ed to
knock off I should discover that I had sensibly diminished the amount of
water in the felucca's interior; but this hope was cruelly disappointed,
for when I reached the companion, on my way below, I found that there
was no perceptible difference in the height of the water in the cabin
from what it had been before I turned to; indeed the water seemed to
have _risen_ rather than diminished, a sure indication that the hull was
still leaking, and that by no effort of mine could I hope to keep the
craft much longer afloat.

And now, as I descended to the cabin, and noted the violence with which
the water surged hither and thither with the rolling and pitching of the
little vessel, a wild fear seized upon me that I might find all the
provisions in the pantry spoiled. A moment later and my surmise was
changed to certainty, for as I opened the door of the small, cupboard-
like apartment, a recoiling wave surged out through the doorway, its
surface bestrewed with the hard, coarse biscuits that sailors speak of
as "bread." The water had risen high enough to flood the shelf upon
which the eatables had been stowed, and everything was washed off and
utterly spoiled. Worse still, there was no possibility of obtaining a
further supply, for the lazarette, or storehouse, was beneath the cabin
floor and had been flooded for hours. Moreover, it was unapproachable.
Fortunately I did not feel very hungry; I was, however, consumed with a
burning thirst which--all the water-casks having been washed overboard--
I quenched by draining a whole bottle of the thin, sour wine of which I
have before spoken. Then I went to work to collect all the biscuit I
could secure, and carried it up on deck to dry in the sun, spreading it
out on a cloth on the top of the companion; and while engaged upon this
task, and also in removing my small stock of wine to the deck--for the
cabin was by this time uninhabitable--I began to consider what I could
do to save my life when the felucca should founder, as founder she must,
now that I had demonstrated my inability to keep the leaks under. The
question was not a very knotty one, or one demanding very profound
consideration; obviously there was but one thing to do, and that was to
build a raft with such materials as offered themselves to my hand. And
just at this point the first difficulty presented itself in the shape of
the question: what available materials were there? For, as I have
already mentioned