It was an empty sense of superstition, but it influenced them and cheered them on through the long, sunny, scorching days as they bent to their oars and toiled on; and in the evenings, when, taking advantage of the soft breezes, the little sails were spread, and they crept on ever north and east in the hope of gaining the course of one of the vessels going south or west. But the days stole slowly by, and no sail gladdened their sight, and at last, as the water grew low in the little breakers and the provisions threatened to become exhausted, Dutch felt his heart sink, and told himself with a bitter smile that they had not yet worn out the power of the curse, if curse there were. After long days of rowing, in which every man in the boats took part in urging them up the sides of the long rollers and then down their hill-like descent, the feeling of weary lassitude made itself more and more felt. They suffered, too, from their cramped position in the boats, but no one murmured. Even Rasp and Oakum ceased to wrangle, and the former pursed up his wrinkled mouth and followed the example of Oakum in whistling for a favouring wind. At times the breeze would come, and, the sails filling, the boats sped onwards, but the few miles they made before the wind again dropped seemed as nothing in the immensity of the watery space around, and at last, half-delirious with the heat, after being reduced to a few drops of warm water each day, the sun went down like a great globe of fire, and Dutch Pugh felt that the time had come when they must die. A re-arrangement of the occupants of the boat had long been made, so that both Dutch and Meldon were by those they loved, and now it seemed that the nuptial bed of the latter would be that of death. Hope seemed long before to have fled upon her bright wings, leaving only black despair to brood over them like the eternal night. Hardly a word was spoken in either boat, and once more the rope had been passed from one to the other so that their desolate state might not become more desolate by parting company during the night.