But he still lived, and whilst his heart beat nature would assert herself. Towards the afternoon a torturing craving for food beset him, started him into life, and made him sit upright. He wiped the foam from his lips and beheld it discoloured with blood. He looked savagely around him like a wild beast, and, beholding nothing but the dry, bare seats, the boat’s hot interior with the gratings whitened by the heat of the sun, and underneath them the glistening water that bubbled coolly and with a maddening suggestion of sparkling, refreshing springs, he dragged his knife from his pocket, pierced his arm, and put his lips to the wound.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
THE TENTH DAY.
It was morning on the tenth day, dating from the foundering of the “Meteor.”
A barque of about six hundred tons, named the “Jessie Maxwell,” three weeks out from the port of Glasgow, having been becalmed all night, was standing south, with all sail set, and a gentle breeze on the beam.
It was the second officer’s watch on deck; he was sitting trimming his nails on the grating abaft the wheel, when the man who was steering, pointing to the horizon a few points before the port beam, asked him if he could see anything black there. The second officer not having very good sight, stared awhile and declared that he saw nothing; then, going forward, called to a man in the main-top to tell him if there was anything to be seen on the port beam. The man, shading his eyes, sang out that he could see a black object, but whether it was a boat or a piece of wreck he couldn’t say. Whereupon Mr. Anderson stepped to the companion-hatchway, took down the glass, and, having adjusted it to his sight, levelled it.
“By thunder!” he cried, keeping the glass to his eye, “it’s a boat—and there’s a mast, and a lug-sail—and something black at the mast head. But the de’il a soul can I make out aboard of her.”
He had another good look, and then, tucking the glass under his arm, went below.
In about three minutes’ time he returned, followed by a small stout man with a good-humoured face, and a grave, middle-aged gentleman with a long black beard.