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A fourth day broke, and found the boat almost becalmed again. The intense tedium of their captivity cannot be expressed by words. The eternal iteration of the water-line became a torment and a pang, and forced them to look into the boat or upon one another for relief of the strained and weary eye. Their limbs were cramped for want of space to stretch themselves. Holdsworth's cheeks were sunk, and the hollows of his eyes dark; and a black beard and moustache, sprouting upon his chin and lip, gave him a gaunt and grizly look. The men sat with rounded backs and hopeless eyes, fixed downwards, and sinewy hands clasped upon their knees.
But the effect of the sufferings, bodily and mental, they were enduring, was most visible in the widow, whose face was scarcely recognisable for the wasted, aged, pallid, and heart-broken aspect that it presented.