Morley had read very recently the "Paul Huet" of Eugene Sue, and the more true story on which his romance is founded--the awful wreck of the _Medusa_, French frigate, and thus the horrors which her crew endured upon the raft came vividly and painfully before him now.
The saline property of the atmosphere, their long and repeated immersions in the ocean, the quantities of its water they had been compelled to swallow when the drenching waves broke over them, soon excited thirst. This longing was increased by heat, when the sun came forth; but as yet they had no desire for food.
All their energies were bent on watching the horizon around them, but no sail appeared; so the wreck continued to float listlessly about, without making way apparently in any direction.
A boat they might have rowed in the direction of the Cape of Good Hope, and though they might have failed to reach the coast, while minus food and water, they would always have increased their chances of being picked up by a passing ship, homeward or outward bound; but on the wreck they were helpless, as if upon a desert rock fixed amid the sea.
The first day passed slowly, wearily on, and the sun verged westward in his course.
Now night descended on the sea. There was no moon, but the stars shone clearly and sharply.
Worn by emotion, by toil, suffering, and lack of sleep, they trusted to the security of their lashings, and strove to find rest, or oblivion, in slumber; but a half-wakeful doze was all they could achieve. Each body lay, to all appearance, torpid; but the anxious soul slept not, so each had his own keen active thoughts and dreams.
Tom Bartelot conjured up a certain pretty little English face, whose smiling blue eyes were associated with many a summer evening walk among the sylvan scenery of Richmond Park, in the gardens of Kew, and visits to Hampton Court.
Morrison's heart was in his old mother's cottage, where he first saw the light, by the broad waters of the Dee, that roll from the hills of Crathie and Braemar in "the bonnie north country;" for he had intended, at the close of another voyage, to go home to Scotland, with all his earnings and wages, to spend them with her, and for her only; but all that seemed hopeless now, though the hum of the sea in his ears, as it rippled against the wreck, suggested the surf that in boyhood he had seen breaking over the Black Dog of Belhelvie.
*