Having
eked out the pork until the fourth day, we commenced on the
cat--fortunately large and in good condition--a mouthful of which, with
some water, furnished our daily allowance.
Sickness and debility had now made such ravages among us all, that
although we had a tolerable stock of water, we found great difficulty in
procuring it. We had hitherto, in rotation, taken our turn to fill a
small beaker at the cask, wedged in among the cargo of deals; but now,
scarcely able to keep our feet along the planks, and still less so to
haul the vessel up to the top, we were in danger of even this resource
being cut off from us. In this manner, incredible as it may seem, we
managed to keep body and soul together till the eleventh day; our only
sustenance, the pork, the cat, water, and the bark of some young birch
trees, which latter, in searching for a keg of tamarinds, which we had
hoped to find, we had latterly come athwart.
On the twelfth morning, at daybreak, the hailing of some one from the
deck electrified us all. Supposing, as we had missed none of our
shipmates from the top, that it must be some boat or vessel, we all
eagerly made a movement to answer our supposed deliverers, and such was
our excitement that it well nigh upset what little reason we had left.
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