Newton dashed out towards the boat, and in a minute was safely astride upon it.
As soon as he had recovered a little from his agitation, he perceived that it was the very boat belonging to the brig, in which Jackson had so treacherously deserted and left him on the island! At three o'clock it was high water, and at five the water had again retreated, so that Newton could quit his station on the bottom of the boat, and walk round her.

He then righted her, and discovered that the mast had been carried away close to the step, but, with the sail, still remained fast to the boat by the main-sheet, which had jammed on the belaying pin, so that it still was serviceable.

Everything else had been lost out of the boat, except the grapnel, which had been bent, and which hanging down in the water, from the boat being capsized, had brought it up when it was floated on the sand-bank.

Newton, who had neither eaten nor drunk since the night before, was again in despair, tormented as he was by insufferable thirst: when he observed that the locker under the stern-sheets was closed.

He hastened to pull it open, and found that the bottles of wine and cider which he had deposited there were remaining.