THE DELIVERANCE.

WHEN the sun rose on the twenty-seventh
day of our calamity, the first question that I
secretly asked myself was, How many more
mornings will the stoutest of us live to see?
I had kept count, ever since we took to the
boats, of the days of the week; and I knew
that we had now arrived at another Thursday.
Judging by my own sensations (and I
believe I had as much strength left as the
best man among us), I came to the conclusion
that, unless the mercy of Providence interposed
to effect our deliverance, not one of
our company could hope to see another morning
after the morning of Sunday.

Two discoveries that I made—after
redeeming my promise overnight, to serve out
with the morning whatever eatable thing I
could find—helped to confirm me in my
gloomy view of our future prospects. In the
first place, when the few coffee-berries left,
together with a small allowance of water,
had been shared all round, I found on
examining the lockers that not one grain
of provision remained, fore or aft, in any
part of the boat, and that our stock of
fresh water was reduced to not much more
than would fill a wine-bottle. In the
second place, after the berries had been
shared, and the water equally divided, I
noticed that the sustenance thus administered
produced no effect whatever, even of the
most momentary kind, in raising the spirits
of the passengers (excepting in one case) or in
rallying the strength of the crew. The
exception was Mr. Rarx. This tough and
greedy old sinner seemed to wake up from
the trance he had lain in so long, when the
smell of the berries and water was under his
nose. He swallowed his share with a gulp
that many a younger and better man in the
boat might have envied; and went maundering
on to himself afterwards, as if he had got
a new lease of life. He fancied now that he
was digging a gold mine, all by himself, and
going down bodily straight through the earth
at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour.
“Leave me alone,” says he, “leave me alone.
The lower I go, the richer I get. Down I
go!—down, down, down, down, till I burst
out at the other end of the world in a shower
of gold!” So he went on, kicking feebly with
his heels from time to time against the
bottom of the boat.

But, as for all the rest, it was a pitiful and
dreadful sight to see of how little use their
last shadow of a meal was to them. I myself
attended, before anybody else was served,
to the two poor women. Miss Coleshaw
shook her head faintly, and pointed to her
throat, when I offered her the few berries
that fell to her share. I made a shift to
crush them up fine and mix them with a
little water, and got her to swallow that
miserable drop of drink with the greatest
difficulty. When it was down there came no
change for the better over her face. Nor did
she recover, for so much as a moment, the
capacity to speak, even in a whisper. I next
tried Mrs. Atherfield. It was hard to wake
her out of the half-swooning, half-sleeping
condition in which she lay,—and harder still
to get her to open her lips when I put the
tincup to them. When I had at last prevailed
on her to swallow her allowance, she shut
her eyes again, and fell back into her old
position. I saw her lips moving; and, putting
my ear close to them, caught some of the
words she was murmuring to herself. She
was still dreaming of The Golden Lucy. She
and the child were walking somewhere by
the banks of a lake, at the time when the
buttercups are out. The Golden Lucy was
gathering the buttercups, and making herself
a watch-chain out of them, in imitation
of the chain that her mother wore. They
were carrying a little basket with them, and
were going to dine together in a great
hollow tree growing on the banks of the
lake. To get this pretty picture painted
on one’s mind as I got it, while listening
to the poor mother’s broken words, and
then to look up at the haggard faces of
the men in the boat, and at the wild ocean
rolling all round us, was such a change
from fancy to reality as it has fallen, I
hope, to few men’s lots to experience.

My next thought, when I had done my
best for the women, was for the Captain.
I was free to risk losing my own share of
water, if I pleased, so I tried, before tasting
it myself, to get a little between his lips;
but his teeth were fast clenched, and I had
neither strength nor skill to open them.
The faint warmth still remained, thank
God, over his heart—but, in all other
respects he lay beneath us like a dead man.
In covering him up again as comfortably as
I could, I found a bit of paper crunched in
one of his hands, and took it out. There
was some writing on it, but not a word
was readable. I supposed, poor fellow, that
he had been trying to write some last
instructions for me, just before he dropped
at his post. If they had been ever so easy
to read, they would have been of no use
now. To follow instructions we must have
had some power to shape the boat’s course
in a given direction—and this, which we
had been gradually losing for some days
past, we had now lost altogether.

I had hoped that the serving out of the
refreshment would have put a little modicum
of strength into the arms of the men at the
oars; but, as I have hinted, this hope turned
out to be perfectly fruitless. Our last
mockery of a meal, which had done nothing
for the passengers, did nothing either for the
crew—except to aggravate the pangs of
hunger in the men who were still strong
enough to feel them. While the weather