The fire lighted up the sea for a good distance, and every time we rose on the top of a wave, some of us looked about to see if we could see anything of the other boats.

But we saw nothing of them.

Once I caught sight of a black spot on a high wave at quite a distance, which I thought might be a boat, but no one else saw it, and it was gone in an instant.

The captain said it made no real difference to us whether we saw the other boats or not; they could not help us.

All the help we had to expect was from some passing ship, which might see us, and pick us up.