gnized the same powder Captain Sackett had told me was
bichloride of mercury.

By this time Tom was in convulsions. He strained horribly, and we could
do nothing to relieve his agony. Brandy was given, but it did no good,
and finally he lost consciousness. Miss Sackett nursed him tenderly and
did all she could to make him comfortable, but it was no use.

The horror of the thing fairly took my senses for a moment. There we
were, miles away from land, without water. The villains had meant us to
tell no tales. All adrift in an open boat, with food and water poisoned,
we had a small chance indeed of ever telling the story of the
_Sovereign's_ loss. Vessels were not plentiful at the high latitude we
were in; and, as we were out of the trade, it was doubtful if we could
even get into the track of the regular Cape route inside a week, to say
nothing of being picked up. It seemed as though Andrews' villany would
finish us yet.

Far away on the southern horizon, the single mast stuck up above the blue
water like a black rod. I stood up and gazed at it. Chips appeared to
read my thoughts, for he spoke out:--

"'Tis no use now, sir; the tanks would be a couple o' fathoms deep, an'
we couldn't get at them. She won't float more'n a day or two, anyhow, wid
th' afterdeck an' cargo burnt free. She'll go under as soon as the oil's
washed out wid a sea, and that'll be th' last av a bad ship."

I saw that the carpenter was right. There was no water for either Andrews
or ourselves, and it would be foolish to go back to force the tank.

"Heave the stuff overboard," I said, and Johnson and Jenks raised the
barrel upon the rail. It poured out clear into the blue ocean, and showed
no sign of its deadly character.

"Break out that barrel of ship's bread," said Chips.

It was found to be moistened with water all through, and as even the
little poison I had drunk made me horribly nauseated, there was no
thought of tasting the stuff. Over the side it went, floating high in the
boat's wake. Then came the beef.

"Hold on with that," said Miss Sackett. "It isn't likely they'd poison
everything. I don't remember there being over several pounds of that
mercury in the medicine chest, and you know it won't dissolve readily in
water. They must have had something to dissolve it in first, and it would
have taken too long to fill everything full of the stuff."

"Who cares to taste the beef?" I asked.

"Give me a piece, sir," said Johnson.

He p