“My friend, I will give you your book,” (a volume of Rev. Mr. Coleman’s sermons). “It is the only thing of yours that is in my possession. I dare not attempt anything more. _Never mind, I may see you again before I die._” There were eleven prisoners in all, without arms, and to sustain life only a ten-gallon keg of water, part of a barrel of flour, one ham, and a little salt fish, not forgetting the precious volume of Mr. Coleman’s sermons. They were carried to a tiny key, or islet, no more than a shoal of white sand an acre in extent and barely lifted above high tide, forty miles off the Cuban coast and well out of the track of vessels. No wonder that Captain Lincoln was moved to ejaculate: “Look at us now, my friends, left benighted on a little spot of sand in the midst of the ocean, with every appearance of a violent thunder tempest and a boisterous night. Judge of my feelings and the circumstances which our band of sufferers now witnessed. Perhaps you can, and have pitied us. I assure you we were very wretched, and to depict the scene is beyond my power.” They found a fragment of a thatched hut built by turtle fishermen, but now whipped bare by the winds, and it served as a slight shelter from the burning sun. Fire they kindled by means of a piece of cotton-wick yarn and a flint and steel. They dug holes for fresh water, but it was too salty to drink. At bedtime the captain read aloud selections from the Rev. Mr. Brooks’s Family Prayer-Book, and they slept in the sand when the scorpions, centipedes, lizards, and mosquitoes permitted. Of driftwood, palmetto logs, and bits of board they fashioned a little raft and so explored the key nearest them. There they discovered some shooks, planks, and pieces of spar which had been in the _Exertion’s_ deck-load and were thrown overboard when she grounded on the bar. With the amazing handiness of good seamen they proceeded to build a boat of this pitiful material. “Some of the Spaniards had secreted their long knives in their trouserlegs, which proved very useful in fitting timbers, and a gimblet of mine enabled us to use wooden pins,” explains Captain Lincoln. “And now our spirits began to revive, although _water_, _water_ was continually in our minds. Our labor was extremely burdensome, and the Spaniards considerably peevish, but they would often say to me, ‘Never mind, Captain, bye-and-bye Americans or Spanish catch ’em and we go see ’em hung.’” David Warren, the cook of the _Exertion_, had been ailing, and the cruel ordeal of being marooned was too much for him. The captain perceived that he was soon to leave them and suggested, as they sat by the fire: “I think it most likely that we shall die here soon, David, but as some one of us may survive to carry the tidings to our friends, if you have anything to say respecting your family, now is the time.”