The sailors loosed the small boat and pushed it outward from the Silver Queen. It fell astern, the black water widened between. The ship, mad to get on, to put distance between her and the curse, flung out what sail the tempest would let her carry. It made but a slight pinion, but yet wing enough to take her from that speck upon the ocean, the boat she had set adrift.... Not she had set adrift, but Ignorance, Fear and Superstition, their compound, Cruelty, and their blind Prætorian, Brute Use of Brute Force. There had been one pale ray of something else. Master Evans had insisted that there be put in the boat a small cask of water and a portion of ship’s bread. The Silver Queen hurried, hurried over the wild and heaving sea, beneath a low sky as grey as iron. The many gazing still lost at last all sight of the open boat. It faded into the moving air, or it was drawn into the sea, they knew not which. But it was gone, and they made bold to hope that now God would cease to plague them. CHAPTER XXVI THE OPEN BOAT THAT day and night they in the open boat merely lived to die. With each wave of a sea yet in storm Death overhung them, the foam atop gleaming down like a white skull. The boat rode that wave, and then Death rose on another. There seemed naught to do in life but to meet Death—a little candle left to go forth by. Death preoccupied them—it was so wide and massive, it came against them in such tourney shocks. “Now ... No!—Then now....” But still the boat lived and the candle burned. When the dawn broke the waves were seen to be lessening in might. That day the sea went down and the sky cleared. Sea and sky turned a marvel of blue, Indian, wondrous. There was a wind, steadily and quietly blowing, but it served them not who had no sail. All around—all around the intense sea spread to the horizon, and no sail showed and no land. The sun mounted and for all the moving air they felt its heat which increased. Heat and light—light—light.... The cask of water.... They found beside it a small drinking-cup of horn, and they agreed that each should drink this once filled each day. It was little, but so they might keep Death at bay so many days. They also portioned out the ship’s bread. Likewise they watched for a sail. They were now in seas where ships might be looked for; west and south must lie the islands held by Spain. Once two sea-birds flew past them, and that would mean that land was not inconceivably far away. But they saw no land, and no sail was etched against the sapphire sky. Loneliness profound, and heat and light....