Barthelemy was furious, and, unwilling to return defeated, sought the brigantine by altering his course hither and thither. For a week he sailed the seas, constantly struggling with head winds and currents; on the eighth day his supply of provisions was exhausted and he was forced to anchor and send a small boat back to his ships for food and assistance. Barthelemy and his companions remained on the sloop.
According to the closest estimate the boat would need three days to reach the ships and the same time to return. So Barthelemy must stay six days at one point in the ocean.
A week before they were revelling in luxury, while wine flowed in rivers, now, under the rays of a scorching sun, they divided their last biscuit and longed for a drink of water.
At last Barthelemy thought of lashing some masts together into a raft, on which he sent two men with a cask to seek land. They were almost dying of thirst when the raft returned; the men had reached the shore and filled the cask with muddy water. They also brought a bunch of some plant which resembled a radish.
Miry water and radishes! A royal banquet for the pirates! But soon this, too, was exhausted, the six days had expired, the boat had not returned, and the adverse tide made it impossible for the raft to reach the shore a second time.
The men grew desperate and began to murmur.
"Worthless fellows!" blustered Moody. "Degenerate pirates, who succumb to hunger after fasting only three days. The world is going to ruin. Even pirates turn cowards. It wasn't so when I was young and Olonais was captain.
"For a whole week we ate nothing but dry roots, and then we got food from the governor's table in the heart of Vera Cruz."
"And you ventured to fight on land?" asked Asphlant, with an incredulous look.
"The ground certainly didn't tremble under our feet as it does under yours when you go ashore; once, twenty of us, under Olonais, pushed forward to the gates of Havana."