Then their choice fell upon Michael Morgan. The other sailors' names were Prince, Fenner and Mackintosh. Mr. Hazel urged Morgan to put the crew and passengers on short allowance at once, viz., two biscuits a day, and four tablespoonfuls of water. But Morgan was a common sailor; he could not see clearly very far ahead; and, moreover, his own appetite counteracted this advice; he dealt out a pound of biscuit and an ounce of ham to each person, night and morning, and a pint of water in course of the day. Mr. Hazel declined his share of the ham, and begged Miss Rolleston so earnestly not to touch it, that she yielded a silent compliance. On the fourth day the sailors were all in good spirits, though the provisions were now very low. They even sang and spun yarns. This was partly owing to the beauty of the weather. On the fifth day Morgan announced that he could only serve out one biscuit per day. And this sudden decline caused some dissatisfaction and alarm. Next day the water ran so low that only a teaspoonful was served out night and morning. There were murmurs and forebodings. In all heavy trials and extremities some man or other reveals great qualities, that were latent in him, ay, hidden from himself. And this general observation was verified on the present occasion, as it had been in the Indian mutiny and many other crises. Hazel came out. He encouraged the men out of his multifarious stores of learning. He related at length stories of wrecks and sufferings at sea; which, though they had long been in print, were most of them new to these poor fellows. He told them, among the rest, what the men of the _Bona Dea,_ waterlogged at sea, had suffered--twelve days without any food but a rat and a kitten--yet had all survived. He gave them some details of the _Wager,_ the _Grosvenor,_ the _Corbin,_ the _Medusa;_ but, above all, a most minute account of the _Bounty,_ and Bligh's wonderful voyage in an open boat, short of provisions. He moralized on this, And showed his fellow-sufferers it was discipline and self-denial from the first that had enabled those hungry specters to survive, and to traverse two thousand eight hundred miles of water, in those very seas; and that in spite of hunger, thirst, disease and rough weather. By these means he diverted their minds in some degree from their own calamity, and taught them the lesson they most needed. The poor fellows listened with more interest than you could have thought possible under the pressure of bodily distress. And Helen Rolleston's hazel eye dwelled on the narrator with unceasing wonder. Yes, learning and fortitude, strengthened by those great examples learning furnishes, maintained a superiority, even in the middle of the Pacific; and not the rough sailors only, but the lady who had rejected and scorned his love, hung upon the brave student's words. She was compelled to look up with wonder to the man she had hated and despised in her hours of ease.