Chapter 45 - Page 2

renovating moisture. The
parched and swollen glands relaxed, I breathed afresh, and my
whole being seemed revived with a strange and requickened life.

The rain lasted about twenty minutes, when the cloud, still only
half exhausted, passed quite away from over us.

We grasped each other's hands as we rose from the platform on
which we had been lying, and mutual congratulations, mingled with
gratitude, poured forth from our long silent lips. Hope, however
evanescent it might be, for the moment had returned, and we
yielded to the expectation that, ere long, other and more
abundant clouds might come and replenish our store.

The next consideration was how to preserve and economize what
little had been collected by the barrel, or imbibed by the
outspread sails. It was found that only a few pints of rain-
water had fallen into the barrel to this small quantity the
sailors were about to add what they could by wringing out the
saturated sails, when Curtis made them desist from their
intention.

"Stop, stop!" he said, "we must wait a moment; we must see
whether this water from the sails is drinkable."

I looked at him in amazement. Why should not this be as
drinkable as the other? He squeezed a few drops out of one of
the folds of a sail into the tin pot, and put it to his lips. To
my surprise, he rejected it immediately, and upon tasting it for
myself I found it not merely brackish, but briny as the sea
itself. The fact was that the canvas had been so long exposed to
the action of the waves, that it had become thoroughly
impregnated by salt, which of course was taken up again by the
water that fell upon it. Disappointed we were; but with several
pints of water in our possession, we were not only contented for
the present, but sanguine in our prospect for the future.