“Why will ye not come to our relaif?” she cried at the top of her voice.  “Here are we, helpless as new-born babies, and ye sailing away from us in a conthrary way!  D’ye not bethink you of the missus, who is much of a sailor, but not sich a one as to sail on a wrack; and poor Miss Rose, who is the char-rm and delight of all eyes.  Only come and take off Miss Rose, and lave the rest of us, if ye so likes; for it’s a sin and a shame to lave the likes of her to die in the midst of the ocean, as if she was no betther nor a fish.  Then it will be soon that we shall ag’in feel the want of wather, and that, too, with nothing but wather to be seen on all sides of us.”

“It is of no use,” said Harry, mournfully, stepping down from the keel, and laying aside the shawl.  “They cannot see us, and the distance is now so great as to render it certain they never will.  There is only one hope left.  We are evidently set to and fro by the tides, and it is possible that by keeping in or near this passage, some other craft may appear, and we be more fortunate.  The relief of the rain is a sign that we are not forgotten by Divine Providence, and with such a protector we ought not to despair.”

A gloomy and scanty breaking of the fast succeeded.  Each person had one large mouthful of bread, which was all that prudence would authorize Mulford to distribute.  He attempted a pious fraud, however, by placing his own allowance along with that of Rose’s, under the impression that her strength might not endure privation as well as his own.  But the tender solicitude of Rose was not to be thus deceived.  Judging of his wishes and motives by her own, she at once detected the deception, and insisted on retaining no more than her proper share.  When this distribution was completed, and the meagre allowance taken, only sufficient bread remained to make one more similar scanty meal, if meal a single mouthful could be termed.  As for the water, a want of which would be certain to be felt as soon as the sun obtained its noon-day power, the shawl was extended over it, in a way to prevent evaporation as much as possible, and at the same time to offer some resistance to the fluid’s being washed from its shallow receptacle by the motion of the wreck, which was sensibly increasing with the increase of the wind and waves.

Mulford had next an anxious duty to perform.  Throughout the whole of the preceding day he had seen the air escaping from the hull, in an incessant succession of small bubbles, which were formidable through their numbers, if not through their size.  The mate was aware that this unceasing loss of the buoyant property of the wreck, must eventually lead to their destruction, should no assistance come, and he had marked the floating line, on the bottom of the vessel with his knife, ere darkness set in, on the previous evening.  No sooner did his thoughts recur to this fact, after the excitement of the first hour of daylight was over, than he stepped to the different places thus marked,