CHAPTER SIX.
A GIGANTIC OYSTER.
"Water! water!" The pain of hunger is among the hardest to endure, though there is still a harder--that of thirst.

In the first hours of either, it is doubtful which of the two kinds of suffering is the more severe; but, prolonged beyond a certain point, hunger loses its keenness of edge, through the sheer weakness of the sufferer, while the agony of thirst knows no such relief.
Suffering, as our castaways were, from want of food for nearly a week, their thirst was yet more agonising; and after the thanksgiving prayer had passed from their lips, their first thought was of water--their cry, "Water! water!" As they arose to their feet they instinctively looked around to see if any brook or spring were near.
An ocean was flowing beside them; but this was not the kind of water wanted.

They had already had enough of the briny element, and did not even turn their eyes upon it.

It was landward they looked; scanning the edge of the forest, that came down within a hundred yards of the shore-- the strip of sand on which they had beached their boat trending along between the woods and the tide-water as far as the eye could trace it.
A short distance off, however, a break was discernible in the line of the sand-strip--which they supposed must be either a little inlet of the sea itself, or the outflow of a stream.

If the latter, then were they fortunate indeed.
Saloo, the most active of the party, hastened toward it; the others following him only with their eyes.
They watched him with eager gaze, trembling between hope and fear-- Captain Redwood more apprehensive than the rest.