arp look-out for the
appearance of a sail in the offing had been maintained, nothing had been
sighted; and the disconcerting possibility now began to impress itself
upon me that if I continued to trust only to such an occurrence for our
deliverance we might spend _years_ waiting for that event. Most
fortunately, we had both thus far been blessed with perfect health; but
it seemed too much to expect that this immunity from sickness or
accident should continue indefinitely; and if both of us should chance
to fall sick at the same time, what would be the result? Something very
like panic seized me at the thought of such a possibility; I felt that I
had been culpably foolish in relying so implicitly, and for so long a
time, upon extraneous help; and the conviction forced itself upon me
that I must at once take steps to effect our own deliverance.

Yet what could I do? The first idea that had suggested itself to me
after the wreck of the brigantine was to build some sort of a craft in
which we could effect our escape to civilisation; but after considering
the matter I had come to the conclusion that such an undertaking would
be altogether beyond my powers, with only Billy to assist me. No doubt
I was helped to this conclusion by the conviction I then felt that
something would certainly heave in sight within the next month or two to
take us off. But with the lapse of time my confidence had insensibly
waned, and I had accordingly set to work to make our stay upon the group
as comfortable as might be. Now, however, I felt constrained to
reconsider my original conclusion; and as a preliminary I took pencil
and paper, drawing-instruments and scale, and proceeded to make
tentative sketches of such a craft as I considered essential to enable
us to make the voyage in safety and with a reasonable amount of comfort.

To insure these requirements I decided that the boat, whatever her
dimensions, must be fully decked, and that she must be powerful enough
to face and successfully battle with a whole gale of wind; also she must
be capable of being handled by Billy and myself. Taking these
requirements as a basis, I set to work upon my sketches.

The relative dimensions of the boat would be governed to a considerable
extent by her rig. A cutter-rigged craft is more powerful than any
other, but it is open to the objection that the mainsail--the cutter's
most important sail--is an awkward sail to handle in a sudden emergency,
if th