The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket: Comprising the details of a mutiny and atrocious butchery on board the American brig Grampus, on her way to the South Seas, in the month of June, 1827.Poe, Edgar Allan
General
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket: Comprising the details of a mutiny and atrocious butchery on board the American brig Grampus, on her way to the South Seas, in the month of June, 1827.
Poe, Edgar Allan
Sea stories; Stowaways -- Fiction; Whaling ships -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
When the day was fully broke, we found that Tiger had recovered his
strength almost entirely, and gave no indications of hydrophobia,
drinking a little water that was offered him with great apparent
eagerness. During the day he regained all his former vigour and
appetite. His strange conduct had been brought on, no doubt, by the
deleterious quality of the air of the hold, and had no connexion with
canine madness. I could not sufficiently rejoice that I had persisted
in bringing him with me from the box. This day was the thirtieth of
June, and the thirteenth since the Grampus made sail from Nantucket.
On the second of July the mate came below, drunk as usual, and in an
excessively good-humour. He came to Augustus's berth, and, giving him a
slap on the back, asked him if he thought he could behave himself if he
let him loose, and whether he would promise not to be going into the
cabin again. To this, of course, my friend answered in the affirmative,
when the ruffian set him at liberty, after making him drink from a
flask of rum which he drew from his coat-pocket. Both now went on deck,
and I did not see Augustus for about three hours. He then came below
with the good news that he had obtained permission to go about the brig
as he pleased anywhere forward of the mainmast, and that he had been
ordered to sleep, as usual, in the forecastle. He brought me, too, a
good dinner, and a plentiful supply of water. The brig was still
cruising for the vessel from the Cape Verds, and a sail was now in
sight which was thought to be the one in question. As the events of the
ensuing eight days were of little importance, and had no direct bearing
upon the main incidents of my narrative, I will here throw them into
the form of a journal, as I do not wish to omit them altogether.
_July 3._ Augustus furnished me with three blankets, with which I
contrived a comfortable bed in my hiding-place. No one came below,
except my companion, during the day. Tiger took his station in the
berth just by the aperture, and slept heavily, as if not yet entirely
recovered from the effects of his sickness. Towards night a flaw of
wind struck the brig before sail could be taken in, and very nearly
capsized her. The puff died away immediately, however, and no damage
was done beyond the splitting of the foretopsail. Dirk Peters treated
Augustus all this day with great kindness, and entered into a long
conversation with him respecting the Pacific Ocean, and the islands he
had visited in that region. He asked him whether he would not like to
go with the mutineers on a kind of exploring and pleasure voyage in
those quarters, and said that the men were gradually coming over to the
mate's views. To this Augustus thought it best to reply that he would
be glad to go on such an adventure, since nothing better could be done,
and that anything was preferable to a piratical life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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