Could I have put it anywhere else? I thought not; and yet, to make sure, I felt all over the bottom of my cell, and among the folds and wrinkles of the cloth, and even in the pockets both of my jacket and trousers. I felt in my buskins too, for these were not upon my feet, as I no longer needed them, but lying idle in a corner. I left not an inch of the place that I did not examine--and minutely too--yet still no half biscuit could be found! I looked carefully for it, not so much on account of its value; but that its disappearance from the shelf was something rather strange--stranger still that I could nowhere lay my hand upon it. _Had I eaten it_? I began to fancy that I had done so. Perhaps, during a period of absent-mindedness, I might have swallowed it up, without ever thinking of what I was doing. Certainly, I had no remembrance of having tasted food since I ate its counterpart--the other half; and if I had eaten it also, it must have done me very little good. I had neither enjoyed the meal, nor yet did my stomach appear to have received much benefit from it, since I was just as hungry as if I had not tasted food that day. I recollected perfectly having placed it alongside the knife and cup; and how could it part from the place, unless it had been taken away by my own hand? I could not have thrown it accidentally from the little shelf, for I did not remember making a movement in that direction. But even so, it would still have been somewhere about me? It could not get underneath the butt, for the crevice there was closed up, regularly caulked with pieces of the cloth. I had done this for the purpose of making a level surface to rest upon. Certainly the half biscuit was not to be found. It was gone--whether down my throat or in some other way, I could not decide--but if the former, I thought to myself, what a pity I had eaten it without knowing what I was about, for certainly my absence of mind had deprived me of all enjoyment of the meal. I wavered for a long while, as to whether I should take another biscuit out of the box, or go to bed supperless. But the dread of the future decided me to abstain; and, summoning all my resolution, I drank off the cold water, placed my cup upon the shelf, and laid myself down for the night. CHAPTER THIRTY SIX. AN UGLY INTRUDER. For a long while I did not sleep, but lay thinking over the mysterious disappearance of the half biscuit. I say _mysterious_, for I was more than half convinced that I had _not_ eaten it, but that it had gone in some other way; though how, I could not even guess, since I was perfectly alone, the only living thing, as I supposed, in that vessel's hold which could have touched it. Ah! now I thought of my dream--of the crab! Perhaps, after all, there might have been a crab?--and though it was but a dream that I was drowned, yet the rest might be true enough, and a crab might actually have crawled over me? It might have eaten the biscuit?