Besides, I must manage to get some bait, for we have been improvident enough not to save a single scrap." "But you have succeeded once without bait; why may you not succeed again ?" "Oh! I had some very good bait last night," he said.

I stared at him in amazement.

He steadily returned my gaze, but said nothing.
"Have you none left ?" at last I asked.
"Yes!" he almost whispered and left me without another word.
Our meal, meagre as it had been, served to rally our shattered energies; our hopes were slightly raised; there was no reason why the boatswain should not have the same good luck again.
One evidence of the degree to which our spirits were revived was that our minds were no longer fixed upon the miserable present and hopeless future, but we began to recall and discuss the past; and M.Letourneur, Andre Mr.Falsten, and I held a long conversation with the captain about the various incidents of our eventful voyage, speaking of our lost companions, of the fire, of the stranding of the ship, of our sojourn on Ham Rock, of the springing of the leak, of our terrible voyage in the top-masts, of the construction of the raft, and of the storm.

All these things seemed to have happened so long ago, and yet we were living still.

Living, did I say?
Ay, if such an existence as ours could be called a life, fourteen of us were living still.