The Last Cruise of the Spitfire Part 32

So we let the raft drift at will, trusting the wind was still blowing us toward the sh.o.r.e.

Slowly the night wore on, and at the first streak of dawn we were both in motion. It seemed a shame to rip up another part of the flooring to make a rudder. Yet there was no help for it. While doing so I noticed that the doors were unusually wet, but gave it no attention, thinking it had been caused by the raft dipping under when the vessel had struck us.

At last we began to get hungry, and Phil hauled some crackers from the provision box.

"They will make us mighty thirsty, and we haven't much water," he said.

"But I hadn't time to hunt up just the best things to take along."

We ate our crackers, and when we had finished them I turned to the cask to get some water. I pulled out the bung, and was horrified to discover that the cask was empty!

"The water's gone!" I gasped.

"What!"

"It's true; there isn't a drop in the cask!"

Phil was fully as much dismayed as I was. Alone on the broad Atlantic and not a drop to drink!

"We can't live without water," he cried.

"I know that. It is worse than being without food."

"Ten times over. Where has the water gone?"

We examined the cask carefully. At the bottom was a bunghole in which a bung had been placed; but either the riding of the raft or the shock had loosened the bung, and it had dropped out and allowed the water to run away to the last drop.

"We are done for now!" groaned Phil. "We can't stand it twenty-four hours without something to drink."

"Perhaps we'll have a change in luck before that," said I; but I had my doubts.

The hours that pa.s.sed after I made the discovery were terrible ones. We suffered intensely from thirst, and I was almost tempted to drink the salt water that surrounded us. Had I done so this tale would probably have never been written.

When the noonday sun shone down upon us we could not stand to be out in it. Phil crawled under the canvas, his eyes rolling strangely.

"Water! water! oh, give me water!" he cried.

I was startled. Was the poor boy going insane?

"Let me wet the canvas," I said. "It will make it cooler."

I did as I suggested, and the cabin boy declared it was much better than before. Then I coaxed him to try to sleep, and at last he fell into a troublesome doze.

Throwing more water on the canvas until it was sopping wet, I crawled in beside him.

But not to sleep. My mind was in a whirl, and I could not think clearly.

My mouth was parched, and my tongue so thick that when I tried to utter some words in reverie I could not, a thing that frightened me still more.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE DEEP BLUE SEA.

I lay several hours under the canvas, wondering how the adventure would end. At present things looked rather blue, and perhaps neither Phil nor I would live to tell the tale. At length, when I was about to give up in despair, a low rumble brought me to my feet instantly.

It was thunder!

"A storm! a storm!" I cried. "Pray G.o.d it brings us rain!"

My cries awoke Phil, and he pushed the canvas aside.

"What did you say?" he asked, feebly.

"There is a storm coming up," was my reply. "Hear the thunder?"

"What of it?"

"What of it? A storm means water, and water means something to drink!"

"Hooray! so it does!"

And the cabin boy jumped to his feet at once.

It is wonderful what life the prospect of rain put into us. Eagerly we watched the approach of the dark clouds that were fast bearing down upon us.

"We must fix the cask to hold water," I said, "and also the canvas."

"And we can fix the sail, too," added Phil. "We must catch as much as possible."

I put the bung back into the cask, hammering it in well. Then by the aid of the mast, rudder and boom, we hung the canvas so that every drop that might fall upon it would be caught and poured into the cask.

Hardly had we finished our preparations when the storm bore down upon us. The lightning was terrific, the thunder deafening, and the rain came down in a deluge.

We heeded not the storm. We drank our fill of the first water that entered the cask, and oh, how good it seemed! Many a time since I have drunk spring water of the purest and coolest, but nothing that could compare with that which Phil Jones and I caught on the canvas in the middle of the Atlantic.

Our thirst satisfied, we turned our attention to filling the cask. It was not long before we had it more than half full, and as the cask was a twenty-gallon one, this was not bad, and would last us quite some time.

Of course we had to pay considerable attention to the raft, which at times tossed and pitched in a fashion that made me sick all over, and rendered it necessary to hold on tightly to prevent being swept overboard.

For two hours the storm continued without showing any signs of abating.

By this time we were wet to the skin and shivering with the cold.

"Now we've got water, I wish it would clear off," remarked Phil, as he stood holding fast to the mast.

"So do I. It's no fun thinking that any moment we may be swept overboard."

"Hope the jolly-boat is out in it," he continued. "Captain Hannock deserves all the ducking a-going."