. Owen shook his head. He had scarcely
strength enough to crawl back and show that it was exhausted. The mate
at last understood him.

"Is there none in any of the other casks?" he asked.

Owen knew that they had been emptied to the last drop. He crawled to
where they were stowed, and tried one after the other. They were
perfectly dry. Without water to moisten their lips, no one would be
able to masticate the last remnants of food.

"I knew it would be so," groaned the mate. "Any sign of a breeze?"

"None that I can perceive, sir," answered Owen. He dragged himself up
by the mast so as to obtain a wider range of observation. Unable to
stand long he soon sat down again. After a lapse of some time the mate
again asked in a faint voice, "Any sign of a breeze?"

Owen once more looked out. He was about to sink down on the thwart,
when his eye fell on a white spot in the horizon. He gazed at it
without speaking; it might be only a sea-bird's wing. Again and again
he looked with straining eyes.

"A sail! a sail!" he exclaimed. His voice sounded hollow and strange;
he fancied some one else was speaking.

"Are you mocking us?" asked the mate.

"No, sir, I am certain it is a sail," answered Owen.

His voice aroused Nat and Mike, who turned round and looked over the
side. The mate, who just before appeared to have entirely lost his
strength, dragged himself up and took Owen's place at the mast.

With what sounded like an hysterical laugh, "Yes," he cried out, "a
sail! no doubt about it; she is bringing up a breeze, and standing this
way. We are saved! we are saved!"

He kept his post, grasping the mast tightly, and watching the
approaching sail. Owen returned to his seat, from whence he could well
observe the stranger. A long time must pass before she could be up to
them, and before then she might alter her course. They wore but a speck
on the water, and might be passed unperceived. Still the mate kept his
post, waving his hand and trying to shout out, as if at that distance he
could be either seen or heard. By his behaviour Owen thought he must
have lost his senses. Nat and Mike every now and then uttered strange
exclamations, showing that they were much in the same condition. The
stranger's royals had first been seen, then her topgallant sails, and
now the heads of her topsails appeared above the horizon. She was
evidently a large ship, and, as her courses came in sight, the mate
pronounced t