The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 3 — John Shaqi
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 3Poe, Edgar Allan
General
The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 3
Poe, Edgar Allan
American fiction -- 19th century; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales, American
forcing itself out between two sinews and just below the right
ear. I was immediately put to bed—although life seemed to be
totally extinct. There was no surgeon on board. The captain,
however, treated me with every attention—to make amends, I
presume, in the eyes of his crew, for his atrocious behaviour in
the previous portion of the adventure.
In the meantime, Henderson had again put off from the ship,
although the wind was now blowing almost a hurricane. He had not
been gone many minutes when he fell in with some fragments of our
boat, and shortly afterward one of the men with him asserted that
he could distinguish a cry for help at intervals amid the roaring
of the tempest. This induced the hardy seamen to persevere in
their search for more than half an hour, although repeated
signals to return were made them by Captain Block, and although
every moment on the water in so frail a boat was fraught to them
with the most imminent and deadly peril. Indeed, it is nearly
impossible to conceive how the small jolly they were in could
have escaped destruction for a single instant. She was built,
however, for the whaling service, and was fitted, as I have since
had reason to believe, with air-boxes, in the manner of some
life-boats used on the coast of Wales.
After searching in vain for about the period of time just
mentioned, it was determined to get back to the ship. They had
scarcely made this resolve when a feeble cry arose from a dark
object that floated rapidly by. They pursued and soon overtook
it. It proved to be the entire deck of the Ariel’s cuddy.
Augustus was struggling near it, apparently in the last agonies.
Upon getting hold of him it was found that he was attached by a
rope to the floating timber. This rope, it will be remembered, I
had myself tied around his waist, and made fast to a ringbolt,
for the purpose of keeping him in an upright position, and my so
doing, it appeared, had been ultimately the means of preserving
his life. The Ariel was slightly put together, and in going down
her frame naturally went to pieces; the deck of the cuddy, as
might have been expected, was lifted, by the force of the water
rushing in, entirely from the main timbers, and floated (with
other fragments, no doubt) to the surface—Augustus was buoyed up
with it, and thus escaped a terrible death.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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