Hardy stepped out and looked for the _York_. Had he looked for St. Paul's Cathedral he could not have seen less of it. The ship was not in sight and he fetched a deep breath, for either her crew had abandoned him and Julia to what sailors would know might prove a terrible death, or the ship's drift had been faster than he had allowed for. "She's not in sight," he shouted to Julia, then sprang into the main-shrouds, put his telescope over the rim of the top, and got into the top. She was not in sight from the top and he crawled as high as the cross-trees, and she was not in sight from that elevation. Nothing was in sight but the horizon, which wound eel-like to the flashing clasp of the sun upon it. He regained the deck and put the telescope down and sat beside Julia. "What shall we do?" she said, when he had given her the news. "We will breakfast," he answered. And forthwith he made biscuit sandwiches of the pork, of which there still remained a good lump, a godsend. There was nothing much to elate him in the sight of the boat still safely lashed to the deck; he feared the open boat in mid-ocean with few provisions, little water, and an everlasting menace of weather, for blow it will if it does not blow now, and what sort of a time would they have had afloat in that boat last night? Julia dredged her lover's face with her eyes but could not make out what was passing in his mind, because he himself did not know what was passing there. "We must husband our stores," said he, "and wait for something to sight us." Saying which he rose and stepped up a little ladder on to the top of the deck-house, directed by sailorly instincts to what he wanted, and there it was securely lashed to the iron stanchions of the low rail--a flag-locker. He opened it and took out the Red Ensign and carried it right aft, and bent it union down to the peak signal-halliards and hoisted it half-mast high, a signal of deep distress and death. Its rippling noise was pleasant, but the look of it was ghastly with its dumb appeal to a pitiless sea. Julia stood beside him and sank her clear gaze far into the recesses of the ocean, and saw the sea line working and nothing more. "Let's go and see if the galley has betrayed any secrets of food," said he. The sluggish roll of the brig was no hindrance to feet accustomed to the bounding deck. They found the galley murdered; it was split and shivered, but the coppers to the stroke of the sea that slung them had spewed out a big lump of beef and a bolster of duff--the sailors' pudding--composed of dark flour and slush with here and there a currant, but not always. Hardy pounced upon the food as the adjutant lights upon the floating Hindoo. "They left their dinner behind them," he said. "Good God! what a noble haul. Here is enough for a week with care." "Is it cooked?"