Picking my way carefully among the sleepers, who covered the bottom of the yawl, I sat down beside Browne in the stern, intending to share the remainder of his watch. It was now long past midnight; fragments of light clouds were scattered over the sky, frequently obscuring the moon; and the few stars that were visible, twinkled faintly with a cold and distant light. The Southern Cross, by far the most brilliant constellation of that hemisphere, was conspicuous among the clusters of feebler luminaries. Well has it been called “the glory of the southern skies.” Near the zenith, and second only to the Cross in brilliancy, appeared the Northern Crown, consisting of seven large stars, so disposed as to form the outline of two-thirds of an oval. Of the familiar constellations of the northern hemisphere, scarcely one was visible, except Orion, and the Pleiades.
At length the moon descended behind a bank of silvery clouds, piled up along the horizon. The partial obscurity that ensued, only added to the grandeur of the midnight scene, as we sat gazing silently abroad upon the confused mass of swelling waters, stretching away into the gloom. But if the scene was grand, it was also desolate; we two were perhaps the only human beings, for many hundreds of miles, who looked forth upon it. Our companions were wrapped in unconsciousness, and their deep and regular breathing attested the soundness of their slumbers. As the light failed more and more, and the shadows deepened, the sea began to assume a beautiful and striking appearance, gleaming in places with a bluish lambent light, and exhibiting, where the water was most agitated, large luminous patches. Thin waves of flame curled over our bow, and whenever a sea broke upon it, it seemed as though the boat was plunging through surges of fire. A long brilliant line, thickly strewn on each side, with little globules of the colour of burning coals, marked our wake.
But the shark, which still followed close behind our keel, presented by far the most singular and striking spectacle. He seemed to be surrounded by a luminous medium; and his nose, his dorsal and side fins, and his tail, each had attached to them slender jets of phosphoric fire. Towards morning this brilliant appearance began to fade, and soon vanished altogether. By this time I found it difficult to keep my eyes open longer, and leaving Browne to finish his watch alone, I resumed my place on the ceiling planks, and in spite of the hardness of my bed, which caused every bone in my body to ache, soon slept soundly. When I again awoke, it was long after sunrise, and we were lying completely becalmed. A school of large fish were pursuing their gambols at a short distance, and Browne was rowing cautiously toward them, while Arthur and Morton stood prepared to attack them with their cutlasses as soon as we should get within striking distance. We had got almost among them, and were just beginning to congratulate ourselves upon their apparent indifference to our approach, when they all at once scattered in every direction, with manifest signs of terror. The cause of this sudden movement was not long concealed; a brace of sharks rose in their very midst; one was visible but for a moment as he rolled over to seize his prey; the other, less successful in securing a victim, shot past us, like an arrow, in pursuit of a large division of the fugitives. Soon after, both of them were seen playing around the boat. They belonged to the species known as the tiger shark, and bore no resemblance to our ghastly visitor of the preceding evening. By the consternation which their sudden appearance had produced among the lesser fishes, they had in all probability robbed us of our breakfast. Morton, with his characteristic enterprise, suggested an attack upon one of them by way of reprisals; but before any measures for that purpose could be taken, they disappeared, leaving us with no other resource than to await our fate with such patience and resignation as we could command. The wind having entirely failed, there was nothing that we could do to change our situation—absolutely nothing. This forced inaction, with no occupation for mind or body, no object of effort, contributed to enhance whatever was painful in our condition, by leaving us to brood over it. The dead calm which had fallen upon the sea, seemed all that was necessary to complete our misery. We were all stiff and sore, from the exceedingly uncomfortable sleeping accommodations of the last two nights; but this was a comparatively trifling evil. Johnny had a severe cold, his eyes were inflamed and bloodshot, and he exhibited also strong symptoms of fever. Nevertheless, silent and uncomplaining, he came and sat down quietly by the side of Arthur in the stern.
As the day advanced, the heat became dreadful. We had not suffered much from it the day before, on account of the fresh breeze which had prevailed; but now, not a breath of air was stirring, and the glassy sea reflected back upon us the scorching rays of the sun, with increased intensity. Towards noon, it exceeded any thing I had ever experienced. The whole arch of the heavens glowed with a hot and coppery glare. It seemed as though instead of one sun, there were ten thousand, covering all the sky, and blending their rays into a broad canopy of fire. The air was like that of an oven: the water had no coolness, no refreshing quality; it was tepid and stagnant: no living thing was to be seen near the surface, for life could not be sustained there; and the fishes, great and small, kept themselves in the cooler depths, far below. Almost stifled by the heat, we began to experience the first real and extreme suffering that most of us had ever known. At Arthur’s suggestion, we disengaged the now useless sail from the mast, and contrived a kind of awning, by fastening two of the oars upright in the boat, with the mast extending between them, throwing the sail over the latter, and securing the ends to the gunwales. This, although it could not protect us from the sultry and suffocating air, warded off the blistering beams of the sun, and during the greater part of the day, we lay crouched beneath it, a miserable company; one or another of us crawling out occasionally, to take a survey. Towards the close of the afternoon, my sufferings from thirst grew absolutely intolerable, and amounted to torment. My blood became fevered; my brain seemed on fire; my shrunk and shrivelled tongue, was like a dry stick in my mouth. The countenances of my companions, their bloodshot eyes, and cracked and swollen lips, shewed what they were undergoing. Johnny lay in the bottom of the boat with his eyes shut enduring all, with as much fortitude as the rest of us, except that now and then a half suppressed moan escaped him.
It was quite clear that relief, in order to be of any avail, must be speedy.