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
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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
much to say that our heads were not fairly out of water more than one
second in three. Although we lay close together, no one of us could see
the other, or, indeed, any portion of the brig itself, upon which we
were so tempestuously hurled about. At intervals we called one to the
other, thus endeavouring to keep alive hope, and render consolation and
encouragement to such of us as stood most in need of it. The feeble
condition of Augustus made him an object of solicitude with us all; and
as, from the lacerated condition of his right arm, it must have been
impossible for him to secure his lashings with any degree of firmness,
we were in momentary expectation of finding that he had gone
overboard--yet to render him aid was a thing altogether out of the
question. Fortunately, his station was more secure than that of any of
the rest of us; for the upper part of his body lying just beneath a
portion of the shattered windlass, the seas, as they tumbled in upon
him, were greatly broken in their violence. In any other situation than
this (into which he had been accidentally thrown after having lashed
himself in a very exposed spot) he must inevitably have perished before
morning. Owing to the brig's lying so much along, we were all less
liable to be washed off than otherwise would have been the case. The
heel, as I have before stated, was to larboard, about one half of the
deck being constantly under water. The seas, therefore, which struck us
to starboard were much broken by the vessel's side, only reaching us in
fragments as we lay flat on our faces; while those which came from
larboard, being what are called back-water seas, and obtaining little
hold upon us on account of our posture, had not sufficient force to
drag us from our fastenings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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