Part 10 (2/2)

Occupied with such plans and labors and purposes as these, the days passed quickly for teeks By that time the fierce rays of the sun had dried every board and stave so that it becaaped more widely, the boards warped and fell away from their rusty nails, the timbers were exposed all over it, and the hot, dry wind penetrated every cranny The interior of the hold and the cabin beca back h had been thrown there he worked laboriously for days cutting up large nue pile of these shavings were accumulated With these and his pistol he would be able to obtain light and fire in the time of need

The post which he had cut off was then sharpened at one end, so that he could fix it in the sand when the time came, should it ever come Here, then, these preparations were co was found The bedding, the mattresses, the chests, the nautical instruments had all been ruined

The tables and chairs fell to pieces when the sand was removed; the doors and ork sank away; the cabin when cleared remained a wreck

The weather continued hot and dry At night Brandon flung hi or at the rock Every day he had to go to the rock for water, and also to look out toward the sea from that side At first, while intent upon his work at the shi+p, the sight of the barren horizon every day did not materially affect him; he rose superior to despondency and cheered hith, at the end of about three weeks, all this as done and nothing more remained His only idea was to labor to effect his escape, and not to insure his co his stay

Now as day succeeded to day all his old gloom returned The excitement of the last feeeks had acted favorably upon his bodily health, but when this was rean to feel ht sustain nature, but it could not preserve health He grew at length to loathe the food which he had to take, and it was only by a stern resolve that he forced hith a new evil was superadded to those which had already afflicted hi the first part of his stay the hollow or pool of water on the rock had always been kept filled by the frequent rains But now for three weeks, in fact ever since the uncovering of the _Vishnu_, not a single drop of rain had fallen The sun shone with intense heat, and the evaporation was great The wind at first tempered this heat somewhat, but at last this ceased to blow by day, and often for hours there was a dead calm, in which the water of the sea lay unruffled and all the air waswhich he could stretch over that precious pool of water he , and could contrive nothing Every day saw a perceptible decrease in its voluht he could count the number of days that were left him to live But his despair could not stay the operation of the laws of nature, and he watched the decrease of that water as one watches the failing breath of a dying child

Many weeks passed, and the water of the pool still diminished At last it had sunk so low that Brandon could not hope to live more than another week unless rain came, and that now he could scarcely expect The look-out becahts, instead of turning toward escape, were occupied with deliberating whether he would probably die of starvation or sian to enter into that state of mind which he had read in Despard's MSS, in which life ceases to be a matter of desire, and the only wish left is to die as quickly and as painlessly as possible

At length one day as his eyes swept the waters , he saw far away to the northeast so which looked like a sail He watched it for an hour before he fairly decided that it was not sorown larger, and had assu

Now his heart beat fast, and all the old longing for escape, and the old love of life returned with fresh vehemence This new ele with it

Now had come the day and the hour when all life was in suspense This was his first hope, and he felt that it must be his last Experience had shown that the island must lie outside the cos, if this passed by he could not hope to see another

Now he had to decide how to attract her notice She was still far away, yet she was evidently drawing nearer The rock was higher than the nal there, and erect it somewhere on that place So he took up the heavy staff, and bore it laboriously over the sand till he reached the rock

By the time that he arrived there the vessel had come nearer Her top-sails were visible above the horizon Her progress was very slow, for there was only very little wind Her studding-sails were all set to catch the breeze, and her course was such that she cah to see the island was another question Yet if they thought of keeping a look-out, if the nal could easily be seen He feared, however, that this would not be thought of The existence of Coffin Island was not generally known, and if they supposed that there was only open water here they would not be on the look-out at all

[Illustration: ”STILL HE STOOD THERE, HOLDING ALOFT HIS SIGNAL”]

Nevertheless Brandon erected his signal, and as there was no place on the solid rock where he could insert it he held it up in his own hands

Hours passed The shi+p had come very much nearer, but her hull was not yet visible Still he stood there under the burning sun, holding aloft his signal Fearing that it ht not be sufficiently conspicuous he fastened his coat to the top, and then waved it slowly backward and forward

The shi+pnearer; for after some time, which seemed to that lonely watcher like entire days, her hull became visible, and her course still lay nearer

Now Brandon felt that he nal incessantly He even leaped in the air, so that he ht that the rock would surely be perceived from the shi+p, and if they looked at that they would see the figure upon it

Then despondency came over him The hull of the shi+p was visible, but it was only the upper on the very top of the rock, on its highest point From the deck they could not see the rock itself He stooped down, and perceived that the hull of the shi+p sank out of sight Then he knew that the rock would not be visible to them at all Only the upper half of his body could by any possibility be visible, and he knew enough of the sea to understand that this would have the dark sea for a back-ground to observers in the shi+p, and therefore could not be seen

Still he would not yield to the dejection that was rapidly co into despair everyto hope--never before had his soul been orous in its strong self-assertion

He stood there still waving his staff as though his life now depended upon that du as his ar would he be able to triumph over the assault of despair Hours passed Still no notice was taken of him