single incident afforded the unhappy men diversion from their plight. After some discussion, it was agreed that it would make the situation a trifle less dreary if the four of them were gathered in one place, instead of being divided by the width of the chamber. The shelf on which Roy and David had ensconced themselves was not of a size sufficient to accommodate the other two. For that matter, its dimensions were unduly restricted even for those already there. On the other hand, the top of the heap of rocks up which Saxe and Billy had climbed afforded ample room for all, besides giving better opportunity for the securing of water to drink, since the massed stones were easy of ascent and descent. Unfortunately, there was a difficulty in the way of consummating the assembly of the four in the one place, due to the fact that David could not swim. It was arranged finally, however, that Billy Walker should swim across the chamber, being guided by the voices of Roy and David, and that then he and Roy should support the other across to the heap of stones, being guided in turn by the voice of Saxe, who would remain behind for that purpose. At once, when this arrangement had been made, Billy clambered down the rocks with many a sigh, until the water supported him. Then, he swam easily to the point from which Roy was calling. David let himself down into the water through the blackness without demur as his friends bade him, and very quickly he was carried across to the place indicated by the voice of Saxe. A minute later, the four friends were reunited on their microscopic island, and the fact yielded them a pleasure melancholy and fleeting, yet a pleasure, an alleviation, where no alleviation had seemed possible.
Even in this fatal plight, the sage preserved his serenity, and from time to time startled his companions by his utterances, thus breaking in by ever so little on the torment of their spirits. They had just finished drinking as best they might from cupped hands dipped into the water at their feet, and David had spoken of being already hungry, when Billy laughed in his usual noisy outburst.
“Exactly!” he exclaimed. “Always, when a man is confronted with absolute lack of provisions, he at once develops a ravenous appetite. He may have eaten five meals on the day of the wreck, and have gorged to repletion five minutes before the ship foundered. When he has become acquainted with the fact that he is adrift on the ocean in an open boat with only a few drops of water in the beaker, and ten wormy biscuits for six persons, he immediately begins to feel the gnawing pangs of ravenous hunger and deadly thirst. Naturally it will be so with us. David has already spoken. For my part, I confess that I, too, hear the generalissimo of the belly clamoring for reinforcements, although I enjoyed a capital and capacious breakfast, and it’s not yet anywhere near the scheduled hour for luncheon on the earth above.”
At that, there came a chorus of protests from the others, who had listened patiently enough hitherto:
“Not time for luncheon!” Roy exclaimed, indignantly. “Man, you’re crazy.”
“It’s well along in the night,” Saxe affirmed.
“Or, maybe, toward the morning of next day.” David spoke with the emphasis of entire conviction. “We’ve been here close to twenty-four hours, already.”
“Or even more,” Roy added, defiantly.
Billy Walker chuckled—a great volume of sound, which sent multiplying echoes afar over the placid water that shut them off from life.
“The exercise of reason convinces me that all of you are quite wrong,” the sage remarked, very genially. “There are certain well-known facts that compel me to believe you are wrong in your estimate of the time already elapsed since your incarceration by the flood. You are, perhaps, aware that in situations such as ours, the human mind errs outrageously in its calculations of time. Persons buried alive for a few hours invariably deem the time many days. One lives through great suffering; he believes that the time of his agony has been correspondingly great, though it may have been a matter of seconds, rather than of hours. This involuntary exaggeration seems a universal rule. We can’t reasonably believe that we are constituted differently from other men. With the judgment clarified by reason, based on knowledge of allied facts, I am compelled to believe—in direct contradiction to my own feelings, as well as yours—that the time elapsed since the lake broke in on us hasn’t been more than—” Billy paused to reflect, running over the sequence of events, as the basis of computation.