The Wreck of the Corsaire by W. Clark Russell

I then slept, and soundly too, for two or three hours, and when I awoke it was daylight, the sea clear to the horizon, the sky a soft liquid blue with masses of white vaporous cloud hanging under it like giant bursts of steam, and the sun shining with a sort of misty splendor some degree or two above the sea-line. There was a pleasant air blowing out of the north, with power to wrinkle the water and no more. My limbs were so cramped that for a long while I was incapable of rising; when at last my legs had recovered their power I stood erect and swept the ocean with my eyes. But the light blue surface went in undulations naked to the bend of the heavens on all sides. I looked and looked again, but to no purpose. I strained my sight till an intolerable torment in my eyeballs forced me to close my lids. There was nothing in view. I very well remember falling on my knees and grovelling upon the deck in the anguish of my spirit. I had so surely counted on daylight exhibiting the _Ruby_ somewhere within the circle which inclosed me that the disappointment that came out of the bald vacancy of the ocean struck me down like a blow from a hammer. Presently I lifted up my head and regained my feet, and feeling thirsty moved with a tread of lead to the yawning hatch, sending the most passionate, yearning glances seaward as I walked, and halting again and again to the vision of some imagination of break in the continuity of the gleaming girdle -- some delicate shoulder of remote cloud, some imaginary speck which dissolved upon the blue air whilst my gaze was on it.

I mixed some wine and water, and made a light repast off some biscuit and a piece of Dutch cheese that was on the shelf. I then thought I would look into the cabins for a chair to sit upon on deck, for a mattress to lie upon, for something also that might make me a little awning, and pushed open the door of the berth immediately facing the pantry, as I may call it. The wreck was rolling very lightly, and her decks were now as easy of stepping as the Indiaman's. This berth contained a bunk and bedding, a sailor's chest, some clothes hanging against the bulkhead, but nothing to serve my turn. The next was similarly furnished, saving that here I took notice that a small quantity of wearing apparel lay about as though scattered in a hurry, and that the lid of a great box, painted a dark green with the letter D in white upon it, had been split open as though the contents were to be rifled, or as though the lock had resisted and there had been no time to coax it save by a chopper. I passed into a third cabin. This had some comfort of equipment in the shape of shelves and a chest of drawers, and had doubtless been the commander's. There was a very handsome telescope on brackets, a few books, a quadrant, a large silver timepiece, a small compass and one or two other matters of a like sort upon a little table fitted by hinges in a corner; there were three chests in a row with a litter of boots and shoes, a soft hat or two, a large handsome cloak costly with fur, and so forth, strewed about the deck.