Its fate?
A sea-toss?
Believe it not; with all those precious drops clinging to its lengthy legs.

It was held over the ladle till the last globule dribbled; and even then, being moist, honest Jarl was but loth to drop it overboard.
For our larder, we could not endure the salt beef; it was raw as a live Abyssinian steak, and salt as Cracow.

Besides, the Feegee simile would not have held good with respect to it.

It was far from being "tender as a dead man." The biscuit only could we eat; not to be wondered at; for even on shipboard, seamen in the tropics are but sparing feeders.
And here let not, a suggestion be omitted, most valuable to any future castaway or sailaway as the case may be.

Eat not your biscuit dry; but dip it in the sea: which makes it more bulky and palatable.
During meal times it was soak and sip with Jarl and me: one on each side of the Chamois dipping our biscuit in the brine.