aching when of food and drink there will be none.

The sea had furnished us with food once, and, difficult as the task of
fishing had now become, at all hazards the attempt must be made again.
Accordingly the carpenter and the boatswain set to work and made lines
out of some untwisted hemp, to which they fixed some nails that they
pulled out of the flooring of the raft, and bent into proper shape. The
boatswain regarded his device with evident satisfaction.

"I don't mean to say," said he to me, "that these nails are first-rate
fish-hooks; but one thing I do know, and that is, with proper bait they
will act as well as the best. But this biscuit is no good at all. Let me
but just get hold of one fish, and I shall know fast enough how to use
it to catch some more."

And the true difficulty was how to catch the first fish. It was evident
that fish were not abundant in these waters, nevertheless the lines were
cast. But the biscuit with which they were baited dissolved at once in
the water, and we did not get a single bite. For two days the attempt
was made in vain, and as it only involved what seemed a lavish waste of
our only means of subsistence, it was given up in despair.

To-day, the 30th, as a last resource, the boatswain tried what a piece
of coloured rag might do by way of attracting some voracious fish, and
having obtained from Miss Herbey a little piece of the red shawl she
wears, he fastened it to his hook. But still no success; for when,
after several hours, he examined his lines, the crimson shred was still
hanging intact as he had fixed it. The man was quite discouraged at his
failure.

"But there will be plenty of bait before long," he said to me in a
solemn undertone.

"What do you mean?" said I, struck by his significant manner.

"You'll know soon enough," he answered.

What did he insinuate? The words, coming from a man usually so reserved,
have haunted me all night.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

JANUARY 1st to 5th.--More than three months had elapsed since we left
Charleston in the "Chancellor," and for no less than twenty days had
we now been borne along on our raft at the mercy of the wind and waves.
Whether we were approaching the American coast, or whether we were
drifting farther and farther to sea, it was now impossible to determine,
for, in addition to the other disasters caused by the hurricane, the
captain's instruments had been hopelessly smashed, and Curtis had no
longer any compass by wh