The master then desired the Swede to assist in getting the raft out
of the water in order to wait a more favorable opportunity; but the
Swede, persisting in his resolution although unable to stand upon
his feet, and as he was kneeling on the rock, caught hold on the
master’s hand and with much vehemency beseeching him to accompany
him, said,
“I am sure I must die; however, I have great hopes of being the
means of preserving your life, and the rest of the people’s. If you
will not go with me, I beg your assistance to turn the raft and
help me upon it, for I am resolutely bent to venture, even though
by myself alone.”
The master used farther dissuasives, representing the
impossibility of reaching the mainland in twice the time they might
have done before they were disarmed of their mast and sail, but
the Swede remained inflexible, affirming, “I had rather perish in
the sea than continue one day more in this miserable condition.”
By this time another man, animated by his example and offering to
go with him, the master consented and gave them some money that
accidentally was in his pocket, fixed them on the raft, and helped
them to launch off from the rock, committing them to the mercy
of the seas. Their last words at parting were very moving and
delivered in a pathetic accent, “Pray, Sir, oblige all the people
to join in prayers for us as long as you can see us.”
All to a man crept out of the tent at this doleful separation and
performed the request with much devotion. About sunset they judged
the raft to be half way to land and hoped they might gain the shore
by two in the morning, but in the night the wind blew very hard,
and two days later the raft was found on the shore of the mainland,
about a mile distant from the body of the other man, driven
likewise on shore with his paddle still fast to his wrist, but the
bold Swede was never seen more.
The ship’s carpenter died of hunger at the end of a fortnight, during
which rock-weed and mussels had kept the breath of life in them.
Inevitably men in their condition were bound to turn to thoughts of
preserving their own existence a little longer by eating the body of
the carpenter. How they discussed it and with what results is told by
the unhappy Captain Deane.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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