The Survivors of the Chancellor: Chapter 49

Chapter 49

CHAPTER XLIX.

JANUARY 20th to 22nd.--For the day or two after the horrible
repast of the 18th those who had partaken of it appeared to
suffer comparatively little either from hunger or thirst; but for
the four of us who had tasted nothing, the agony of suffering
grew more and more intense.  It was enough to make us repine over
the loss of the provision that had so mysteriously gone; and if
any one of us should die, I doubt whether the survivors would a
second time resist the temptation to assuage their pangs by
tasting human flesh.

Before long, all the cravings of hunger began to return to the
sailors, and I could see their eyes greedily glancing upon us,
starved as they knew us to be, as though they were reckoning our
hours, and already were preparing to consume us as their prey.

As is always the case with shipwrecked men, we were tormented by
thirst far more than by hunger; and if, in the height of our
sufferings, we had been offered our choice between a few drops of
water and a few crumbs of biscuit, I do not doubt that we should,
without exception, have preferred to take the water.

And what a mockery to our condition did it seem that all this
while there was water, water, nothing but water, everywhere
around us!  Again and again, incapable of comprehending how
powerless it was to relieve me, I put a few drops within my lips,
but only with the invariable result of bringing on a most trying
nausea, and rendering my thirst more unendurable than before.

Forty-two days had passed since we quitted the sinking
"Chancellor." There could be no hope now; all of us must die, and
by the most deplorable of deaths.  I was quite conscious that a
mist was gathering over my brain; I felt my senses sinking into a
condition of torpor; I made an effort, but all in vain, to master
the delirium that I was aware was taking possession of my reason.
It is out of my power to decide for how long I lost my
consciousness; but when I came to myself I found that Miss Herbey
had folded some wet bandages around my forehead.  I am somewhat
better; but I am weakened, mind and body, and I am conscious that
I have not long to live.

A frightful fatality occurred to-day.  The scene was terrible.
Jynxtrop the negro went raving mad.  Curtis and several of the
men tried their utmost to control him, but in spite of everything
he broke loose, and tore up and down the raft, uttering fearful
yells.  He had gained possession of a handspike, and rushed upon
us all with the ferocity of an infuriated tiger; how we contrived
to escape mischief from his attacks, I know not.  All at once, by
one of those unaccountable impulses of madness, his rage turned
against himself.  With his teeth and nails he gnawed and tore
away at his own flesh; dashing the blood into our faces, he
shrieked out with a demoniacal grin, "Drink, drink!"  and
flinging us gory morsels, kept saying "Eat, eat!"  In the midst
of his insane shrieks he made a sudden pause, then dashing back
again from the stern to the front, he made a bound and
disappeared beneath the waves.

Falsten, Dowlas, and the boatswain, made a rush that at least
they might secure the body; but it was too late; all that they
could see was a crimson circle in the water, and some huge sharks
disporting themselves around the spot.

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