liverance. All through the hot and
breathless night we toiled, in an unspeakable agony of thirst, and when
morning once more dawned out of a brilliant and cloudless sky, my
companions presented so wild and haggard an appearance, with their
cheeks sunken with famine and their eyes ablaze with the fever of thirst
and starvation, that they were scarcely recognisable. Half an hour
after sunrise we partook of our loathsome breakfast of putrid meat and
nauseous water, and then composed ourselves to sleep--if we could--
through the long hours of the blazing day, maintaining, however, a one-
man hourly watch, in order that we might be duly warned of any change in
the weather.

And, late that afternoon, a change came--a change of so welcome a
character that I believe I may, without exaggeration, say it saved our
lives. For, about noon, when I was aroused by the man on watch to get
the meridian altitude of the sun for the determination of the latitude,
I observed a bank of purple-grey clouds gathering in the south-western
quarter, their rounded edges as sharply denned as though they had been
cut out of paper. There was no mistaking their character; they
portended a thunderstorm. And a thunderstorm we had about four o'clock
that afternoon, of truly tropical violence. There was not a breath of
wind with it, but it brought us a perfect deluge of rain,--thrice-
welcome and blessed rain,--pouring from the overcharged clouds in sheets
of warm water, soft and sweet as nectar. We let not a drop escape us
that it was possible to save; we saw that it was coming, and prepared
for it by spreading the sails across the boat, and caught the welcome
stream in the depressions that we had arranged for its reception,
drinking out of the hollowed canvas until we could drink no more. Then,
as the rain still continued to fall, we did a desperate deed; we threw
away every drop of our drinking water, in the hope of being able to
refill our breakers with the sweet, fresh rain-water. And we were
successful. God in His infinite mercy allowed the floodgates of heaven
to remain open until we had filled every available receptacle at our
disposal; and then the rain ceased, the storm drifted away to the north-
eastward, and the sun disappeared below the horizon in a blaze of
cloudless splendour.

But our sufferings were not yet over; for now that the hellish torments
of thirst were assuaged, the pangs of hunger assailed us with redoubled
fury, hourl