CHAPTER XLVII.
JANUARY 18th .-- After this excitement I awaited the approach of day with a strange anxiety.

My conscience told me that Hobart had the right to denounce me in the presence of all my fellow-passengers; yet my alarm was vain.

The idea of my proceedings being exposed by him was quite absurd; in a moment he would himself be murdered without pity by the crew, if it should be revealed that, unknown to them, he had been living on some private store which, by clandestine cunning, he had reserved.
But, in spite of my anxiety, I had a longing for day to come.
The bit of food that I had thus stolen was very small; but small as it was it had alleviated my hunger, and I was now tortured with remorse, because I had not shared the meagre morsel with my fellow-sufferers.
Miss Herbey, Andre, his father, all had been forgotten, and from the bottom of my heart I repented of my cruel selfishness.
Meantime the moon rose high in the heavens, and the first streaks of dawn appeared.

There is no twilight in these low latitudes, and the full daylight came well nigh at once.

I had not closed my eyes since my encounter with the steward, and ever since the first blush of day I had laboured under the impression that I could see some unusual dark mass half way up the mast.