troublesome to light; but the very dampness made the smoke more dense, and ere long a tall column of dusky fumes was rising straight upward in the air. If darkness should come on before the brig was completely out of view, the flames, we hoped might still be visible. But the hours passed on; the fire died out; and yet no signs of help.
The temper of resignation now deserted me entirely; faith, hope, confidence—all vanished from my mind, and, like the boatswain, I swore long and loudly. A gentle hand was laid upon my arm, and turning round I saw Miss Herbey with her finger pointing to the sky. I could stand it no longer, but gliding underneath the tent I hid my face in my hands and wept aloud.
Meanwhile the brig had altered her track, and was moving slowly to the east. Three hours later and the keenest eye could not have discerned her top-sails above the horizon.
CHAPTER XLIV
THE DEPTHS OF DESPAIR
January 15.—After this further shattering of our excited hopes, death alone now stares us in the face; slow and lingering as that death may be, sooner or later it must inevitably come.
To-day some clouds that rose in the west have brought us a few puffs of wind; and in spite of our prostration, we appreciate the moderation, slight as it is, in the temperature. To my parched throat the air seemed a little less trying; but it is now seven days since the boatswain took his haul of fish, and during that period we had eaten nothing; even Andre Letourneur finished yesterday, the last morsel of the biscuit which his sorrowful and self-denying father had intrusted to my charge.
Jynxstrop, the negro, has broken loose from his confinement, but Curtis has taken no measures for putting him again under restraint. It is not to be apprehended that the miserable fellow and his accomplices, weakened as they are by their protracted fast, will attempt to do us any mischief now.
Some huge sharks made their appearance to-day, cleaving the water rapidly with their great black fins. The monsters
