The Castaways | Page 2

all, or rather
after knowing that, in the struggle with starvation, youth always proves
itself superior to age, and tender childhood will live on where manhood
gives way to the weakness of inanition.
That Captain Redwood is himself one of the strongest of the survivors
may be due partly to the fact of his having a higher organism than that
of his ship-comrades. But, no doubt, he is also sustained by the
presence of the two children, his affection for them and fear for their
fate warding off despair, and so strengthening within him the principle
of vitality.
If affection has aught to do with preserving life, it is strong enough in
the Irishman to account also for the preservation of his; for although
but the carpenter in Captain Redwood's ship, he regards the captain
with a feeling almost fraternal. He had been one of his oldest and
steadiest hands, and long service has led to a fast friendship between
him and his old skipper.

On the part of the Irishman, this feeling is extended to the youthful
couple who recline, with clasped hands, along the sternmost seat of the
pinnace.
As for the Malay, thirst and hunger have also made their marks upon
him; but not as with those of Occidental race. It may be that his bronze
skin does not show so plainly the pallor of suffering; but, at all events,
he still looks lithe and life-like, supple and sinewy, as if he could yet
take a spell at the oar, and keep alive as long as skin and bone held
together. If all are destined to die in that open boat, he will certainly be
the last. He with the hollow eyes looks as if he would be the first.
Down upon this wretched group, a picture of misery itself, shines the
hot sun of the tropics; around it, far as eye could reach, extends the
calm sea, glassed, and glancing back his lays, as though they were
reflected from a sheet of liquid fire; beneath them gleams a second
firmament through the pellucid water, a sky peopled with strange forms
that are not birds: more like are they to dragons; for among them can be
seen the horrid form of the devil-fish, and the still more hideous figure
of the hammer-headed shark. And alone is that boat above them,
seemingly suspended in the air, and only separated from these dreadful
monsters by a few feet of clear water, through which they can dart with
the speed of electricity. Alone, with no land in sight, no ship or sail, no
other boat--nothing that can give them a hope.
All bright above, around, and beneath; but within their hearts only
darkness and the dread of death!
CHAPTER TWO.
THE HAMMER-HEAD.
For some time the castaways had been seated in moody silence, now
and then glancing at the corpse in the bottom of the boat, some of them
no doubt thinking how long it might be before they themselves would
occupy the same situation.
But now and then, also, their looks were turned upon one another, not

hopefully, but with a mechanical effort of despair.
In one of these occasional glances, Captain Redwood noticed the
unnatural glare in the eyes of the surviving sailor, as also did the
Irishman. Simultaneously were both struck with it, and a significant
look was exchanged between them.
For a period of over twenty hours this man had been behaving oddly;
and they had conceived something more than a suspicion of his insanity.
The death of the sailor lying at the bottom of the boat, now the ninth,
had rendered him for a time more tranquil, and he sat quiet on his seat,
with elbows resting on his knees, his cheeks held between the palms of
his hands. But the wild stare in his eyes seemed to have become only
more intensified as he kept them fixed upon the corpse of his comrade.
It was a look worse than wild; it had in it the expression of craving.
On perceiving it, and after a moment spent in reflection, the captain
made a sign to the ship-carpenter, at the same time saying,--
"Murtagh, it's no use our keeping the body any longer in the boat. Let
us give it such burial as the sea vouchsafes to a sailor,--and a true one
he was."
He spoke these words quietly, and in a low tone, as if not intending
them to be heard by the suspected maniac.
"A thrue sailor!" rejoined the Irishman. "Truth ye're roight there, captin.
Och, now! to think he's the ninth of them we've throwed overboard, all
the crew of the owld ship, exceptin' our three selves, widout countin'
the Malay an' the childer. If it wasn't that yer honour's still left, I'd say
the