of dead fowls imparted ballast to my little craft.

Yet I could not look at them in all these hours; or I could look, but
that was all. So I must sit up one hour more, and keep a sharper eye
than ever for the tiniest glimmer of a sail. To what end, I often
asked myself? I might see them; they would never see me.

Then my eyes would fail, and "you squeamish fool!" I said at
intervals, until my tongue failed to articulate; it had swollen
so in my mouth. Flying fish skimmed the water like thick spray;
petrels were so few that I could count them; another shark swam
round me for an hour. In sudden panic I dashed my knuckles on
the wooden bars, to get at a duck to give the monster for a sop.
My knuckles bled. I held them to my mouth. My cleaving tongue
wanted more. The duck went to the shark; a few minutes more and
I had made my own vile meal as well.




CHAPTER V

MY REWARD


The sun declined; my shadow broadened on die waters; and now I felt
that if my cockle-shell could live a little longer, why, so could I.

I had got at the fowls without further hurt. Some of the bars took
out, I discovered how. And now very carefully I got my legs in, and