By this time Tom was in convulsions.  He strained horribly, and we could do nothing to relieve his agony.  Brandy was given, but it did no good, and finally he lost consciousness.  Miss Sackett nursed him tenderly and did all she could to make him comfortable, but it was no use.

The horror of the thing fairly took my senses for a moment.  There we were, miles away from land, without water.  The villains had meant us to tell no tales.  All adrift in an open boat, with food and water poisoned, we had a small chance indeed of ever telling the story of the Sovereign’s loss.  Vessels were not plentiful at the high latitude we were in; and, as we were out of the trade, it was doubtful if we could even get into the track of the regular Cape route inside a week, to say nothing of being picked up.  It seemed as though Andrews’ villany would finish us yet.

Far away on the southern horizon, the single mast stuck up above the blue water like a black rod.  I stood up and gazed at it.  Chips appeared to read my thoughts, for he spoke out:—­

“‘Tis no use now, sir; the tanks would be a couple o’ fathoms deep, an’ we couldn’t get at them.  She won’t float more’n a day or two, anyhow, wid th’ afterdeck an’ cargo burnt free.  She’ll go under as soon as the oil’s washed out wid a sea, and that’ll be th’ last av a bad ship.”

I saw that the carpenter was right.  There was no water for either Andrews or ourselves, and it would be foolish to go back to force the tank.

“Heave the stuff overboard,” I said, and Johnson and Jenks raised the barrel upon the rail.  It poured out clear into the blue ocean, and showed no sign of its deadly character.

“Break out that barrel of ship’s bread,” said Chips.

It was found to be moistened with water all through, and as even the little poison I had drunk made me horribly nauseated, there was no thought of tasting the stuff.  Over the side it went, floating high in the boat’s wake.  Then came the beef.

“Hold on with that,” said Miss Sackett.  “It isn’t likely they’d poison everything.  I don’t remember there being over several pounds of that mercury in the medicine chest, and you know it won’t dissolve readily in water.  They must have had something to dissolve it in first, and it would have taken too long to fill everything full of the stuff.”

“Who cares to taste the beef?” I asked.

“Give me a piece, sir,” said Johnson.

He put it in his mouth and chewed slowly upon it at first, as though not quite certain whether to swallow it or not.  Finally he mustered courage and made away with a portion of it, waiting some minutes to see if it produced pain.  It was apparently all right, and then he swallowed the rest.  We concluded to keep the beef and eat it as a last resort.

The breeze freshened in the southeast, and we ran along steadily.  If it held, we could make about a hundred miles a day, and raise the African coast within a week.  There was a chance, if we could stand the strain.