He was right. When I reflected I was quite sure I should not, in my exhausted state, be able to handle one of the big oars for even five minutes at a stretch; and admitting that I _had_ been strong enough to row for a couple of hours, yet the result to have been obtained could not have been important enough to justify the serious labour. The steward all this time sat perfectly quiet in the bottom of the boat, with his back against the mast. He paid no attention to us when we spoke, nor looked around him, though sometimes he would fix his eyes vacantly on the sky as if his shattered mind found relief in contemplating the void. I was heartily glad to find him quiet, though I took care to watch him, for it was difficult to tell whether his imbecility was not counterfeited by his madness, to throw us off our guard, and furnish him with an opportunity to play us and himself some deadly trick. As some hours had elapsed since we had tasted food, I opened a tin of meat and prepared a meal. The boatswain ate heartily, and so did the steward; but I could not prevail upon Mary to take more than a biscuit and some sherry and water. Indeed, as the evening approached, our position affected her more deeply, and very often, after she had cast her eyes towards the horizon, I would see her lips whispering a prayer, and feel her hand tightening on mine. The ship still floated, but she was so low in the water that I every minute expected to see her vanish. The water was above her main-chains, and I could only attribute her obstinacy in not sinking to the great quantity of wood--both in cases and goods--which composed her cargo. The sun was now quite close to the horizon, branding the ocean with a purple glare, but itself descending into a cloudless sky. I cannot express how majestic and wonderful the great orb looked to us who were almost level with the water. Its disc seemed vaster than I had ever before seen it, and there was something sublimely solemn in the loneliness of its descent. All the sky about it, and far to the south and north, was changed into the colour of gold by its lustre; and over our heads the heavens were an exquisite tender green, which melted in the east into a dark blue. I was telling Mary that ere the sun sank again we might be on board a ship, and whispering any words of encouragement and hope to her, when I was startled by the boatswain crying, "Now she's gone! Look at her!" I turned my eyes towards the ship, and could scarcely credit my senses when I found that her hull had vanished, and that nothing was to be seen of her but her spars, which were all aslant sternwards.