lusion
that a momentary, doubtful glimpse of us had been caught by somebody,
and that the officer of the watch, while sceptical of belief, had
shortened sail for a time to afford opportunity for further
investigation. But whichever it might happen to be, it improved our
prospects of eventual rescue, and we were glad and thankful accordingly.

The question now uppermost in our minds was whether we had or had not
been seen by anyone on board the ship. Some of us felt convinced that
we had--the wish, doubtless, being father to the thought; but, for my
own part, I was exceedingly doubtful. For, as a rule--to which,
however, some most shameful and dastardly exceptions have come under my
own notice--sailors are always most eager to help their distressed
brethren, even at the cost of very great personal inconvenience and
peril; and, knowing this, I believed that, had only a momentary and
exceedingly doubtful view of us been caught, steps would at once have
been taken on board the ship to further test the matter. Some one, for
instance, would probably have been sent aloft to get a more extended
view of the ocean's surface; nay, it was by no means unlikely that an
officer might have taken the duty upon himself, and have searched the
ocean with the aid of a telescope, in either of which cases we should
soon have been discovered; when the sight of a small boat battling for
life against a rapidly increasing gale and an already extremely
dangerous sea would doubtless have resulted in the ship hauling her wind
to our rescue. Nothing of the kind, however, happened, and we continued
our perilous run to leeward upon a course that was slowly converging
upon that of the ship, with a feeling of growing doubt and angry despair
at the blindness of those whom we were pursuing rapidly displacing the
high hopes that had been aroused in our hearts at the first sight of
that thrice-welcome sail.

The ship held steadily on her way, and all that we could do was to
follow her, with the wind smiting down upon us more fiercely every
minute, while each succeeding wave, as it overtook us, curled its angry,
hissing crest more menacingly above the stern of the deeply-laden boat.
It was a wild, reckless, desperate bit of boat-sailing; and the
conviction rapidly grew upon us all that it could not last much longer,
we should soon be compelled to abandon the pursuit, or succumb to the
catastrophe that momentarily threatened us. If we could but hold out