ich this boat belonged. There it is,
painted there on the gunwale as large as life, the _Eric Strauss_. I
suppose she was a German ship, but I never heard of her."

The two boys got out the lines presently, attaching small pieces of
fluttering cloth to the hooks, and heaved them overboard, dragging them
in the wake of the boat some distance astern; but they caught nothing
that day, nor did they even see the sign of a fin. A whale travelling
by himself, and not accompanied by a "school" as usual, was the only
solitary denizen of the deep that they perceived.

It was the same the next day, the boat sailing in a north-east direction
as well as David could judge, for the wind remained in the same quarter,
from the southward and westward. But he had some difficulty in keeping
her on her course at night, owing to the absence of the north star,
which is never seen south of the equator, although he could manage to
steer her all right by the sun during the day.

When the third morning broke, the boys were starving with hunger, and
could have eaten anything. They even tried to gnaw at bits of leather
cut out of their boots, but they were so tough and sodden from their
long immersion in the sea that they could make nothing of them.

If it had not been for the breaker of water which they found
providentially in the boat, they felt that they must have died.

STORY THREE, CHAPTER FIVE.

STARVATION AND PLENTY.

"Look, David," said Jonathan, when the sun had risen well above the
horizon on that third morning.

He was sitting down in the bow of the boat, looking out almost
hopelessly for the sight of some sail, while David was in the
stern-sheets steering.

"There's a big flock of birds right in front of us. Oh, if we only
could catch one! I could eat it raw."

"Well, I don't think we'd wait for the cooking," said his companion
philosophically, although he put the helm down a bit so that he might
likewise see the birds that Jonathan had spied.

"What can they be so far out at sea?" inquired the latter.

"Molly hawks, to be sure," said David promptly. "We must be getting
into the latitude of the Cape."

"Why, they're as big as geese," said Jonathan, when the boat got nearer
them. "But some are quite small; are they the young ones?"

"No," replied David; "those are the cape pigeons, which generally sail
in company with the others, and not far off at any rate. When you see
them close, as I've seen them scores