Life on the Raft.
 
To awake “all at sea”—in other words, ignorant of one’s locality—is a rather common experience, but to awaken both at and in the sea, in a similar state of oblivion, is not so common.
 
It was the fortune of Robin Wright to do so on the first morning after the day of the wreck.
 
At first, when he opened his eyes, he fancied, from the sound of water in his ears, that it must have come on to rain very heavily, but, being regardless of rain, he tried to fall asleep again. Then he felt as if there must be a leak in his berth somewhere, he was so wet; but, being sleepy, he shut his eyes, and tried to shut his senses against moisture. Not succeeding, he resolved to turn on his other side, but experienced a strange resistance to that effort. Waxing testy, he wrenched himself round, and in so doing kicked out somewhat impatiently. This, of course, woke him up to the real state of the case. It also awoke Slagg, who received the kick on his shins. He, delivering a cry of pain straight into Sam Shipton’s ear, caused that youth to fling out his fist, which fell on Stumps’s nose, and thus in rapid succession were the sleepers roused effectually to a full sense of their condition.
 
“It’s cold,” remarked Stumps, with chattering teeth.
 
“You should be thankful that you’re alive to feel the cold, you ungrateful creetur,” said Slagg.
 
“I am thankful, Jim,” returned the other humbly, as he sought to undo the rope that held him fast; “but you know a feller can scarcely express thanks or—or—otherwise half asleep, an’ his teeth goin’ like a pair o’ nut-crackers.”
 
“The wind is evidently down,” remarked Sam, who had already undone his lashings. “Here, Robin, help me to untie this corner of the sail. I had no idea that sleeping with one’s side in a pool of water would make one so cold and stiff.”
 
“If it had bin a pool, Mr Shipton,” said Slagg, “it wouldn’t have made you cold; ’cause why? you’d have made it warm. But it was the sea washin’ out and in fresh that kep’ the temperater low—d’ee see?”
 
“What a cargo o’ rheumatiz we’ve been a-layin’ in this night for old age,” said Stumps ruefully, as he rubbed his left shoulder.
 
Throwing off the sail, Sam stood up and looked round, while an exclamation of surprise and pleasure broke from him. The contrast between the night and morning was more than usually striking. Not only had darkness vanished and the wind gone down, but there was a dead calm which had changed the sea into a sheet of undulating glass, and the sun had just risen, flooding the sky with rosy light, and tipping the summit of each swell with gleaming gold. The gentle, noiseless heaving of the long swell, so far from breaking the rest of nature, rather deepened it by suggesting the soft breathings of slumber. There were a few gulls floating each on its own image, as if asleep, and one great albatross soared slowly in the bright sky, as if acting the part of sentinel over the resting sea.
 
“How glorious!” exclaimed Robin, as, with flashing eyes, he gazed round the scarce perceptible horizon.
 
“How hard to believe,” said Sam, in a low voice, “that we may have been brought here to die.”
 
“But surely you do not think our case so desperate?” said Robin.
 
“I hope it is not, but it may be so.”
 
“God forbid,” responded Robin earnestly.
 
As he spoke his arm pressed the little bible which he had rescued from the wreck. Thrusting his hand into his bosom he drew it out.
 
“Darling mother!” he said, “when she gave me this she told me to consult it daily, but especially in times of trouble or danger. I’ll look into it now, Sam.”
 
He opened the book, and, selecting the verse that first met his eye, read: “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them and carried them all the days of old.”
 
“That’s a grand word for us, isn’t it?—from Isaiah,” said Robin.
 
“Well, what do you make of it?” asked Sam, whose religious education had not been attended to as well as that of his friend.
 
“That our God is full of love, and pity, and sympathy, so that we have nothing to fear,” said Robin.
 
“But surely you can’t regard that as a message to us when you know that you turned to it by mere chance,” said Sam.
 
“I do regard it as a special message to us,” returned Robin with decision.
 
“And what if you had turned up an entirely unsuitable or inapplicable verse?” said Sam.
 
“Then I should have concluded that God had no special message for us just now, but left us to that general comfort and instruction contained throughout the whole word. When, however, special comfort is sought and found, it seems to me ungrateful to refuse it.”
 
“But I don’t refuse it, Robin,” returned Sam; “I merely doubt whether it is sent to us or not.”
 
“Why, Sam, all the bible was sent to us for comfort and instruction.”
 
“True—true. I have not thought much on that subject, Robin, but I’ll try to believe at present that you are right, for we stand much in need of strong hope at all events. Here we are, none of us knows how far from the nearest land, with little food and less water, on a thing that the first stiff breeze may knock to pieces, without shelter and without compass!”
 
“Without shelter and compass, Mr Shipton!” said Jim Slagg, who had hitherto listened in si............