I slept two or three hours, towards morning, overcome will fatigue.  When I awoke, it was in consequence of receiving the sun’s rays in my face.  Springing to my feet, I cast a confused and hurried glance around me.  The wind was still at north-east, but it barely blew a good whole-sail breeze.  The sea had gone down, to the regular roll of the ocean; and a finer day never shone upon the Atlantic.  I hurried eagerly on deck, and gazed on the ocean to leeward, with longing eyes, to ascertain if anything could be seen of the wreck of our spars.  Nothing was visible.  From the main-top, I could command a pretty wide horizon; but the ocean lay a bright, glittering blank, the crests of its own waves excepted.  I felt certain the Dawn was so weatherly, that the spars were to leeward; but the ship must have forged miles ahead, during the last twelve hours; and there was almost the equal certainty of her being a long distance to the southward of the floating hamper, her head having lain in that direction since the time she broached-to.  To get her off before the wind, then, was my first concern, after which I could endeavour to force her to the northward, running the chance of falling in with the spars.  Could I find my mate, we might still die together, which would hove been a melancholy consolation just then.

Chapter XXII.

  Father of all!  In every age,
  In every clime, adored;
  By saint, by savage, or by sage—­
  Jehovah!  Jove! or Lord!

  Pope.

Feeling the necessity of possessing all my strength I ate a breakfast before I commenced work.  It was with a heavy heart, and but little appetite, that I took this solitary meal; but I felt that its effects were good.  When finished, I knelt on the deck, and prayed to God, fervently, asking his divine assistance in my extremity.  Why should an old man, whose race is nearly run, hesitate to own, that in the pride of his youth and strength, he was made to feel how insufficient we all are for our wants?  Yes, I prayed; and I hope in a fitting spirit, for I felt that this spiritual sustenance did me even more good than the material of which I had just before partaken.  When I rose from my knees, it was with a sense of hope, that I endeavoured to suppress a little, as both unreasonable and dangerous.  Perhaps the spirit of my sainted sister was permitted to look down on me, in that awful strait, and to offer up its own pure petitions in behalf of a brother she had so warmly loved.  I began to feel myself less alone, and the work advanced the better from this mysterious sort of consciousness of the presence of the souls of those who had felt an interest in me, while in the body.