The ship-wrecked men rowed with nervous desperation; then they lay down inert, recognizing the uselessness of their efforts, lost in the great immensity.
The mate, drowsing on the hard stern, finally smiled with closed eyes.
It was all a bad dream.

He was sure of awaking in his bed surrounded with the familiar comforts of his stateroom.

And when he opened his eyes, the harsh reality made him break forth into desperate orders, which the Africans obeyed as mechanically as though they were still sleeping.
"I do not want to die!...

I ought not to die!" asserted his inner monitor in a brazen tone.
They shouted and made unavailing signals to distant boats that disappeared from the great watery expanse without ever seeing them.

Two negroes died of the cold.