rseless
ocean was one sheet of glass, that glared in their bloodshot eyes, and
reflected the intolerable heat of heaven upon these poor wretches, who
were gnawed to death with hunger; and their raging thirst was fiercer
still.

Toward afternoon of the eighth day, Mackintosh dipped a vessel in the
sea, with the manifest intention of drinking the salt water.

"Stop him!" cried Hazel, in great agitation; and the others seized him
and overpowered him. He cursed them with such horrible curses that Miss
Rolleston put her fingers in her ears, and shuddered from head to foot.
Even this was new to her, to hear foul language.

A calm voice rose in the midst and said: "Let us pray."

There was a dead silence, and Mr. Hazel kneeled down and prayed loud and
fervently; and, while he prayed, the furious cries subsided for a while,
and deep groans only were heard. He prayed for food, for rain, for wind,
for patience.

The men were not so far gone but they could just manage to say "Amen."

He rose from his knees and gathered the pale faces of the men together in
one glance; and saw that intense expression of agony which physical pain
can mold with men's features. And then he strained his eyes over the
brassy horizon; but no cloud, no veil of vapor was visible.

"Water, water everywhere, but never a drop to drink."

"We must be mad," he cried, "to die of thirst with all this water round
us."

His invention being stimulated by this idea, and his own dire need, he
eagerly scanned everything in the boat, and his eyes soon lighted on two
objects disconnected in themselves, but it struck him he could use them
in combination. These were a common glass bottle, and Miss Rolleston's
life-preserving jacket, that served her for a couch. He drew this garment
over his knees and considered it attentively; then untwisted the brass
nozzle through which the jacket was inflated, and so left a tube, some
nine inches in length, hanging down from the neck of the garment.

He now applied his breath to the tube, and the jacket swelling rapidly
proved that the whole receptacle was air-tight.

He then allowed the air to escape. Next, he took the bottle and filled it
with water from the sea; then he inserted, with some difficulty and great
care, the neck of the bottle into the orifice of the tube. This done, he
detached the wire of the brass nozzle, and whipped the tube firmly round
the neck of the bottle. "Now, light a fire," he cried; "no matter w