JANUARY 15.—After this further shattering of our excited hopes, death alone now stares us in the face; slow and lingering as that death may be, sooner or later it must inevitably¹ come.
 
To-day some clouds that rose in the west have brought us a few puffs² of wind; and in spite of our prostration³, we appreciate the moderation, slight as it is, in the temperature. To my parched⁴ throat the air seemed a little less trying; but it is now seven days since the boatswain took his haul of fish, and during that period we had eaten nothing; even Andre Letourneur finished yesterday, the last morsel⁵ of the biscuit which his sorrowful and self-denying father had intrusted to my charge.
 
Jynxstrop, the negro, has broken loose from his confinement⁶, but Curtis has taken no measures for putting him again under restraint. It is not to be apprehended⁷ that the miserable⁸ fellow and his accomplices⁹, weakened as they are by their protracted¹⁰ fast, will attempt to do us any mischief¹¹ now.
 
Some huge sharks made their appearance to-day, cleaving¹² the water rapidly with their great black fins¹³. The monsters came up close to the edge of the raft, and Flaypole, who was leaning over, narrowly escaped having his arm snapped off by one of them. I could not help regarding them as living sepulchers¹⁴, which ere long might swallow up our miserable carcasses; yet, withal, I profess¹⁵ that my feelings were those of fascination¹⁶ rather than horror.
 
The boatswain, who stood with clenched¹⁷ teeth and dilated¹⁸ eye, regarded these sharks from quite another point of view. He thought about devouring¹⁹ the sharks, not about the sharks devouring him; and if he could succeed in catching²⁰ one, I doubt if one of us would reject the tough and untempting flesh. He determined²¹ to make the attempt, and as he had no whirl which he could fasten to his rope he set to work to find something that might serve as a substitute. Curtis and Dowlas were consulted, and after a short conversation, during which they kept throwing bits of rope and spars into the water in order to entice²² the sharks to remain by the raft, Dowlas went and fetched his carpenter's tool, which is at once a hatchet²³ and a hammer. Of this he proposed to make the whirl of which they were in need, under the hope that either the sharp edge of the adze or the pointed²⁴ extremity²⁵ opposite would stick firmly into the jaws²⁷ of any shark that might swallow it. The wooden handle of the hammer was secured to the rope, which, in its turn was tightly fastened to the raft.
 
With eager, almost breathless, excitement we stood watching the preparations, at the same time using every means in our power to attract the attention of the sharks. As soon as the whirl was ready the boatswain began to think about bait, and, talking rapidly to himself, ransacked²⁸ every corner of the raft, as though he expected to find some dead body coming opportunely²⁹ to sight. But his search ended in nothing; and the only plan that suggested itself was again to have recourse to Miss Herbey's red shawl, of which a fragment was wrapped around the head of the hammer. After testing the strength of his line, and reassuring³⁰ himself that it was fastened firmly both to the hammer and to the raft, the boat............