All that day I pressed forward steadily, helped by my little flickering flame of hope--which burned low because sanguine expectation does not consort well with an empty stomach, yet which kept alive because the wreck-pack had more and more of a modern look about it as I went on. But the faintness that I felt coming over me as the day waned gave me warning that the rope by which I held my life was a short one; and as the sun dropped down into the mist--at once thinning it, so that I could see farther, and giving it a ruddy tone which sent red streams of brightness gleaming over the tangle of wreckage far down into the west--I felt that the rope must come to an end altogether, and that I must stop still and let death overtake me, by the sunset of one day more. And then it was, just as the sun was sinking, that I saw clearly--far away to the westward--the funnel of a steamer standing out black and sharp against the blood-red ball that in another minute went down into the sea. And with that glimpse--which made me sure that I was close to the edge of the wreck-pack, and so close to food again--a strong warm rush of hope swept through me that outcast finally my despair. XXIX I GET INTO A SEA CHARNEL-HOUSE That I should get to the steamer that night I knew was clean impossible, for she lay a long way off from me, and that I had seen her funnel at all was due to the mere happy accident of its standing for that single minute directly between me and the setting sun. I did hope, though, that by pressing hard toward her I might fetch aboard of some vessel not long wrecked on which I would find eatable food; yet in this I was disappointed, the shadows coming down on me so fast that I was forced in a little while to pull up short--stopping while still a little daylight remained so that I might stow myself the more comfortably for the night. As to looking for provender on the little old ship that I settled to camp on, I knew that it was useless. From her build I fixed her as belonging to the beginning of the present century, and from her depth in the wreck-pack she probably had met her death-storm not less than threescore years before; and so what provisions she had carried long since had wasted away. Yet there was a chance that I might find some spirits aboard of her--which would be a poor substitute for food, but better than nothing--and I hurried to have a look in her cabin before darkness settled down.