Only lubberly fools couldn't see it. Whoever heard of ouch
a run of calms and head winds? It wasn't natural.... We could not deny
that it was strange. We felt uneasy. The common saying, "More days, more
dollars," did not give the usual comfort because the stores were running
short. Much had been spoiled off the Cape, and we were on half allowance
of biscuit. Peas, sugar and tea had been finished long ago. Salt meat
was giving out. We had plenty of coffee but very little water to make
it with. We took up another hole in our belts and went on scraping,
polishing, painting the ship from morning to night. And soon she looked
as though she had come out of a band-box; but hunger lived on board of
her. Not dead starvation, but steady, living hunger that stalked about
the decks, slept in the forecastle; the tormentor of waking moments, the
disturber of dreams. We looked to windward for signs of change. Every
few hours of night and day we put her round with the hope that she would
come up on that tack at last! She didn't. She seemed to have forgotten
the way home; she rushed to and fro, heading northwest, heading east;
she ran backwards and forwards, distracted, like a timid creature at
the foot of a wall.
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