‘_That_ was chewed for thirst, sir,--for thirst, sir!’ exclaimed the seaman. ‘I suffered once, and bit upon a lump of lead to keep the saliva a-running.’ ‘Best not linger,’ said I. ‘Take a look forward, will you?’ He went towards the forecastle; I peered down the little companion way; it was as black as the inside of a well, with the water washing up the steps within reach of my arm. There could be nothing living down there, nor indeed in any other part of the wreck if not on deck, for she was full of water. The men in the boat astern were standing up in her with their heads bobbing together over the line of the taffrail to get a view of the figure, for it was seated on the starboard side, plain in their sight, all being clear to the companion; yet spite of that lump of whiskered mahogany faces, with Muffin’s yellow chops in the heart of it to make the whole group as commonplace as a sentence of his, never in all my time did so profound a sense of desolation and loneliness possess me as I stood bringing my eyes from the huge steeping plain of the sea to that human shape with its folded arms and its bowed head. Heavens, thought I, what scenes of human anguish have the ocean stars looked down upon! The flash past of the ghastly face in the hold beneath--that bit of gnawed leather, which even had you thought of a dog coming to such a thing would have made your heart sick--the famine in that bowed face where yet lay so fierce a twist of torment that the grin of it made the slumberous attitude a horrible sarcasm---- ‘Nothing to be seen, sir,’ exclaimed Cutbill, picking his way aft with the merchantman’s clumsy rolling step. I went in a hurry to the taffrail and dropped into the boat, he followed, and the fellow in the bow shoved off. Scarce, however, had the men dropped their oars into the rowlocks, each fellow drawing in his breath for the first stretch back, when a voice hailed us from the deck: ‘_For God’s sake don’t leave me!_’ ‘Oh!’ shrieked Muffin, springing to his feet and letting his oar slide overboard; ‘there’s someone alive on board!’ ‘Sit, you lubber!’ thundered the fellow behind him, fetching him a chip on the shoulder that brought him in a crash to his hams, whilst the man abaft picked up the oar. Every face wore an expression of consternation. Cutbill’s, that looked like a walnut-shell between his whiskers, turned of an ashen hue; he had stretched forth his arms to give the oar its first swing, and now they forked out paralysed into the stiffness of marline-spikes by astonishment. ‘Smite my eyes,’ he muttered as though whispering to himself, ‘if it ain’t the first dead man’s voice _I_ ever heard.’