ie down while I
proceeded to search for some food, but she declined to take any rest
until we had both partaken of a good meal; so I established her
comfortably on the sofa-lockers, and proceeded forthwith in search of
the pantry.

I found this, as I had expected, in a corresponding position, on the
opposite side of the ship to the cabin which I already designated in my
own mind as Miss Onslow's; and in it were several tins of preserved
meats and soups, a bottle of pickles, some vinegar, a jar of salt, a
bottle of pepper, a cask about three-quarters full of potatoes, part of
a string of onions, a barrel nearly full of fine cabin biscuit, or
"bread," as it is called at sea, a small canister of tea, another of
coffee, a jar of brown sugar, and, in fact, a very fair assortment of
such commodities as are usually to be found in an ordinary ship's
pantry. I observed, by the way, that such articles as were labelled
bore the names of American manufacturers, and I deduced from that fact
the impression that the brig was Yankee, an impression that was
subsequently confirmed.

I took a biscuit out of the barrel, broke it in two, and handed one
piece to Miss Onslow, nibbling at the other myself while I further
prosecuted my researches. I did this because the biscuit was hard and
dry, and, starving as we were, there was not much likelihood of our
eating so much of it as to prove injurious; moreover it would have the
effect of taking the sharp edge off our hunger, and enabling us to eat
cautiously and in moderation of the more appetising food that I intended
to place upon the table as quickly as possible.

My next task was to explore the galley, which I found to be very nicely
fitted up with what appeared to be an excellent cooking-stove and a
generous supply of implements, the whole of which had, like the articles
in the cabin, found their way right over to the starboard side; moreover
the top of the stove was rusted in such a way as to suggest that the
water from the coppers had been capsized over it--everything, in short,
tending to confirm my original impression that the brig had been on her
beam-ends. I looked into the coppers, and found them empty. Then I
went to the scuttle-butt, but it also was so nearly empty that I did not
care to use the small remainder of water in it. There were no more
casks on deck, so I concluded that the ship's stock of water was kept
below, most probably in tanks. And the thought of the latte