Chapter Twenty Six.
The Biscuit-Box.
Having resolved, then, not to die by my own hand, I at the same time came to the resolution to live as long as I could. Though my two biscuits would not have served me for another good meal, I determined to make at least four out of them, and also to make the intervals between each two as long as possible—just as long as I could endure without eating.
The desire of prolonging my existence had been gradually growing upon me, ever since I had been relieved from the torture of thirst; and it had now become as strong as at any period of my life. The truth is, I had a presentiment that I should still survive—that I was not going to perish of hunger; and this presentiment—though ever so slight, and entertained only at intervals—helped to sustain me with a sort of faint hope.
I can hardly tell why I should have entertained it at all, so really hopeless appeared my situation. But then I remembered that, but a few hours before, the prospect of obtaining water was equally hopeless, and now I possessed enough to drown myself in. Fanciful as it may seem, this idea had occurred to me—that is, to drown myself! But the moment before, while contemplating the easiest means of death, that of drowning had actually come before my mind. I had often heard that it was about the least painful mode of terminating one’s existence. Indeed I might say that I had myself made trial of it.
When saved by Harry Blew I was drowned to all intents and purposes—so far as the suffering was concerned—and I am sure that had I been then permitted to go to the bottom, I should never have felt another pang. I was satisfied, therefore, that drowning was not so very hard a death; and I actually had it in consideration whether I should not cut my way into the great butt, and in this way end my misery! This was during my moments of despair, when I seriously contemplated self-destruction; but these moments had passed, and I again felt an unaccountable desire that my life should be prolonged.
Perhaps this change in my sentiments is not so inexplicable. The strange circumstance of my finding the water, with the consequent escape from death by thirst, had something in it of a nature almost miraculous: something that suggested the hand of Providence stretched forth in my favour. That hand could equally aid me in other ways—could equally save me from starvation by hunger; and though I knew not how, it might yet deliver me from my fearful prison.
Perhaps some ideas of this kind were passing in my mind, and it was from these I drew that indefinable presentiment that I should yet escape.
I ate my half biscuit, and again drank of the water, for my thirst kept returning upon me, though it no longer gave me uneasiness. I caulked up the vent as before, and then sat down in silence.
I had no idea of making any exertion. I had no hope that anything I could do would in the least degree alter my situation. What could I do? My hope—if hope I may call it—rested only upon fate, upon chance, or rather, I should say, upon God. But how the hand of Providence could be interposed on my behalf, I had not the slightest idea.