The Open Boat and Other Stories

man felt it warm him. They were a captain, an oiler, a cook, and a correspondent, and they were friends, friends in a more curiously iron-bound degree than may be common. The hurt capta

elt. And after this devotion to the commander of the boat there was this comradeship that the correspondent, for instance, who had been t

So the cook and the correspondent held the mast and spread wide the overcoat. The oiler steered, and the little boat made good way wit

, and appeared like a little grey shadow on the sky. The man at the oars could not be pre

land seemed but a long black shadow on the sea. It certainly was thinner than paper. "We must be about opposite New Smyrna," said the cook, w

?" said t

d high the oar. But the waves continued their old impetuous swooping at the dingey, and the little craf

ould be less drowning at sea. Of the four in the dingey none had slept any time worth mentioning for two days and two nights previous to

ing to row a boat. It was not an amusement; it was a diabolical punishment, and even a genius of mental aberrations could never conclude that it was anything but a horror to the muscles and a crime against the back. He mentio

urselves. If we have to run a surf you'll need all your stren

te, trees and sand. Finally, the captain said that he could make out a house on the shore. "That'

e able to make us out now, if he's looking through a glass

give word of the wreck," said the oiler, in a low

th-east. Finally, a new sound struck the ears of the men in the boat. It was the low thunder of the surf on the shore. "

north,' sir,"

the influence of this expansion doubt and direful apprehension was leaving the minds of the men. The management of the

o feel in the top pocket of his coat, he found therein eight cigars. Four of them were soaked with sea-water; four were perfectly scatheless. After a search, somebody produced three dry matches, and thereupon th