I then sang out to him,
so as all might hear, that if we two boats could live or die together, we
would; but, that if we should be parted by the weather, and join company
no more, they should have our prayers and blessings, and we asked for
theirs. We then gave them three cheers, which they returned, and I saw
the men's heads droop in both boats as they fell to their oars again.
These arrangements had occupied the general attention advantageously for
all, though (as I expressed in the last sentence) they ended in a
sorrowful feeling. I now said a few words to my fellow-voyagers on the
subject of the small stock of food on which our lives depended if they
were preserved from the great deep, and on the rigid necessity of our
eking it out in the most frugal manner. One and all replied that
whatever allowance I thought best to lay down should be strictly kept to.
We made a pair of scales out of a thin scrap of iron-plating and some
twine, and I got together for weights such of the heaviest buttons among
us as I calculated made up some fraction over two ounces.
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