Yet the dread was strong upon me, as I looked around upon the wrecks among which the _Wasp_ was bedded, that I might not only be unable to find the _Hurst Castle_ again, but ever to find my way across that tangle to the outer edges of it--where only was it possible that ships on which were provisions fit for eating would be found. The very fact that the _Wasp_ had settled into her position more than fourscore years back made it certain that she was deep in the labyrinth; and the strange old-fashioned look of the craft surrounding her showed me that I should have to go far before finding a vessel wrecked in recent times. But these disheartening thoughts I crushed down as well as I could, yet not making much of it; and as trying to go back by the way that I had come to the _Wasp_ would not serve any good purpose--even supposing that I could have managed it, which was not likely--I went on beyond her on a new course: taking a longish jump from her quarter-rail and landing on the deck of a clumsy little ill-shapen brig, with a high-built square stern and a high-built bow that was pretty nearly square too. She was Dutch, I fancy, and a merchant vessel; but she carried a little battery of brass six-pounders, and had also a half dozen pederaros set along her rail. And by her carrying these old-fashioned swivel-guns--which proved that she had got her armament not much later than the middle of the last century--and by the general look of her, I knew that she was an older vessel even than the _Wasp_. This observation, and the reflection growing out of it that the deeper I went into the Sargasso Sea the older must be the craft bedded in it--since that great dead fleet is recruited constantly by new wrecks drifting in upon its outer edges from all ways seaward--put into my head what seemed to me to be a very reasonable plan for finding my way back to the _Hurst Castle_ again; or, at least, to some other newly come in hulk on which there would be fresh water and sound food. And this was to shape my course by considering attentively the look of each wreck that I came aboard of, and the look of those surrounding it, and by then going forward to whichever one of them seemed to be of the most modern build. As the first step in carrying out my plan--and it seemed to be such a good plan that I felt almost light-hearted over it--I got up on the rail of the old brig and jumped back to the less-old _Wasp_ again: landing in her main-channels, and thence easily boarding her by scrambling up what was left of the chains. But in taking my next step I had no choice in the matter, as only one other vessel was in touch with the sloop--a heavily-built little schooner that had the look of being quite as old as the brig which I had just left. And her age was so evident as I came aboard of her--having crossed the deck of the _Wasp_ hastily, picking my way among the scattered bones--that of a sudden my faith in my fine plan for getting out of the tangle began to wane.