three weeks, in fact ever since the uncovering of the _Vishnu_, not
a single drop of rain had fallen. The sun shone with intense heat, and
the evaporation was great. The wind at first tempered this heat
somewhat, but at last this ceased to blow by day, and often for hours
there was a dead calm, in which the water of the sea lay unruffled and
all the air was motionless.

If there could only have been something which he could stretch over that
precious pool of water he might then have arrested its flight. But he
had nothing, and could contrive nothing. Every day saw a perceptible
decrease in its volume, and at last it went down so low that he thought
he could count the number of days that were left him to live. But his
despair could not stay the operation of the laws of nature, and he
watched the decrease of that water as one watches the failing breath of
a dying child.

Many weeks passed, and the water of the pool still diminished. At last
it had sunk so low that Brandon could not hope to live more than another
week unless rain came, and that now he could scarcely expect. The look-
out became more hopeless, and at length his thoughts, instead of turning
toward escape, were occupied with deliberating whether he would probably
die of starvation or simple physical exhaustion. He began to enter into
that state of mind which he had read in Despard's MSS., in which life
ceases to be a matter of desire, and the only wish left is to die as
quickly and as painlessly as possible.

At length one day as his eyes swept the waters mechanically out of pure
habit, and not expecting any thing, he saw far away to the northeast
something which looked like a sail. He watched it for an hour before he
fairly decided that it was not some mocking cloud. But at the end of