after day, nor a chart to guide me.

At this point in my self-communion I realised that alternative courses
were open to me, and I proceeded to give them my most careful
consideration, comparing the one with the other. And the more carefully
I examined them, the more difficult did I find it to come to a decision.
On the one hand, here was I, right in the track of ships bound east and
west; consequently I stood a very fair chance of being picked up at any
moment, when the ship's wireless installation would at once enable me to
make my report. On the other hand, in the unlikely event of my failing
to be picked up, I could dispatch a cablegram from, say, Port Louis,
Mauritius, immediately upon my arrival there; and the point which I had
to decide was whether I should at once steer north, or whether I should
remain where I was, and trust to being speedily picked up. I will not
weary the reader by repeating in detail the arguments, pro and con, that
presented themselves to my mind; let it suffice me to say that I
eventually adopted the second of the courses outlined above. And so
certain did I feel that this was the right decision that I actually
adhered to it for seven days, during which I sighted four steamers and
one sailing ship; but, as ill-fortune would have it, three of the
steamers and the sailing ship passed me at too great a distance to
permit of my intercepting them, while the fourth steamer--a big liner,
with three tiers of ports blazing with electric light--passed during the
night, within less than four miles of me; but I had no light with which
to signal to her, and thus I was passed unseen.

The liner passed me during the fifth night succeeding that of the wreck;
and during the following two days I saw nothing. As I watched the sun
go down on the seventh day that I had spent in the boat I said to
myself:

"Well, here endeth the seventh day of a most disappointing experience.
If, seven days ago, anyone had told me that I could hang about here in a
boat for a whole week, right in the track of ships, without being
sighted and picked up, I would not have believed it. Yet here I am,
and, judging from past experience, here I may remain for another seven
days, or even longer, with no more satisfactory result. I have spent
seven precious days waiting for a ship to come along and find me; now I
will go and see if I cannot find a ship, or, failing that, find land,
where I shall at least be safe from destruction