APRIL 30. - Having perceived my bread had been low a great while,
now I took a survey of it, and reduced myself to one biscuit cake a
day, which made my heart very heavy.
MAY 1. - In the morning, looking towards the sea side, the tide
being low, I saw something lie on the shore bigger than ordinary,
and it looked like a cask; when I came to it, I found a small
barrel, and two or three pieces of the wreck of the ship, which
were driven on shore by the late hurricane; and looking towards the
wreck itself, I thought it seemed to lie higher out of the water
than it used to do. I examined the barrel which was driven on
shore, and soon found it was a barrel of gunpowder; but it had
taken water, and the powder was caked as hard as a stone; however,
I rolled it farther on shore for the present, and went on upon the
sands, as near as I could to the wreck of the ship, to look for
more.
CHAPTER VI - ILL AND CONSCIENCE-STRICKEN
WHEN I came down to the ship I found it strangely removed. The
forecastle, which lay before buried in sand, was heaved up at least
six feet, and the stern, which was broke in pieces and parted from
the rest by the force of the sea, soon after I had left rummaging
her, was tossed as it were up, and cast on one side; and the sand
was thrown so high on that side next her stern, that whereas there
was a great place of water before, so that I could not come within
a quarter of a mile of the wreck without swimming I could now walk
quite up to her when the tide was out.
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