overed. When a man has supped
full of horror, and there is no immediate climax, he can collect himself
and be comparatively brave. A reaction restored my soul.

Once more the melancholy chronicler of the ill-fated Petrel resumed his
lugubrious narrative. I resolved to listen, while the skipper eyed the
barometer, and we all rocked back and forth in search of the centre of
gravity, looking like a troupe of mechanical blockheads nodding in
idiotic unison. All this time the little craft drifted helplessly, "hove
to" in the teeth of the gale.

The sea-dog's yarn was something like this: He once knew a lonesome man
who floated about in a waterlogged hulk for three months--who saw all
his comrades starve and die, one after another, and at last kept watch
alone, craving and beseeching death. It was the staunch French brig La
Perle, bound south into the equatorial seas. She had seen rough weather
from the first: day after day the winds increased, and finally a cyclone
burst upon her with insupportable fury. The brig was thrown upon her
beam-ends, and began to fill rapidly. With much difficulty her masts
were cut away, she righted, and lay in the trough of the sea rolling
like a log. Gradually the gale subsided, but the hull of the brig was
swept continually by the tremendous swell, and the men were driven into
the foretop cross-trees, where they rigged a tent for shelter and
gathered what few stores were left them from the wreck. A dozen wretched
souls lay in their stormy nest for three whole days in silence and
despair. By this time their scanty stores were exhausted, and not a
drop of water remained: then their tongues were loosened, and they
railed at the Almighty. Some wept like children, some cursed their fate:
one man alone was speechless--a Spaniard with a wicked light in his eye,
and a repulsive manner that had made trouble in the forecastle more than
once.

When hunger had driven them nearly to madness they were fed in an almost
miraculous manner. Several enormous sharks had been swimming about the
brig for some hours, and the hungry sailors were planning various
projects for the capture of them: tough as a shark is, they would
willingly have risked life for a few raw mouthfuls of the same. Somehow,
though the sea was still and the wind light, the brig gave a sudden
lurch and dipped up one of the monsters, who was quite secure in the
shallow aquarium between the gunwales. He was soon despatched, and
divided equally