ag waved
on the Spanish island of Cuba, and in the no less valuable possessions
of Holland, in Java. Everywhere on the ocean England held undisputed
sway. This state of things gave rise to one great evil--the sea
swarmed with cruisers and privateers, English, French, and American;
so that no vessel, unless sailing under convoy, heavily armed, or a
very swift sailer, but ran risk of capture.

The _Mary_--for so Fritz now called the pinnace--had been ten days at
sea, the wind had died away, and for some time scarcely a zephyr had
ruffled the surface of the water, the sails were lazily flapping
against the mast, and but for the currents, the voyagers would have
been almost stationary. It may readily be supposed that, under such
circumstances, their progress was somewhat slow, and, as Jack
observed, to judge from their actual rate of sailing, they ought to
have started when very young, in order to arrive at the termination of
the voyage before they became bald-headed old men.

They prayed for a breeze, a gale, or even a storm; their fresh water
was beginning to get sour, and they reflected that, if the calm
continued any length of time, their provisions would eventually run
short, and the ordinary resource of eating one another would stare
them in the face. Jack, being the youngest, would probably disappear
first, next Fritz, then Willis would be left to eat himself, in order
to avoid dying of hunger, just as the unfortunate Count Ugolino
devoured his own children to save them from orphanage.

As yet, however, there were no symptoms of such a dire disaster; they
were in excellent health and tolerable spirits; they had provisions
enough to last them for six months at least, and consequently had not
as yet, at all events, the slightest occasion to manifest a tendency
to anthropophagism.

"I can understand the sea," remarked Jack, "as I understand the land
and the sky; God created them, that is enough; but I cannot understand
how a mighty river like the Nile or the Ganges can continue eternally
discharging immense deluges of water into the sea without becoming
exhausted. From what fathomless reservoirs do the Amazon and the
Mississippi receive their endless torrents?"

"The reservoirs of the greatest rivers," replied Fritz, "are nothing
more than drops of water that fall from the crevice of some rock on or
near the summit of a hill; these are collected together in a pool or
hollow, from which they issue in the form of a