By this time the sun had gone down; and the four dripping forms, dimly outlined in the purple twilight, appeared like four strange creatures who had just emerged from out the depths of the ocean.
“Where next?”
This was the mental interrogatory of all four; though by none of them shaped into words.
“Nowhere to-night” was the answer suggested by the inclination of each.
Impelled by hunger, stimulated by thirst, one would have expected them to proceed onward in search of food and water to alleviate this double suffering. But there was an inclination stronger than either, too strong to be resisted—sleep: since for fifty hours they had been without any; since to have fallen asleep on the spar would have been to subject themselves to the danger, almost the certainty, of dropping off, and getting drowned; and, notwithstanding their need of sleep, increased by fatigue, and the necessity of keeping constantly on the alert—up to that moment not one of them had obtained any. The thrill of pleasure that passed through their frames as they felt their feet upon terra firma for a moment aroused them. But the excitement could not be sustained. The drowsy god would no longer be deprived of his rights; and one after another, though without much interval between, sank down upon the soft sand, and yielded to his balmy embrace.
Chapter Four.
’Ware the tide!
Through that freak, or law, of nature by which peninsulas are shaped, the point of the sandspit was elevated several feet above the level of the sea; while its neck, nearer the land, scarce rose above the surface of the water.