“Can’t you give me some water, or some fruit? I am very thirsty,” said Ashurst.
“I am sorry we have nothing to give you,” answered Langton; “we may possibly pick up something when we have daylight.”
“I’ve a chaw of baccy, sir,” said Mike; “it’s me last, but it’s at yir sarvice.”
Poor Ashurst uttered an expression of disgust. Just then Owen thankfully recollected that he had put a couple of small limes, some of which he had been eating late on the previous evening, into his pocket. He immediately skinned one of the refreshing fruit, and handed it in small pieces to Ashurst.
“This from you, Hartley?” he said, as he swallowed it eagerly.
“I have another which will be at your service when you want it,” said Owen, not noticing the remark, and feeling intense pleasure at thus being able to help his suffering messmate. Every thought of the ill-treatment he had received vanished from his mind. Langton and Owen now examined Ashurst’s hurts. They found that his left arm had either been dislocated or broken, and that a splinter had torn his side and severely wounded him.
“He is in a bad way,” whispered Langton to Owen; “had one of the surgeons been with us, he might have been doctored, but as it is, I do not think he will weather out what we shall have to endure. I ought to tell him so if he gets worse, but we will do our best for him.”
As daylight increased, they saw other masses of wreck floating about, while a portion of the shattered upper works of the frigate appeared above the water with several men clinging to them. A current, however, was running from the wreck, slowly drifting the raft away. Who the people were it was impossible to say at that distance.
“Unless a breeze springs up to blow us back we cannot get up to them,” said Langton; “we will rig our sail, however, in case it should come.”
While engaged in setting up the mast, Mike and Nat especially were keeping an eye on the water around them, in the hopes of picking up something that might be floating by.