he coast, and without a drop of fresh
water to satisfy their thirst. A mad, mad attempt; but it was for
liberty--for all that man holds dear. What wonder that when the day
dawned both had sunk forward over their oars and were sleeping heavily,
to wake at last with the southern sun beating down upon their heads, and
that they gazed at each other in a half-delirious, stupefied way,
wondering what had happened and where they were.

There was a faint appearance as of a cloud low down on the water
far-away, but no cloud overhead, nothing but the burning, blistering sun
to send a fierce energy through Nic's veins, which made him keep calling
wildly upon Pete to row, row hard, before they were overtaken and
dragged back to a white slave's life.

Pete's eyes were staring fiercely, and looked bloodshot, while his
throat was hot and dry, his brain felt as if on fire; but at every order
from Nic he bent down over his oar and pulled and pulled, till his
strokes grew more and more wild, and at last, as he made one more
desperate than ever, he did not dip the blade, but fell backward from
the thwart. Then, after vainly trying to pull with both oars himself,
Nic turned to face his companion in misfortune, wondering in his
delirium why he was there.

The sun went down like a ball of fire on his left, and directly after,
as it seemed, rose like a ball of fire on his right. It was that, he
felt, which caused all his suffering, and in his rage and indignation he
turned upon it fiercely, and then bent down to lap up the sparkling
water which tempted him and seemed to promise to allay his awful thirst.

He reached down and dipped his hand, but the attitude seemed to send the
blood like molten lead running to his brain, and with a weary groan he
fell sidewise and rolled over in the bottom of the boat.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

SAFE AT LAST.

"Looks like a ship's longboat, sir; but she's right under the sun, and I
can't make her out."

"Any one in her?"

"No, sir; not a soul."

The conversation was between the captain and one of the foremast men of
the good ship _Sultan_, bound from a western city with passengers and
sugar to the port of Bristol. The wind was very light, and men were up
aloft, setting the main top-gallant sail, when the boat was sighted only
a little way out of the vessel's course.

Then the captain argued, as he took a look at her from the main-top,
that a boat like that might be battered, and not worth t