Chapter 37 - Page 2

"tell me the plain truth."

"My dear fellow, I am not a doctor, you know," I began, "and I
can scarcely judge--"

"Never mind," he interrupted, "tell me just what you think."

I looked at him attentively for some moments, then laid my ear
against his chest. In the last few days his malady had made
fearfully rapid strides, and it was only too evident that one
lung had already ceased to act, whilst the other was scarcely
capable of performing the work of respiration. The young man was
now suffering from the fever which is the sure symptom of the
approaching end in all tuberculous complaints.

The lieutenant kept his eye fixed upon me with a look of eager
inquiry. I knew not what to say, and sought to evade his
question.

"My dear,boy," I said, "in our present circumstances not one of
us can tell how long he has to live. Not one of us knows what
may happen in the course of the next eight days."

"The next eight days," he murmured, as he looked eagerly into my
face.

And then, turning away his head, he seemed to fall into a sort of
doze.

The 24th, 25th, and 26th passed without any alteration in our
circumstances, and strange, nay, incredible as it may sound, we
began to get accustomed to our condition of starvation. Often,
when reading the histories of shipwrecks, I have suspected the
accounts to be greatly exaggerated; but now I fully realize their
truth, and marvel when I find on how little nutriment it is
possible to exist for so long a time. To our daily half-pound of
biscuit the captain has thought to add a few drops of brandy, and
the stimulant helps considerably to sustain our strength. If we
had the same provisions for two months, or even for one, there
might be room for hope; but our supplies diminish rapidly, and
the time is fast approaching when of food and drink there will be
none.

The sea had furnished us with food once, and, difficult as the
task of fishing had now become, at all hazards the attempt must
be made again. Accordingly the carpenter and the boatswain set
to work and made lines out of some untwisted hemp, to which they
fixed some nails that they pulled out of the flooring of the
raft, and bent into proper shape. The boatswain regarded his
device with evident satisfaction.

"I don't mean to say," said he to me, "that these nails are
first-rate fish-hooks; but one thing I do know, and that is, with
proper bait they will act as well as the best. But this biscuit
is no good at all. Let me but just get hold of one fish, and I
shall know fast enough how to use it to catch some more."

And the true difficulty was how to catch the first fish. It was
evident that fish were not abundant in these waters,