nto my face, wetted my lips, and trickled down
my throat. Never can I describe the ecstasy with which I imbibed that
renovating moisture. The parched and swollen glands relaxed, I breathed
afresh, and my whole being seemed revived with a strange and requickened
life.

The rain lasted about twenty minutes, when the cloud, still only half
exhausted, passed quite away from over us.

We grasped each other's hands as we rose from the platform on which
we had been lying, and mutual congratulations, mingled with gratitude,
poured forth from our long silent lips. Hope, however evanescent it
might be, for the moment had returned, and we yielded to the expectation
that, ere long, other and more abundant clouds might come and replenish
our store.

The next consideration was how to preserve and economize what little had
been collected by the barrel, or imbibed by the outspread sails. It was
found that only a few pints of rain-water had fallen into the barrel
to this small quantity the sailors were about to add what they could
by wringing out the saturated sails, when Curtis made them desist from
their intention.

"Stop, stop!" he said, "we must wait a moment; we must see whether this
water from the sails is drinkable."

I looked at him in amazement. Why should not this be as drinkable as the
other? He squeezed a few drops out of one of the folds of a sail into
the tin pot, and put it to his lips. To my surprise, he rejected it
immediately, and upon tasting it for myself I found it not merely
brackish, but briny as the sea itself. The fact was that the canvas
had been so long exposed to the action of the waves, that it had become
thoroughly impregnated by salt, which of course was taken up again by
the water that fell upon it. Disappointed we were; but with several
pints of water in our possession, we were not only contented for the
present, but sanguine in our prospect for the future.

CHAPTER XLVI.

JANUARY 17th.--As a natural consequence of the alleviation of our
thirst, the pangs of hunger returned more violently than ever. Although
we had no bait, and even if we had we could not use it for want of
a whirl, we could not help asking whether no possible means could
be devised for securing one out of the many sharks that were still
perpetually swarming about the raft. Armed with knives, like the Indians
in the pearl fisheries, was it not practicable to attack the monsters in
their own element? Curtis expressed his will