parched with rowing, and there's a woman on board!"

The fellow in the bow of the long-boat, as if someone had
suddenly struck him, broke into a tornado of blasphemy.

"Give us some," came the mate's voice, "or, by God, we'll lay you
aboard!"

Before the words were well spoken the men in the quarter-boat
carried the threat into action. The conflict was brief: the
quarter-boat was too crowded for fighting. The starboard men in
the long-boat fought with their oars, whilst the fellows to port
steadied the boat.

The fight did not last long, and presently the quarter-boat
sheered off, half of the men in her cut about the head and
bleeding--two of them senseless.

* * * * *

It was sundown on the following day. The long-boat lay adrift. The
last drop of water had been served out eight hours before.

The quarter-boat, like a horrible phantom, had been haunting and
pursuing her all day, begging for water when there was none. It
was like the prayers one might expect to hear in hell.

The men in the long-boat, gloomy and morose, weighed down with
a sense of crime, tortured by thirst, and tormented by the voices
imploring for water, lay on their oars when the other boat tried