having such a terrific idea to dwell upon in secret, might not magnify it
until it got to have an awful attraction about it. This was not a new
thought of mine, for it had grown out of my reading. However, it came
over me stronger than it had ever done before--as it had reason for
doing--in the boat, and on the fourth day I decided that I would bring
out into the light that unformed fear which must have been more or less
darkly in every brain among us. Therefore, as a means of beguiling the
time and inspiring hope, I gave them the best summary in my power of
Bligh's voyage of more than three thousand miles, in an open boat, after
the Mutiny of the Bounty, and of the wonderful preservation of that
boat's crew. They listened throughout with great interest, and I
concluded by telling them, that, in my opinion, the happiest circumstance
in the whole narrative was, that Bligh, who was no delicate man either,
had solemnly placed it on record therein that he was sure and certain
that under no conceivable circumstances whatever would that emaciated
party, who had gone through all the pains of famine, have preyed on one
another. I cannot describe the visible relief which this spread through
the boat, and how the tears stood in every eye. From that time I was as
well convinced as Bligh himself that there was no danger, and that this
phantom, at any rate, did not haunt us.

Now, it was a part of Bligh's experience that when the people in his boat
were most cast down, nothing did them so much good as hearing a story
told by one of their number. When I mentioned that, I saw that it struck
the general attention as much as it did my own, for I had not thought of
it until I came to it in my summary. This was on the day after Mrs.
Atherfield first sang to us. I proposed that, whenever the weather would
permit, we should have a story two hours after dinner (I always issued
the allowance I have mentioned at one o'clock, and called it by that
name), as well as our song at sunset. The proposal was received with a
cheerful satisfaction that warmed my heart within me; and I do not say
too much when I say that those two periods in the four-and-twenty hours
were expected with positive pleasure, and were really enjoyed by all
hands. Spectres as we soon were in our bodily wasting, our imaginations
did not perish like the gross flesh upon our bones. Music and Adventure,
two of the great gifts of Providence to mankind, could charm us lon