I should not, however, omit to mention that the frequent conferences held amongst the sailors, especially between Owen, Burke, Flaypole, Wilson, and Jynxstrop, the negro, aroused some uneasy suspicions in my mind.

What was the subject of their conversation I could not discover, for they became silent immediately that a passenger or one of the officers approached them.
When I mentioned the matter to Curtis I found he had already noticed these secret interviews, and that they had given him enough concern to make him determined to keep a strict eye upon Jynxstrop and Owen, who, rascals as they were themselves, were evidently trying to disaffect their mates.
On the 19th the heat was again excessive.

The sky was cloudless, and as there was not enough wind to fill the sail the raft lay motionless upon the surface of the water.

Some of the sailors found a transient alleviation for their thirst by plunging into the sea, but as we were fully aware that the water all round was infested with sharks, none of us was rash enough to follow their example, though if, as seems likely, we remain long becalmed, we shall probably in time overcome our fears, and feel constrained to indulge ourselves with a bath.
The health of Lieutenant Walter continues to cause us grave anxiety, the young man being weakened by attacks of intermittent fever.

Except for the loss of the medicine-chest we might have temporarily reduced this by quinine; but it is only too evident that the poor fellow is consumptive, and that that hopeless malady is making ravages upon him that no medicine could permanently arrest.