We must get the Long-boat within
hailing distance of us, as soon as possible."
I dropped down into my old place at the tiller without another word--for
the thought went through me like a knife that something had happened to
Captain Ravender. I should consider myself unworthy to write another
line of this statement, if I had not made up my mind to speak the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth--and I must, therefore,
confess plainly that now, for the first time, my heart sank within me.
This weakness on my part was produced in some degree, as I take it, by
the exhausting effects of previous anxiety and grief.
Our provisions--if I may give that name to what we had left--were reduced
to the rind of one lemon and about a couple of handsfull of
coffee-berries. Besides these great distresses, caused by the death, the
danger, and the suffering among my crew and passengers, I had had a
little distress of my own to shake me still more, in the death of the
child whom I had got to be very fond of on the voyage out--so fond that I
was secretly a little jealous of her being taken in the Long-boat instead
of mine when the ship foundered.
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