"Lucky Lobu!" said Jack to himself, thinking of the slow, suffering death from thirst which probably awaited them. "Now, Jim," he continued aloud, "you've got to turn in. It's your watch below." "We'll all be on watch below soon, I suppose," said the boy slowly, in a low tone. "Me tink rain to-mollah!" suddenly put in Tari. The Kanaka knew well that the sky never looked more settled and less like rain, but with kindly nature he tried to instil hope. Broncho, sitting in the stern, looked at the Marquesan and slowly lowered his left eyelid. "You bet Tari's right. I sorter feels somehow as if we're goin' to have a regular deluge. These here tropical downfalls is that swift an' powerful, they're liable to swamp the boat a whole lot," he remarked, with the quiver of a smile. Jim lay back on the blankets, but his nerves had been too shaken for sleep; and, as Jack watched the boy's wide-open, feverish eyes, staring vacantly at the brilliant lamps of heaven, he shook his head sadly. Then, determined to prevent the boy from pondering on their gloomy future, he began to relate the story of the heavens in a low, husky voice; and so successful was he with his old legends, that for the greater part of the night he had Jim and Broncho listening with eager attention, wholly oblivious of their desperate position as they searched the skies for a particular constellation, and then drank in Jack's half-forgotten classic yarns. The sun rose, a great red ball, into the unhealthy blue of the heavens, and found the castaways nearer their end. All through that baking day Jim rambled in the realms of fancy, speaking so thickly in his sufferings that the disjointed, wandering sentences could not be understood. Tari lay motionless and resigned. Jack and Broncho conversed occasionally upon their position with slow, difficult words. Though a certain amount of salt junk and hard-tack still remained, Jack did not attempt to serve it out, as suffering from thirst as they were, it would have been impossible to swallow any solid. Towards sundown, after a long silence during which even the babbled mutterings of the poor boy had been inaudible, Broncho, lying in the bottom of the boat, croaked out to Jack, who sat stubborn and erect in the sternsheets, his emaciated hand still gripping the useless steering-oar: "Say, old son, the deal's near finished. Jim's about through, an' I'm feelin' pretty near the '_Adios!_' myself. I guess our last chip will be raked in before maunin'. So long, if my senses jump the track an' go stampedin' off in the night." "Die hard, Broncho!" was all the other replied, but he shut a pair of swollen lips with a snap of determination, and his eyes shone with the bravery of his spirit. Then, letting go of the steering-oar, he took the sheath-knife from his belt, and slowly cut a notch in the stock of his revolver, which was still slung at his hip as he had hurriedly slipped it on when leaving the barque.