“O Ben! I’m so hungry; I could eat anything.”
“I know it, my poor lad; so could I.”
“True! indeed you must be even hungrier than I, for you gave me more than my share of the two biscuits. It was wrong of me to take it, for I’m sure you must be suffering dreadfully.”
“That’s true enough, Will’m; but a bit o’ biscuit wouldn’t a made no difference. It must come to the same thing in the end.”
“To what, Ben?” inquired the lad, observing the shadow that had overspread the countenance of his companion, which was gloomier than he had ever seen it.
The sailor remained silent. He could not think of a way to evade giving the correct answer to the question; and keeping his eyes averted, he made no reply.
“I know what you mean,” continued the interrogator. “Yes, yes,—you mean that we must die!”
“No, no, Will’m,—not that; there’s hope yet,—who knows what may turn up? It may be that the prayer will be answered. I’d like, lad, if you’d go over it again. I think I could help you better this time; for I once knew it myself,—long, long ago, when I was about as big as you, and hearin’ you repeatin’ it, it has come most o’ it back into my memory. Go over it again, little Will’m.”
The youth once more knelt upon the raft, and in the shadow of the spread tarpaulin repeated the Lord’s Prayer,—the sailor, in his rougher voice, pronouncing the words after him.
When they had finished, the latter once more rose to his feet, and for some minutes stood scanning the circle of sea around the raft.