The Survivors of the Chancellor: Chapter 47

Chapter 47

CHAPTER XLVII.

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!

Back to chapter list of: The Survivors of the Chancellor