"Those two oranges, with some biscuit, served us for breakfast, and after that, except the remainder of the wine and some rum, we hadn't a drop of liquid to drink. The sea was as calm and the sun as hot as the day before, and we all soon became fearfully thirsty. Unable to bear it longer I again went below to have another search for water. I looked into every locker; I hunted through the hold, and examined every hole and corner in the forepeak, but to no purpose. I discovered, however, what made me more uneasy than ever--that the water was leaking in through the deck. It came in very slowly, but I had marked a line when I was down before, and I found since then that it had risen nearly half an inch. I couldn't hide from myself that the vessel was sinking. I said nothing about it to the young gentlemen when, having shut the hatch, I climbed back to my place. It went to my heart to hear them still joking and laughing, in spite of their hunger and thirst, when I thought that in two or three days at furthest their merry voices would be silenced by death. They didn't keep up their joking long, for as the sun got higher the heat became greater, and roasted out their spirits, as it were, poor fellows, in spite of what each one in turn did to keep them up. Spider was the only one of the party who was as merry as ever, for the heat didn't hurt him, and he kept frisking about to the end of his chain, trying, when he thought he was not watched, to get at the basket to see if there were any more oranges or any other fruit to his taste in it. "`Well, Needham, don't you think matters will mend soon?' says Mr Rogers to me, seeing that I had been sitting silent and downcast for a long time. `We surely shall have a breeze before the evening, and some craft or other coming to look for us.' For the life of me I couldn't say `yes.' I shook my head--I was beginning to lose all hope. At noon Mr Rogers served out half a glass of wine to each of us and some biscuit. This put a little more life into me, and I again took to thinking whether we could form a raft with the bulkheads and lining of the cabin, which we might tear away by main strength, and the two empty water-casks, and the hatches, and the gaff and boom. The job would be to lash them together; for though we might stand on the bulwarks which were under water, there would be no small danger of being carried off by the sharks swarming round us. At all events, if the craft was to sink, as I made no doubt she would, we should have a struggle for life, instead of going down with her and being eaten up by the sharks. It cost me a good deal to say it, but at last I told the young gentlemen that I was sure the vessel wouldn't float much longer, and what I proposed doing.