“It may be harder to abstain from food at first, when we have not suffered from its want, than it will become after a little endurance,” said the mate.  “We are now strong, and it will be wiser to fast as long as we conveniently can, to-day, and relieve our hunger by a moderate allowance toward evening, than to waste our means by too much indulgence at a time when we are strong.  Weakness will be sure to come if we remain long on the wreck.”

“Have you ever suffered in this way, Harry?” demanded Rose, with interest.

“I have, and that dreadfully.  But a merciful Providence came to my rescue then, and it may not fail me now.  The seaman is accustomed to carry his life in his hand, and to live on the edge of eternity.”

The truth of this was so apparent as to produce a thoughtful silence.  Anxious glances were cast around the horizon from time to time, in quest of any sail that might come in sight, but uselessly.  None appeared, and the day advanced without bringing the slightest prospect of relief.  Mulford could see, by the now almost sunken hummocks, that they were slowly drifting along the reef, toward the southward and eastward, a current no doubt acting slightly from the north-west.  Their proximity to the reef, however, was of no advantage, as the distance was still so great as to render any attempt to reach it, even on the part of the mate, unavailable.  Nor would he have been any better off could he have gained a spot on the rocks that was shallow enough to admit of his walking, since wading about in such a place would have been less desirable than to be floating where he was.

The want of water to drink threatened to be the great evil.  Of this, the party on the wreck had not a single drop!  As the warmth of the day was added to the feverish feeling produced by excitement, they all experienced thirst, though no one murmured.  So utterly without means of relieving this necessity did each person know them all to be, that no one spoke on the subject at all.  In fact, shipwreck never produced a more complete destitution of all the ordinary agents of helping themselves, in any form or manner, than was the case here.  So sudden and complete had been the disaster, that not a single article, beyond those on the persons of the sufferers, came even in view.  The masts, sails, rigging, spare spars, in a word, everything belonging to the vessel was submerged and hidden from their sight, with the exception of a portion of the vessel’s bottom, which might be forty feet in length, and some ten or fifteen in width, including that which was above water on both sides of the keel, though one only of these sides was available to the females, as a place to move about on.  Had Mulford only a boat-hook, he would have felt it a relief; for not only did the sharks increase in number, but they grew more audacious, swimming so near the wreck that, more than once, Mulford apprehended that some one of the boldest of them might