that they were forced to throw overboard almost all the merchandise, a part of the ballast, and even several barrels of water.  This last sacrifice was an appalling one:  it was with a solemn feeling they made it, similar to that with which one hears the earth fall upon a coffin, or gives to the departed one the ocean for its tomb.  Indeed, these casks of water carried with them the lives of many individuals, who had now no escape from a cruel death by thirst.  Desclieux, impressed, like the others, with this idea, only thought of his precious coffee-plant.  However, they were not very far from port, and, with a favourable wind, might get in in a few days; and in effect the tempest being over, and the leak closed with great difficulty, a fresh breeze sprang up, and for a day and a night they sailed fast, and the stormy state of the atmosphere had produced on the coffee-plant the usual effect.  It might almost have been said to have flourished the more for the tempest.  Louisa and Desclieux contemplated it with a sweet joy, as at once the emblem and the omen of domestic happiness amid the storms of life.  But, alas! the wind suddenly lulled—­not the least breath to fill the sails, not a wave broke against the motionless vessel:  an awful calm succeeded; and what is more terrible upon this scene of continual agitation than a calm unwonted and too often fatal?  The dead heat of the tropics was felt in all its power by the helpless voyagers; they languished and fainted with a continual thirst; and, horrible to relate, the water was failing, for they had thrown so much overboard, that they were limited to a very small allowance—­a cupful at most.

If men, notwithstanding their energies, sunk under the sufferings caused by the intense heat and burning thirst, what must have been the state of the poor little plant which faded away before the eye!  It had its allowance also, but it was not enough; and every morning and evening Desclieux gave it his, only for which it would have died.  Louisa was astonished to see the feeble plant yet bearing up; but Desclieux carefully concealed from her the means he was using, lest she also would deprive herself of water for it, and that he did not wish—­he preferred suffering alone; and a long sojourn in the hottest parts of Arabia had in a great measure inured him to the climate, so that he did not feel it so much as others.  The calm was uninterrupted, the remainder of the water was nearly exhausted, their situation was become dreadful, and there was no hope, in their case, of any relief from another vessel, for all were alike becalmed; and it was sad to see the ocean without a sail in the horizon, or, if there was one, it too was motionless.  Their ration of water was now reduced to one small liqueur glass.  One drop only, just to moisten his lips, and Desclieux poured the rest on the plant, now apparently dying.

‘Alas! how you are changed!’ said Louisa to him one day:  ’how pale you have become.  You are suffering:  this heat is killing you.’