was
light enough to permit objects to be distinguished I aroused myself from
the lethargy that seemed to have gripped me, and proceeded to search the
heaving surface of the ocean as well as my aching eyes would allow.

As a matter of fact, there actually were a few small scattered fragments
of wreckage floating at no great distance from me, but there was no sign
of a human being, far or near. Then I scanned very carefully the
horizon in every direction, but particularly to the northward, in the
hope of discovering a sail of some sort heading toward me; but the
horizon was bare, save to the southward, where the high land of Hayti
loomed up with startling and quite deceptive distinctness. Although I
had hoped that I might perchance be so fortunate as to sight a sail, the
hope was a very feeble one, and my disappointment by no means acute, for
I was perfectly well aware that I was many miles too far to the eastward
to render the appearance of a sail of any sort in the least degree
probable.

With the pangs of hunger beginning to assail me, and not the smallest
fragment of any kind of food wherewith to relieve them, I began for the
first time to realise fully the exceeding awkwardness of my situation,
and to realise, too, that if deliverance was to come to me I must bestir
myself and do what might be possible to meet it, for to remain passively
lashed to that inert piece of drifting wreckage might very well mean a
slow and agonising death by starvation. Yet, after all, what could I
do? The land was my nearest refuge, and that, I considered, must be at
least twenty miles distant, altogether too far to dream of swimming to
it, although I rather prided myself upon my prowess as a long-distance
swimmer. But twenty miles! The idea was ridiculous, especially in that
heavy sea, in my exhausted condition, without food, and with no means of
getting any. I looked rather longingly at the smaller fragments of
wreckage floating in my neighbourhood; if I could but secure one of them
of sufficient size to support me partially, yet not large enough
materially to hamper my progress through the water, I might perhaps with
its aid be able to accomplish the distance, great though it was, before
my strength entirely gave out. But the run of the sea and their greater
buoyancy were already widening the distance between them and the
comparatively massive piece to which I had lashed myself, and I
regretted that it had not occurred to me e