"Cover it with the tarpaulin and
keep it dry. If we let it get wet it will be spoiled," and immediately
we all made a dash for the two bags of biscuits and hastily enveloped
them in a small sheet of tarpaulin that Chips had had the forethought to
toss into the gig while she was being lowered from the davits.

"Now," said I, as soon as we had taken such precautions as were possible
for the preservation of our bread, "spread out the sail, from gunwale to
gunwale, right across the boat. This rain is far too precious to be
wasted. That's your sort, bos'n, make a good deep sag in the middle of
the sail--it will soon fill at this rate; and then we can all drink as
much as we please, and put what more we can catch into the broached
breaker, filling it until it overflows. Find the pannikin, one of you;
there is enough for a drink round already."

The hollow sail filled with the sweet, tepid rainwater faster than we
could drink it; and before the rain ceased we had each emptied the pint
pannikin twice and had filled the broached breaker right up to the edge
of its bung-hole. Then we had another drink all round, after which we
bathed our smarting, blistered hands in the cooling liquid before
emptying it into the sea. The downpour lasted for perhaps twelve
minutes; then it ceased as suddenly as it had begun--as suddenly as
though a tap had been turned off up aloft--and we had an opportunity
once more to look around us. And, glancing instinctively to the
westward in the first instance--for that was where we expected the wind
to come from--the first thing we saw, in the fast-deepening twilight,
was a broad belt of dark water, flecked here and there with white, about
a mile distant, and advancing in our direction.

"Hurrah, lads!" I exclaimed, "here comes the breeze--a foul one it is
true, but even a foul wind, so long as there is not too much of it, is
better than none at all. Set the lug for a board on the port tack;
since we can't go straight to our port I'll make a board to the nor'ard,
which will at least be going in the right direction. Yes, bos'n," in
reply to a question from that functionary, "keep the sail close-reefed;
we shall have all the wind we want, and a little over, before very long,
unless I am greatly mistaken."

The wind swooped down upon us in a fierce little flurry that careened
the gig to her gunwale, despite the careful tending of the sheet by the
boatswain; then, with all hands of us sitting well