“I would give a guinea for a bottle of gingerbeer,” exclaimed Terence.
“Oh, how delicious! don’t talk of such a thing. I would give ten for a pint of the dirtiest ditch-water in which a duck ever waddled,” said Jack; “however, we must try and not think about it.”
Some hours passed slowly by after this, when Hemming’s eye was seen to brighten up.
“Is there a sail in sight?” asked Jack and Adair, who were constantly watching his looks.
“No,” he answered, “but there is a cloud in the horizon. It is a small one, but it rises slowly in the north-west, and I trust betokens rain. If it does not bring wind at the same time, our sufferings may be relieved.”
How anxiously all on the raft, who had yet consciousness left, watched the progress of that little cloud, at first not bigger than a man’s hand. How their hearts sank within them when they thought that it had stopped, or that its course was altered; but it had not stopped, though it advanced but slowly. Still it grew, and grew, and extended wider and wider on either hand, and grew darker and darker till it formed a black canopy over their heads; and then there was a pattering, hissing noise heard over the calm sea, and down came the rain in large drops thick and fast. The men lifted up their grateful faces to heaven to catch the refreshing liquid in their mouths as it fell, but Hemming lowered the sail, and, ordering the men to stretch it wide, caught the rain in it, and let it run off into the breaker till that was full. Then they filled the cask which had held the biscuits, and each man took off his shirt, and let it get wet through and through; and eagerly they sucked the sail, so that not a drop more than could be helped of the precious fluid should be lost. Then when they found that the rain continued, each man took a draught of the pure water from the cask, which they again filled up as before by means of the sail.
“Oh, Terence, how delicious!” exclaimed Jack, drawing a deep breath.
“Nectar,” said Adair, draining a last drop in his cup. It was of a doubtful brown hue, and in reality tepid from falling on the not over clean and hot sail.
Jack and Terence learned the lesson, that the value of things can only be ascertained by being compared with others. That shower was the means sent by Providence to preserve the lives of many of those on the raft. Some were already too far gone to benefit by it. They opened their glassy eyes, and allowed their shipmates to pour the water down their parched throats; they seemed to revive for a short time, but soon again sank, and some even died while the water was trickling over their cracked lips. All this time the raft was constantly surrounded by sharks. The flesh of the first caught was almost exhausted, and though dried in the sun had become rather savoury.
“Come, my lads, we must have another of those fellows,” cried Hemming, standing up, and supporting himself against the mast. “Can any of you heave the bight of a rope over one of them?”