, my lad, don't croak like a raven. At your age you ought to
be hopeful, and set me an example of high spirits. Don't begin
imagining the worst."

"Who's going to be hopeful," muttered Tom Fillot to the man behind him,
"with the body o' that poor nigger aboard? Strikes me that we're in for
a spell o' bad luck, mates."

"What's that?" cried the lieutenant.

"Only having a bit of a grumble, your honour, about our luck," said the
man, respectfully. "We're all feeling as if it was time our watch
ended, and as though we'd like a bit o' something to eat and drink.
That's all, sir."

The man's oar dipped steadily as he spoke, and after that there was a
dead silence on board. The last drop of water had been swabbed up and
squeezed overboard, and the exercise had helped to dry the men's
saturated garments. A steady progress was kept up, and after fighting
back a heavy, drowsy feeling, Mark sat watching the setting stars away
straight before him in the direction in which the _Nautilus_ had
disappeared. Twenty times over it had seemed to him as if the night
would never end, and in spite of his officer's cheering utterances, his
spirits sank very low, as he wondered whether it would not have been
better if the boat's head had been turned, so that they might have rowed
due east, to make the land from which they had sailed.

Then the moon began to sink lower, and the sky to grow of a darker slaty
colour, while the regular beat of the men's oars sounded distant--then
very softly--and then ceased altogether, or so it appeared to Mark
Vandean, who suddenly opened his eyes with a start, and gazed
wonderingly about him at the sunlit sea, now all orange and gold.

"Have I been to sleep, sir?" he cried apologetically.

"Yes, my lad; sound asleep for hours."

"And the ship, sir--can you see the _Nautilus_?"

"No, my lad," said the lieutenant, in a voice which he tried to make
cheerful, but whose tones spoke of the deep despondency in his breast.
"She is not in sight yet."

The midshipman glanced sharply at the heavy, saddened countenances of
the men, and read there a reflection of his own thoughts, that they were
far-away on the wide ocean in an open boat without food or water,
exhausted by a long night's rowing, and in an hour the torrid sun would
be beating down upon their heads.

Hunger--thirst--heat--all three to fight; but there was a worse enemy
still--despair, as a torrent of recollections flashed through the lad's