estion the hopelessness of our attempt to
overtake the ship; she was leaving us rapidly, and unless someone aloft
happened to sight us, our prospects of rescue, so far as she was
concerned, were not worth a moment's consideration. The men, partially
restored by their night's sound sleep, toiled like tigers at the oars,
in their anxiety to prolong the chance of our being sighted to the
latest possible moment, frequently relieving each other. But it was all
of no avail; strive as they would, the stranger steadily increased her
distance from us until, after we had been in pursuit of her for fully
three hours, the heads of her royals sank below the western horizon, and
we lost her for good and all. Then the men sullenly laid in their oars,
declaring that they were worn out and could do no more. Then they began
to savagely inquire among themselves who was the individual to whose
culpable carelessness we were all indebted for our present
disappointment. The culprit was soon discovered in the person of a
little Welshman--the man whose watch followed Lindsay's. This man
declared that he had remained awake throughout his watch, and had duly
called his successor before resuming his slumbers. But there was some
reason to doubt this statement; and even if it happened to be true, he
was still culpable, according to his own showing, for he was obliged to
confess that he had not waited to assure himself that his successor was
properly awakened, but had satisfied himself with a single shake of the
sleeper's shoulder, accompanied by the curt announcement that it was
time to turn out, and had then flung himself down and gone to sleep. As
for the man whom the Welshman was supposed to have awakened, he
disclaimed all responsibility upon the ground that, if called at all--
which he did not believe--he had been called so ineffectively as to be
quite unconscious of the circumstance. At the conclusion of the
inquiry, his comrades were so furiously incensed with the Welshman for
his culpable--almost criminal--neglect, that they seemed strongly
disposed to take summary vengeance upon him; and it needed the exertion
of all my authority to protect the fellow from their violence, which
broke out anew when at noon we went to dinner, and were compelled to
make out the best meal we could upon raw salt beef washed down with
water so brackish that we could scarcely swallow it. Reduced to such a
condition as this, it will scarcely be wondered at