with old ordnance making coarse and rusty streaks upon the sand, the glitter of minted money, the gleam of jewels, and fish brightly apparelled and of shapes unknown to man floating round about like fragments of rainbow. My dreams always wound up with imaginations of babbling drinks, and then I'd wake with the froth upon my lips. However, I got some ease by leaving my handkerchief to soak in the dew and then sucking it. Several times during the night I had got on to the upper poop--the deck above the poop anciently termed the poop-royal--and looked around me. But there was nothing to see, not a shadow to catch the eye. The breeze freshened somewhat about midnight, and the air was made pleasant by the musical noises of running waters. I fell asleep an hour before dawn, and when I awoke the early ashen line was brightening in the east. The birth of the day is rapid in those parallels, and the light of the morning was soon all over sea and sky. I turned to search the ocean, and the first thing I saw was a brig not above half a mile from the island. She had studding sails set, and was going north, creeping along before the breeze. The instant I saw her I rushed on to the poop, where my figure would be best seen, and fell to flourishing my handkerchief like a maniac. I sought to shout, but my voice was even weaker than it had been after I fell overboard. I have no power to describe my feelings while I waited to see what the brig would do. I cursed myself for not having kept a lookout, so that I might have had plenty of time to signal to her as she approached. If she abandoned me I knew I must perish, as every instant assured me that I had neither mental nor physical power to undergo another day and night without drink and without hope upon the island. On a sudden she hauled up the lee clew of her mainsail, boom-ended her studding sails, and put her helm over. I knew what this signified, and, clasping my hands, I looked up to God. Presently a boat was lowered and pulled toward the island. I dropped over the side, tumbling down upon my nose in my weakness, and made with trembling legs to the beach, standing, in my eagerness, in the very curl of the wash there. There were three men in the boat, and they eyed me, as they rowed, over their shoulders as if I had been a spectre. "Who are you, mate, and what country is this?" exclaimed the man who pulled stroke, standing up to stretch his hand to me. I pointed to my throat, and gasped, "Water!" I could barely articulate. Nothing in this wide world moves sailors like a cry to them for water. In an instant the three men had dragged me into the boat, and were straining like horses at their oars, as they sent the boat flashing through the rippling water. We dashed alongside. "He's dying of thirst!" was the cry. I was bundled on deck; the captain ran below, and returned with a small draught of wine and water. "Start with that," said he. "You'll be fitter for a longer pull later on."