After a night's rest, it was
renewed the day following, the 31st, with some vigor, and a good part of
the ocean lying between Guadalupe and Benito islands was carefully
investigated to a depth of seven or eight hundred feet. No traces
whatever of the Projectile. Several California steamers, plying between
San Francisco and Panama, passed the _Susquehanna_ within hailing
distance. But to every question, the invariable reply one melancholy
burden bore:
"No luck!"
All hands were now in despair. Marston could neither eat nor drink. He
never even spoke the whole day, except on two occasions. Once, when
somebody heard him muttering:
"He's now seventeen days in the ocean!"
The second time he spoke, the words seemed to be forced out of him.
Belfast admitted, for the sake of argument, that the Projectile had
fallen into the ocean, but he strongly denounced the absurd idea of its
occupants being still alive. "Under such circumstances," went on the
learned Professor, "further prolongation of vital energy would be simply
impossible. Want of air, want of food, want of courage--"
"No, sir!" interrupted Marston quite savagely. "Want of air, of meat, of
drink, as much as you like! But when you speak of Barbican's want of
courage, you don't know what you are talking about! No holy martyr ever
died at the stake with a loftier courage than my noble friend
Barbican!"
That night he asked the Captain if he would not sail down as far as Cape
San Lucas.
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