JANUARY 18th.--After this excitement I awaited the approach of day with
a strange anxiety. My conscience told me that Hobart had the right to
denounce me in the presence of all my fellow-passengers; yet my alarm
was vain. The idea of my proceedings being exposed by him was quite
absurd; in a moment he would himself be murdered without pity by the
crew, if it should be revealed that, unknown to them, he had been living
on some private store which, by clandestine cunning, he had reserved.
But, in spite of my anxiety, I had a longing for day to come.
The bit of food that I had thus stolen was very small; but small as it
was it had alleviated my hunger, and I was now tortured with remorse,
because I had not shared the meagre morsel with my fellow-sufferers.
Miss Herbey, Andre, his father, all had been forgotten, and from the
bottom of my heart I repented of my cruel selfishness.
Meantime the moon rose high in the heavens, and the first streaks of
dawn appeared. There is no twilight in these low latitudes, and the
full daylight came well nigh at once. I had not closed my eyes since my
encounter with the steward, and ever since the first blush of day I had
laboured under the impression that I could see some unusual dark mass
half way up the mast. But although it again and again caught my eye, it
hardly roused my curiosity, and I did not rise from the bundle of sails
on which I was lying to ascertain what it really was. But no sooner did
the rays of the sun fall full upon it than I saw at once that it was
the body of a man, attached to a rope, and swinging to and fro with the
motion of the raft.
A horrible presentiment carried me to the foot of the mast, and, just
as I had guessed, Hobart had hanged himself. I could not for a moment;
doubt that it was I myself that had impelled him to the suicide. A cry
of horror had scarcely escaped my lips, when my fellow-passengers were
at my side, and the rope was cut. Then came the sailors. And what was it
that made the group gather so eagerly around the body? Was it a humane
desire to see whether any spark of life remained? No, indeed; the corpse
was cold, and the limbs were rigid; there was no chance that animation
should be restored. What then was it that kept them lingering so close
around? It was only too apparent what they were about to do.
But I did not, could not, look. I refused to take part in the horrible
repast that was proposed. Neither would Miss Herbey, Andre nor his
father, consent to alleviate their pangs of hunger by such revolting
means. I know nothing for certain as to what Curtis did, and I did not
venture to inquire; but of the others,--Falsten, Dowlas, the boatswain,
and all the rest,--I know that, to assuage their cravings, they
consented to reduce themselves to the level of beasts of prey; they were
transformed from human beings into ravenous brutes.
The four of us who sickened at the idea of partaking of the horrid
meal withdrew to the seclusion of our tent; it was bad enough to hear;
without witnessing the appalling operation. But, in truth, I had the
greatest difficulty in the world in preventing Andre from rushing out
upon the cannibals, and snatching the odious food from their clutches.
I represented to him the hopelessness of his attempt, and tried to
reconcile him by telling him that if they liked the food they had a
right to it. Hobart had not been murdered; he had died by his own hand;
and, after all, as the boatswain had once remarked to me, “it was better
to eat a dead man than a live one.”
Do what I would, however, I could not quiet Andre’s feeling of
abhorrence; in his disgust and loathing he seemed for the time to have
quite forgotten his own sufferings.
Meanwhile, there was no concealing the truth that we were ourselves
dying of starvation, whilst our eight companions would probably, by
their loathsome diet, escape that frightful destiny. Owing to his secret
hoard of provisions Hobart had been by far the strongest amongst us; he
had been supported, so that no organic disease had affected his tissues,
and really might be said to be in good health when his chagrin drove him
to his desperate suicide. But what was I thinking of! whither were
my meditations carrying me away? was it not coming to pass that the
cannibals were rousing my envy instead of exciting my horror?
Very shortly after this I heard Dowlas talking about the possibility
of obtaining salt by evaporating sea-water in the sun; “and then,” he
added, “we can salt down the rest.”
The boatswain assented to what the carpenter had said, and probably the
suggestion was adopted.
Silence, the most profound, now reigns upon the raft. I presume that
nearly all have gone to sleep. One thing I do know, that they are no
longer hungry!