Eight o'clock! breakfast time! and here were we three unfortunate men, keenly hungry, and our throats parched with a rapidly increasing thirst that threatened to quickly become a torment, without the smallest morsel of bread or the merest sip of water to divide between us, and with no hope of getting any either so long as the calm lasted--unless, indeed, we could find a ship by searching for her. Obviously this was the only thing to be done; so, not without a muttered curse or two at the cruelty of fortune, we rolled up the sails, unstepped the mast, threw out the oars, and headed the boat to the northward, in which direction we thought the brig might possibly be found. And, as we pulled, the two sharks doggedly followed us, swimming side by side, with their snouts about a fathom astern of the aftermost edge of the rudder, which distance they maintained as truly as though they had been in tow.
Noon arrived and passed, finding us still with nothing in sight, ravenously hungry, and with our mouths slimy with a thirst so imperious that the man who was pulling the bow oar suddenly stooped over the side, scooped up a little salt water in his palm, and quickly drank it, exclaiming in answer to my warning cry--
"I was _bound_ to do it, Mr. Burt, even if I has to suffer for it a'terwards. This here thirst is just maddenin'!"
"Ay, Joey, it _is_ that," agreed the other man. "Have your sup o' salt water done yer any good, mate?"
"No, I don't know as it have, Ned; I didn't take enough of it for that," was the reply.
No more was said; but about half-an-hour afterwards "Joey" snatched another sip, despite everything I could say to dissuade him; and a little later his mate followed his example.
"It's no good talkin', Mr. Burt," he replied to my expostulations; "drinkin' salt water _may_ perhaps make a man mad, but I shall pretty soon go mad if I _don't_ drink something, so what's the odds? And where's the brig; what's the 'old man' up to with her? why ain't he lookin' for us? He _ain't_ lookin' for us, that's sartin, or we should have hove the old hooker into view long afore this. Dash me if I don't begin to think as you're right, Mr. Burt, about his havin' give us up for lost, or else where is he? He ain't hereabouts nowheres, and so he _must_ be headin' for his port, leavin' us here to die o' hunger and thirst! It's murder, that's what it is; downright murder, and nothin' else! What right have he to go and suppose that this here boat foundered in the squall and drownded us? And what are we to do now, 'bandoned out here in the Hatlantic with never a bite nor a sup to keep the life in us?"