Small splinters of wood were made to answer our purpose, and it was agreed that I should be the holder.

I retired to one end of the hulk, while my poor companions silently took up their station in the other with their backs turned toward me.

The bitterest anxiety which I endured at any period of this fearful drama was while I occupied myself in the arrangement of the lots.

There are few conditions into which man can possibly fall where he will not feel a deep interest in the preservation of his existence; an interest momentarily increasing with the frailness of the tenure by which that existence may be held.

But now that the silent, definite, and stern nature of the business in which I was engaged (so different from the tumultuous dangers of the storm or the gradually approaching horrors of famine) allowed me to reflect on the few chances I had of escaping the most appalling of deaths--a death for the most appalling of purposes--every particle of that energy which had so long buoyed me up departed like feathers before the wind, leaving me a helpless prey to the most abject and pitiable terror.