All our food was gone now, and only a very little water was left, which the captain, with an inflexible will, doled out in minute quantities. The weather was fair now, and we could sleep. Our thirst increased. We sucked our hands to start the spittle in our mouths. We wanted to drink sea water, knowing that it would hasten our end. The captain encouraged us: "Don't throw away your young lives. Look at me, an old man. I won't give up." On the sixth day, we decided to draw lots to determine which one should be sacrificed so the others might drink his blood. No one proposed a start of the drawing of lots, each afraid that he would draw the fatal number. The authority of the captain still preserved a remnant of drinking water to be doled out. Late in the afternoon, we defied him, seized the water, and drank the last drop. The next morning we sighted a steamer. We waved feebly, and she bore down upon us. At that moment our last strength left us. We were delirious with joy, but we could not move. We lay dumped in our boat. The ship, the Italian steamer _Maracaibo_, came alongside, and dropped rope ladders. We were as if asleep. The _Maracaibo_ had to get its cranes out and hoist us aboard like pieces of freight. Afterward, we were unable to remember how we had reached the steamer's deck. We slept for sixteen hours. When we awakened, all the doctor would give us was a little milk. Three of our men died. In New York, where we arrived the next day, they went ashore and gorged on ham and eggs. It killed them. I was taken to the German hospital. My leg was in such condition that at first they thought they would have to amputate it, but finally the head surgeon decided that he might be able to save it, and he did save it. After eight weeks I left the hospital and was ready to go to sea again. VII THE BEACH COMBERS ADVENTURE WITH THE _PANTHER_ The leg I had broken aboard the _Cæsarea_ was scarcely well knit when I broke the other leg. This was after I had shipped on the _Flying Fish_. But let me jump ahead a few years and tell you this tale exactly as I related it to the Emperor. That was after I had realized my boyhood ambition and become a lieutenant commander in the Imperial Navy. H. M. S. _Kaiser_ was one of the proudest ships of the German Navy. She was always kept spick and span. You can bet that she was shining now. His Majesty was aboard for a visit. We sat in the saloon after dinner, smoking, drinking, talking. For several days the Kaiser had amused himself by having me tell stories of my adventures before the mast. To-night the Emperor said to me: "Luckner, what was your worst experience?" I thought of the fight with the albatross, the scurvy and beri-beri aboard the _Pinmore_, the flogging at the rope's end aboard the _Cæsarea_, the three days in the dungeon in Chile, the setting of my broken leg with block and tackle, the plan to draw lots and see whose blood would be drunk in the drifting lifeboat.