A fourth day broke, and found the boat almost becalmed again. The intense tedium of their captivity cannot be expressed by words. The eternal iteration of the water-line became a torment and a pang, and forced them to look into the boat or upon one another for relief of the strained and weary eye. Their limbs were cramped for want of space to stretch themselves. Holdsworth’s cheeks were sunk, and the hollows of his eyes dark; and a black beard and moustache, sprouting upon his chin and lip, gave him a gaunt and grizly look. The men sat with rounded backs and hopeless eyes, fixed downwards, and sinewy hands clasped upon their knees.

But the effect of the sufferings, bodily and mental, they were enduring, was most visible in the widow, whose face was scarcely recognisable for the wasted, aged, pallid, and heart-broken aspect that it presented.

When the little boy awoke he began to cry and complain of pains in his limbs and back. His mother seemed too weak to support or even soothe him with speech. Holdsworth took him upon his knee and talked to him cheerfully, that he might inspirit the others as well as himself.

“Louis, you are a little man; you must not cry, because it grieves your poor mamma, who cannot bear to see your tears. Your back aches because your bed has been a hard one; but you won’t have that uncomfortable bed long. Don’t you remember what the poor old General said: that God, whose eye is everywhere, sees us, and will pity us, and send a ship to our rescue if we will but have patience, and not murmur against Him. Many vessels have been wrecked as well as the ‘Meteor,’ and their crews taken to the boats, and rescued by passing ships, after they had suffered more anguish and misery than we can dream of. The fortune that befell them may befall us. We must put our whole trust in God, and watch the horizon narrowly. This is but our fourth day, and the very breeze that is now blowing may be gradually bearing us towards a ship. So no more tears, my man. Here is a biscuit for you. Give this one to your mamma. Here, Johnson—Winyard.”

He handed the men a biscuit apiece, and bade Johnson serve out the water.

There were three kegs in the boat, as stated elsewhere. They had calculated that by allowing each person half a pannikin of water a day, their stock would last them ten days. But now there were two mouths less, and they might hope to make the water serve them for as long as thirteen days. It would seem, however, that, in spite of the injunctions of Captain Steel, the boats had been provisioned hurriedly. Of biscuit, Holdsworth had an abundance; but nothing but negligence or haste could account for the absence of other provisions, such as rice, flour, beef and pork, dried peas, and such fare; unless, indeed, it was considered that none of these things would be eatable unless cooked. Though Holdsworth’s boat might not have fared the worst, it was manifest that the quantity of water that had been put into her was out of proportion with the biscuit that filled the locker. They had used the water in one of the larger kegs first, and Johnson, in measuring out the allowance, found that scarcely enough remained to fill the pannikin by a quarter. Holdsworth told him to pull the bung out of one of the other kegs, and when the little boy, who was first served, had emptied the pannikin, the next draught was handed to the widow. She raised it to her lips eagerly, her mouth being feverish; but had scarcely sipped it, when she put it down, exclaiming that the water was salt.

“Impossible!” cried Holdsworth quickly, and tasted the water.

The widow was right. The water was not indeed salt, but so brackish as to be quite unfit to drink.

He spat it out at once, his instincts cautioning him that he would increase his thirst by swallowing it, and looked blankly at the men.

“What! is it salt?” exclaimed Winyard furiously.

“Try the other keg,” said Holdsworth, throwing the contents of the pannikin away.

Johnson drew some of the water and tasted it, but also spat it out, as Holdsworth had done.

“Is that salt too?” shrieked Holdsworth.

“Try it!” answered Johnson grimly, coming aft with the pannikin.

That, too, like the other, was brackish and unfit to be drunk.

“Great God!” exclaimed Holdsworth, clasping his hands convulsively; “how could this have happened?”

“It was the steward as filled these kegs,” said Winyard. “I saw him myself pumping out o’ the starboard water cask, which the sea was washing over when the masts went, and draining the salt water in.” He added fiercely, “I’ll lay he took care to fill the kegs of the boat he belonged to with the right kind!”

“Hand that pannikin here,” said Holdsworth; and mixed some rum with the water and tasted it, but the dose was indescribably nauseous.

This discovery was a frightful blow; so overwhelming that it took their minds some minutes to realise it in its full extent.

They were now absolutely without a drop of fresh water in the boat; which fact was made the more terrible by the consideration that, up to the moment of discovery, they had believed themselves stocked with sufficient water to last them for another week at the very least.

They were appalled and subdued to images of stone by this last and worst addition to the series of heavy misfortunes that had befallen them.

Then Winyard, who was already tormented with thirst, for they had permitted themselves to drink no water during the night, began to blaspheme, rolling his eyes wildly and calling curses on the head of the steward for his murderous negligence. He terrified the boy into a passion of tears, which increased his fury, and he stood up and menaced the child with his outstretched fist.

“Sit down!” exclaimed Holdsworth, in a voice that fell like a blow upon the ear. “You are going mad some days too soon, you lubber! Do you hear me? Sit down!”

The man scowled at him, and then threw himself backwards into the bows of the boat.

“Will your shrieks and oaths give us water?” Holdsworth continued bitterly. “You are not more thirsty than I, nor this poor lady, from whom you have not heard one syllable of complaint since she was handed into the boat!”

He turned to her with a look of deep compassion.

“Try to sustain your courage under this awful trial,” he exclaimed. “Our position is not yet hopeless. There is no sea more largely navigated than the Atlantic, by vessels bound to all parts of the world, and I say it is almost inevitable that we should fall in with a ship soon.”

She forced a wan smile for answer, but did not speak; merely put her hand on her child’s shoulder and drew him to her.

As the morning advanced the heat of the sun increased, and the rays seemed to absorb the light breeze out of the atmosphere; the sea turned glassy, and by noon the boat was becalmed. Meanwhile, Winyard remained doggedly buried in the bows of the boat, sucking his dry lips, with despair legibly written upon his countenance. Johnson appeared to find relief by plunging his arm in the water and moistening his head and face. The very boat took a white, baked, thirsty aspect; and the heat made the paint upon her exhale in a faint and sickly smell.

When the afternoon was waning, Winyard got up and crept stealthily to the after-part of the boat. Holdsworth kept his eyes steadily upon him. His intention, however, was no more than to take up the pannikin, which he snatched at hastily, as though fearing that his purpose would be frustrated. He then hastened forward and filled the vessel from one of the kegs.

“Don’t drink it!” exclaimed Holdsworth; “it will increase your thirst.”

But the man, pointing to his throat, swallowed the briny draught hastily, then put the pannikin down with a sigh of relief and with a face cleared of something of its peculiar expression of pain.

Johnson seized the pannikin, meaning to follow Winyard’s example. Holdsworth entreated him to desist. “The salt will madden you!” he exclaimed. He had scarcely said this, when Winyard began to roll his body about, uttering short, sharp cries.

Immediately afterwards he vomited, his face turned slate colour, and they thought he would expire. Holdsworth drained some rum into his mouth, and poured sea-water from the pannikin in long streams over his head. This somewhat revived him; but he lay groaning and cursing, and clutching at the sides of the boat with his finger-nails for many minutes.

His sufferings frightened Johnson, who called out:

“Master, if the water in the kegs is poison, we should let it run away.”

“It is worse than poison,” replied Holdsworth. “Pull out the bungs—the sea-water around us is as wholesome to drink as that stuff.”

Johnson then turned the kegs over and let them drain themselves empty.

After this a silence fell upon the boat which lasted a full hour, when the boy said:

“Mamma, I am thirsty. Give me something to drink.”

It was shocking to hear the child’s complaint, and feel the impossibility of satisfying him. The mother started up with a wild gesture, and cried in a fierce whisper, that was thickened in its passage through her swollen throat:

“O my God! let us both die! End our misery now.”

Holdsworth watched her mutely.

Her appeal died away, and she sank back, exhausted by the sudden outbreak.

The sun went down and some clouds came up behind the horizon to receive the glowing disc. These spread themselves slowly over the heavens, albeit the sea remained breathlessly calm; and thinking that the wind was coming up that way, the poor sufferers turned their eyes wildly and eagerly towards the west, hoping with a desolate hope for the vessel that was to rescue them, but which no day brought.

When the night fell, Winyard began to sing in a strange husky voice; but his tones soon died out, and then came the small weak cry of, “Mamma, I am thirsty! give me some water!” from the little boy, wounding the ear with an edge of agony in the stillness and the gloom.

Presently a soft sigh of wind came from the west, which backed the sail. Holdsworth put the boat’s head round until the sail filled, and then hauled the sheet aft, meaning to lay close to the wind, that they might sooner encounter the ship that the wind was to bring. The air sank into a calm again; but another puff followed which made the water gurgle, and it was plain that a breeze was coming, by the clouds which were drifting eastwards. The wind freshened and then became steady, and the boat, bending to the weight of the full sail, stirred the water into fire, which flashed and vanished in her wake.

It mattered little which way Holdsworth steered the boat; but let him head her as he would, there was always the haunting sense upon him that he was speeding away from the ship that would rescue them; that by pointing yonder, or yonder, or yonder, a vessel would be encountered. The breeze and the movement of the boat revived Winyard, who lolled over on the lee side, finding relief in letting his hands trail through the water. The boy had ceased his complaints, and lay sleeping along the thwart, with his head on his mother’s knee. Johnson also slept.

The thirst that had tormented Holdsworth during the afternoon had now in some measure abated. There were four or five bottles of rum still left in the stern locker, and, hoping to hit upon some means to deal with the sufferings with which they were threatened by the absence of water, he soaked a piece of biscuit in the spirit and tasted it. But he at once perceived that no relief was to be obtained by this expedient, but that, on the contrary, the spirit would irritate the throat and increase the dryness. He threw the piece of biscuit away, and began to think over all the stories he had ever heard of men who had suffered from thirst in boats at sea, that he might recollect any one way they adopted for diminishing their torments. He had been shipmates with a man, in one of his earlier voyages, who, together with three other men, had been miraculously rescued by a vessel, after they had been at sea in an open boat exactly twenty-one days, during which they had drifted above seven hundred miles from the spot at which their ship had gone down. Holdsworth could only remember two of the expedients they resorted to when maddened with hunger and thirst: one was, tearing off pieces of their shirts and chewing them; the other, cutting wounds in their arms and sucking the blood. This last was a remedy from which he recoiled with horror; nor were his sufferings so great just then as to tempt him to try the other.

“Master!” called out Winyard, in a husky voice, “what longitude do you reckon we’re in?”

“We were in twenty-eight west when the ship went down, and I doubt if we are many miles distant from the same place.”

“Ain’t there no chance of our sighting a ship, master?”

“Yes, every chance.”

“I reckon the skipper has run the long-boat into the regular tracks by this time,” grumbled the man; “it’s cursed hard upon us that we should be left to die here like dogs.”

To this Holdsworth made no answer, and Winyard, after muttering awhile to himself, began to splash the water in his face by scooping it out with his hand. Then Johnson, in his sleep, called out for something to drink, on which Winyard, with an oath, answered, “Ay, you may call out! If calling ’ud bring it, I’d make noise enough, I’ll lay!”

The clouds overhead, though widely sundered one from another, were heavy, and Holdsworth constantly directed his weary eyes at them, praying for a shower of rain. At midnight, or thereabouts, Johnson was awakened, and came aft to relieve Holdsworth at the helm. The two men whispered together about Winyard, saying that he was not to be trusted with the management of the boat whilst the breeze held; and it was agreed that Holdsworth should replace Johnson at the expiration of two hours, by the watch, which Johnson took and put in his pocket. But before lying down, Holdsworth dipped the sail and put the boat around. Her head on the port tack was north-west and by north.

“Keep a sharp look-out to windward, Johnson, and call me at once if you sight anything,” said Holdsworth; then packed himself against the mast and fell into a doze.

When he was asleep, Winyard came out of the bows, and stepped to the stern-sheets and began to talk to Johnson. After awhile, he said he should like to see what quantity of biscuit they still had, and lifted the seat over the locker. Johnson, who suspected nothing, had his eyes fixed on the weather horizon; and Winyard, snatching at a bottle of rum, thrust it cunningly into his bosom, and hurried forward.

All this time the boy was sleeping; but it was impossible to tell whether his mother slumbered or not. She never once stirred. She sat on the weather side, close against Johnson. Her child’s head was upon her knee, and her hands were clasped upon his shoulder. She kept her face bowed, her chin upon her breast.

At two o’clock by the watch, Johnson called Holdsworth, who instantly sat upright, and before rising, bent his head under the foot of the sail to take a look to leeward. He had scarcely done this when he uttered a cry, and then fell dumb, pointing like a madman. Johnson leaned sideways, and saw the outline of a large ship, about a mile distant, running with the wind free on her starboard quarter.

“Put your helm up! Head for her!” gasped Holdsworth, springing aft; and then as the boat swept round, he jumped on to a thwart, and hollowing his hands, shouted, but his shout was feeble and hoarse; the constricted throat dulled and choked his voice. Johnson also shouted, but his voice was even weaker than Holdsworth’s.

“They will not leave us! they will not leave us!” shrieked Mrs. Tennent, rising suddenly and extending her hands towards the ship, which the movement of the boat’s rudder had brought on the starboard beam.

As she cried, Winyard stood up in the boat’s bows, reeling wildly, and mad with the drink he had abstracted. His gestures and fury were horrible to witness. His husky screeches sounded as the voice of one suffering indescribable torment. He brandished his arms towards the ship, which was drawing ahead rapidly, and in his drunken excitement leaped upon the gunwale of the boat, where he stood balancing himself, and tossing his clenched fists above his head. Just then the boat dipped and sank into the hollow of a swell; the drunken madman made a grab at the leach of the sail to steady himself—missed it—and went head backwards overboard.

Holdsworth bounded aft to catch him as he floated past; but he remained under water until the boat was some yards ahead; and then they could hear his bubbling cries and the splashing of his arms.

Holdsworth’s first instinct was to bring the boat round; but Johnson divined his intention, and twirling the yoke-lines furiously around his hands, cried:

“No! no! we can’t save him! he’ll have sunk before we can reach him! Let’s follow the ship—she may see us!” And he bawled “Ahoy! ahoy!” but his hoarse voice fainted in his throat.

Holdsworth grasped one of the yoke-lines, and there was a short struggle. The boat’s head yawed wildly. But by this time nothing was to be heard astern but the wash of the water as the boat sucked it into eddies.

Holdsworth let go the yoke-line, sprang forward and dipped the sail clear of the mast; crying that there were four lives to be saved, and it would be as bad as murder to stop the boat now.

The ship was distinctly visible on the port bow, every sail on her standing in a clean black outline against the sky. She showed no lights, and further than that she was a full-rigged ship, it was impossible to tell what she resembled. They watched her with wild despair, utterly powerless to attract her attention, and dependent upon the faint possibility of their glimmering sail being distinguishable on the black surface of the water. If the wind would only lull now, if such a calm as that which had held them motionless the day before would fall, their rescue was inevitable. But the light breeze remained steady, and the ship ahead slipped forward nimbly, and became soon a square shadow against the winking stars over the horizon.

How horrible to be abandoned for lack of means to make their presence known! Any kind of light would have served them.

The widow moaned and beat her breast as the vessel faded into the darkness; Johnson flung himself doggedly down, and sat resting his elbow on his knee, gnawing his finger-nails; whilst Holdsworth stood upright forward, gazing with wild, passionate, intense despair, in the direction of the ship long after she had vanished.

There could be little doubt that, had Johnson kept a proper look-out, he would have seen the ship in time to put his helm up, and run within easy hail of her. Holdsworth knew this, but would not increase the misery of their situation by useless reproaches.

The child, who had been awakened by their cries, now that silence had fallen began to ask eagerly and importunately for water, and even reproached his mother for not attending to him.

“I am hot—hot!” he petitioned. “Mamma, give me water.”

Once during his appeals she started up and glared about her, as if there must be some means of relieving his sufferings; and then crying, “I shall go mad!” fell back with a low, heart-broken sob, and spoke no more, though the child persisted in his entreaties for a long while. Finally he burst into tears, and after plucking at his throat for a time, sank into an uneasy slumber, in which he uttered low moaning cries repeatedly.

A stupor now fell upon Holdsworth—a species of drowsy indifference to his fate and to the fate of his companions. He had fallen wearily upon a thwart and sat with his back against the mast, and visions began to float before him, and his whole physical being seemed lapped into a dreamy insensibility, that subdued, whilst it lasted, that subtle agonising craving for water which, since he was awakened from his sleep, had tormented him with a pang more exquisite than any other form of human suffering. He fought with the dangerous listlessness for some time, terrified at without understanding its import; but in spite of him, his mind wandered, and he presently thought that Dolly was at his side; whereupon he addressed her, and seemed to receive her answers, and asked her questions in a low, strange voice, often smiling as though the light of her eyes were upon his face and his arm around her.

His language was audible and intelligible; but Johnson, with one of the yoke-lines over his knees, his head supported in his hands, paid no more heed to him than to the flapping of the sail as the boat sometimes broached to; which insensibility was as shocking as the other’s delirious chattering.