y growing in intensity, until sometime during the night--
while Lindsay and I were asleep, and the boat was in charge of one of
the men--they became so utterly unendurable that, in a fit of madness,
the famished crew fell upon the slender remainder of our stock of
eatables, devouring the whole at one fell swoop, except Lindsay's and my
own portion, which, despite their famished condition, they loyally set
aside for us!

Another day of breathless calm; another twelve hours of scorching heat
under the rays of the pitiless sun; and then, with nightfall, the men
once more threw out their oars and resumed the heart-breaking task of
shortening by a few miles the still formidable stretch of ocean that lay
between us and safety. But nothing that we could say would induce a
single one of them to accept ever so small a share of the provisions
that they had apportioned as the share belonging to Lindsay and myself;
they declared that their last meal had so far satisfied and
reinvigorated them, that they were no longer hungry, while one or two of
them spoke hopefully of the possibility that they might catch a fish or
two on the morrow.

It was somewhere about ten o'clock that night that we detected the first
symptoms of another change in the weather, the first subtle indication
that the long period of calm which had so nearly destroyed us was about
to end. And, best of all, the indication was of such a character as
permitted us to indulge the hope that, although the calm was about to
give way to a breeze, we were likely to be favoured with weather fine
enough to permit of our pursuing our voyage under the most favourable
conditions. This symptom of approaching change merely consisted in the
gathering in the heavens of a thin veil of mottled, fine-weather cloud,
just dense enough to obscure most of the lesser stars and render the
night rather dark, while a few of the brighter stars peeped through the
openings between the clouds at tolerably frequent intervals, permitting
us to steer our course without having recourse to the lantern or
compass. The prospect of a coming breeze seemed to cheer the men and
endow them with renewed vigour, for they gave way with something like a
will, while they occasionally went so far as to exchange a muttered
ejaculation of encouragement one with another.

It happened to be my trick at the yoke-lines until midnight, I having
relieved young Lindsay at four bells. I was sitting in the stern-
sheet