e truth is, I
had a presentiment that I should still survive--that I was not going to
perish of hunger; and this presentiment--though ever so slight, and
entertained only at intervals--helped to sustain me with a sort of faint
hope.

I can hardly tell why I should have entertained it at all, so really
hopeless appeared my situation. But then I remembered that, but a few
hours before, the prospect of obtaining water was equally hopeless, and
now I possessed enough to drown myself in. Fanciful as it may seem,
this idea had occurred to me--that is, to drown myself! But the moment
before, while contemplating the easiest means of death, that of drowning
had actually come before my mind. I had often heard that it was about
the least painful mode of terminating one's existence. Indeed I might
say that I had myself made trial of it.

When saved by Harry Blew I _was_ drowned to all intents and purposes--so
far as the suffering was concerned--and I am sure that had I been then
permitted to go to the bottom, I should never have felt another pang. I
was satisfied, therefore, that drowning was not so very hard a death;
and I actually had it in consideration whether I should not cut my way
into the great butt, and in this way end my misery! This was during my
moments of despair, when I seriously contemplated self-destruction; but
these moments had passed, and I again felt an unaccountable desire that
my life should be prolonged.

Perhaps this change in my sentiments is not so inexplicable. The
strange circumstance of my finding the water, with the consequent escape
from death by thirst, had something in it of a nature almost miraculous:
something that suggested the hand of Providence stretched forth in my
favour. That hand could equally aid me in other ways--could equally
save me from starvation by hunger; and though I knew not how, it might
yet deliver me from my fearful prison.

Perhaps some ideas of this kind were passing in my mind, and it was from
these I drew that indefinable presentiment that I should yet escape.

I ate my half biscuit, and again drank of the water, for my thirst kept
returning upon me, though it no longer gave me uneasiness. I caulked up
the vent as before, and then sat down in silence.

I had no idea of making any exertion. I had no hope that anything I
could do would in the least degree alter my situation. What could I do?
My hope--if hope I may call it--rested only upon fate, upon chance,