It gave a new lease of life to the survivors.
We continued to run to the north-east before the fresh westerlies, but our quest for warmer weather seemed vain.
Ever the spray froze in the bottom of the boat, and I still chipped beer and drinking water with Northrup’s knife.
My own knife I reserved.
It was of good steel, with a keen edge and stoutly fashioned, and I did not care to peril it in such manner.
By the time half our company was overboard, the boat had a reasonably high freeboard and was less ticklish to handle in the gusts.
Likewise there was more room for a man to stretch out comfortably.
A source of continual grumbling was the food.
The captain, the mate, the surgeon, and myself, talking it over, resolved not to increase the daily whack of half a pound of meat.
The six sailors, for whom Tobias Snow made himself spokesman, contended that the death of half of us was equivalent to a doubling of our provisioning, and that therefore the ration should be increased to a pound.
In reply, we of the afterguard pointed out that it was our chance for life that was doubled did we but bear with the half-pound ration.
It is true that eight ounces of salt meat did not go far in enabling us to live and to resist the severe cold.
We were quite weak, and, because of our weakness, we frosted easily.
Noses and cheeks were all black with frost-bite.
It was impossible to be warm, although we now had double the garments we had started with.
Five weeks after the loss of the Negociator the trouble over the food came to a head.
I was asleep at the time—it was night—when Captain Nicholl caught Jud Hetchkins stealing from the pork barrel.
That he was abetted by the other five men was proved by their actions.
Immediately Jud Hetchkins was discovered, the whole six threw themselves upon us with their knives.
It was close, sharp work in the dim light of the stars, and it was a mercy the boat was not overturned.
I had reason to be thankful for my many shirts and coats which served me as an armour.
The knife-thrusts scarcely more than drew blood through the so great thickness of cloth, although I was scratched to bleeding in a round dozen of places.
The others were similarly protected, and the fight would have ended in no more than a mauling all around, had not the mate, Walter Dakon, a very powerful man, hit upon the idea of ending the matter by tossing the mutineers overboard.
This was joined in by Captain Nicholl, the surgeon, and myself, and in a trice five of the six were in the water and clinging to the gunwale.
Captain Nicholl and the surgeon were busy amidships with the sixth, Jeremy Nalor, and were in the act of throwing him overboard, while the mate was occupied with rapping the fingers along the gunwale with a boat-stretcher.
For the moment I had nothing to do, and so was able to observe the tragic end of the mate.
As he lifted the stretcher to rap Seth Richards’ fingers, the latter, sinking down low in the water and then jerking himself up by both hands, sprang half into the boat, locked his arms about the mate and, falling backward and outboard, dragged the mate with him.
Doubtlessly he never relaxed his grip, and both drowned together.
Thus left alive of the entire ship’s company were three of us: Captain Nicholl, Arnold Bentham (the surgeon), and myself.
Seven had gone in the twinkling of an eye, consequent on Jud Hetchkins’ attempt to steal provisions.
And to me it seemed a pity that so much good warm clothing had been wasted there in the sea.
There was not one of us who could not have managed gratefully with more.
Captain Nicholl and the surgeon were good men and honest.
Often enough, when two of us slept, the one awake and steering could have stolen from the meat.
But this never happened.
We trusted one another fully, and we would have died rather than betray that trust.
We continued to content ourselves with half a pound of meat each per day, and we took advantage of every favouring breeze to work to the north’ard.
Not until January fourteenth, seven weeks since the wreck, did we come up with a warmer latitude.
Even then it was not really warm. It was merely not so bitterly cold.
Here the fresh westerlies forsook us and we bobbed and blobbed about in doldrummy weather for many days.
Mostly it was calm, or light contrary winds, though sometimes a burst of breeze, as like as not from dead ahead, would last for a few hours.
In our weakened condition, with so large a boat, it was out of the question to row.
We could merely hoard our food and wait for God to show a more kindly face.
The three of us were faithful Christians, and we made a practice of prayer each day before the apportionment of food.
Yes, and each of us prayed privately, often and long.
By the end of January our food was near its end.
The pork was entirely gone, and we used the barrel for catching and storing rainwater.
Not many pounds of beef remained.
And in all the nine weeks in the open boat we had raised no sail and glimpsed no land.
Captain Nicholl frankly admitted that after sixty-three days of dead reckoning he did not know where we were.