In an instant the mate had opened a breaker, and filled the tin pot which is almost always to be found in a boat. Biddy said no more, but her eyes pleaded so eloquently, that Rose begged the faithful creature might have the first drink. One eager swallow went down, and then a cry of disappointment succeeded. The water was salt, and had been put in the breaker for ballast. The other breaker was tried with the same success. “It is terrible to be without one drop of water,” murmured Rose, “and this food makes it more necessary than ever.” “Patience, patience, dearest Rose—patience for ten minutes, and you shall all drink,” answered the mate, filling the sail and keeping the boat away while speaking. “There is water, God be praised, on the rock to which I first swam, and we will secure it before another day’s sun help to make it evaporate.” This announcement quieted the longings of those who endured a thirst which disappointment rendered doubly hard to bear; and away the boat glided toward the rock. As he now flew over the distance, lessened more than one-half by the drift of the wreck, Mulford recalled the scene through which he had so painfully passed the previous night. As often happens, he shuddered at the recollection of things which, at the moment, a desperate resolution had enabled him to encounter with firmness. Still, he thought nothing less than the ardent desire to save Rose could have carried him through the trial with the success which attended his struggles. The dear being at his side asked a few explanations of what had passed; and she bowed her head and wept, equally with pain and delight, as imagination pictured to her the situation of her betrothed, amid that waste of water, with his fearful companions, and all in the hours of deep night. But that was over now. There was the rock—the blessed rock on which Mulford had so accidentally struck, close before them—and presently they were all on it. The mate took the pot and ran to the little reservoir, returning with a sweet draught for each of the party. “A blessed, blessed thing, is wather!” exclaimed Biddy, this time finding the relief she sought, “and a thousand blessings on _you_, Mr. Mulford, who have niver done us any thing but good.” Rose looked a still higher eulogy on the young man, and even Mrs. Budd had something commendatory and grateful to say. Jack Tier was silent, but he had all his eyes about him, as he now proved. “We’ve all on us been so much taken up with our own affairs,” remarked the steward’s assistant, “that we’ve taken but little notice of the neighborhood. If that isn’t the brig. Mr. Mulford, running through this very passage, with stun’sails set, alow and aloft, I don’t know the Molly Swash when I see her!” “The brig!” exclaimed the mate, recollecting the vessels he had seen at the break-of-day, for the first time in hours. “Can it be possible that the craft I made out to the southward, is the brig?”