The Ocean Waifs: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea

It was not that noisy intoxication that tells of recent indulgence, but rather of the nervous wreck which succeeds it; and the words heard, instead of being the loud banterings of inebriated men, were more like the ravings and gibbering of maniacs. No wonder: since they who uttered them were mad, – mad with mania potu! If they were ever to recover, it would be the last time they were likely to be afflicted by the same disease, – at least on board that embarkation. Not from any virtuous resolve on their parts, but simply from the fact that the cause of their insanity no longer existed.

The rum-cask was as dry inside as out. There was no longer a drop of the infernal liquor on the raft; no more spirit of any kind to produce fresh drunkenness or renewed delirium tremens!

The madmen were not heeded by the others; but allowed to totter about, and give speech to their incoherent mumblings! – sometimes diversified by yells, or peals of mania laughter, – always thickly interlarded with oaths and other blasphemous utterances.

It was only when disturbing the repose of some one less exalted than themselves, or when two of them chanced to come into collision, that a scene would ensue, – in some instances extending to almost every individual on the raft, and ending by one or other of the delirious disputants getting “chucked” into the sea, and having a swim before recovering foothold on the frail embarkation. This the ducked individual would be certain to do. Drunk as he might have been, and maudlin as he might be, his instincts were never so benumbed as to render him regardless of self-preservation. Even from out his haggard eyes still gleamed enough of intelligence to tell that those dark triangular objects, moving in scores around the raft, and cutting the water, so swift and sheer, were the dorsal fins of the dreaded sharks. Each one was a sight that, to a sailor’s eye, even when “blind drunk,” brings habitual dread.

The douche, and the fright attending it, would usually restore his reason to the delirious individual, – or, at all events, would have the effect of restoring tranquillity upon the raft, – soon after to be disturbed by some scene of like, or perhaps more terrible, activity.

The reader, unacquainted with the history of this raft and the people upon it, may require some information concerning them. A few words must suffice for both.

As already stated, at the beginning of our narrative, a raft was constructed out of such timbers as could be detached from the slave-bark Pandora, – after that vessel had caught fire, and previous to her blowing up. Upon this embarkation the slaver’s crew had escaped, leaving her cargo to perish, – some by the explosion, some by drowning, and not a few by the teeth of sharks. The Pandora’s captain, along with five others, – including the mates and carpenter, – had stolen away with the gig. As this was the only boat found available in the fearful crisis of the conflagration, the remainder of the crew had betaken themselves to the large raft, hurriedly constructed for the occasion.

As already related, Snowball and the Portuguese girl were the only individuals on board the Pandora who had remained by the wreck, or rather among its débris. There the Coromantee, by great courage and cunning, had succeeded not only in keeping himself and his protégé afloat, but in establishing a chance for sustaining existence, calculated to last for some days. It is known also that Ben Brace with his protégé, having been informed by the captain’s parting speech that there was a barrel of gunpowder aboard the burning bark, apprehensive of the explosion, had silently constructed a little raft of his own; which, after being launched from under the bows of the slaver, he had brought en rapport with the “big raft,” and thereto attached it. This “tender,” still carrying the English sailor and the boy, had been afterwards cut loose from its larger companion in the dead hour of night, and permitted to fall far into the wake. The reason of this defection was simply to save little William from being eaten up by the ex-crew of the Pandora, then reduced to a famished condition, – if we may use the phrase, screwed up to the standard of anthropophagy.

Since the hour in which the two rafts became separated from each other, the reader is acquainted, in all its minute details, with the history of the lesser: how it joined issue with the embarkation that carried the ex-cook and his protégé; how the union with the latter produced a cross between the two, – afterwards yclept the Catamaran; with all the particulars of the Catamaran’s voyage, up to the time when she became moored alongside the carcass of the cachalot; and for several days after.

During this time, the “big raft” carrying the crew of tin burnt bark, – being out of sight, may also have escaped from the reader’s mind. Both it and its occupants were still in existence. Not all of them, it is true, but the greater number; and among these, the most prominent in strength of body, energy of mind; and wickedness of disposition.

It is scarce necessary to say, that the raft now introduced as lying upon the ocean some twenty miles from the dead cachalot was that which some days before had parted from the Pandora, or that the fiendish forms that occupied it were the remnant of the Pandora’s crew.

These were not all there: nearly a score of them were absent. The absence of the captain, with five others who had accompanied him in his gig, has been explained. The ex-cook, the English sailor and sailor-boy, with the cabin passenger, Lilly Lalee, have also been accounted for; but there were several others aboard the big raft, on its first starting “to sea,” that were no longer to be seen amidst the crowd still occupying this ungainly embarkation. Half a dozen, – perhaps more, – seemed to be missing. Their absence might have appeared mysterious, to anyone who had not been kept “posted” up in the particulars of the ill-directed cruise through which the raft had been passing; though the skeleton above described, and the dissevered tibia scattered around, might have given a clew to their disappearance, – at least, to anyone initiated into the shifts and extremities of starvation.

To those of less experience, – or less quick comprehension, – it may be necessary to repeat the conversation which was being carried on upon the raft, – at the moment when it is thus reintroduced to the notice of the reader. A correct report of this will satisfactorily explain why its original crew had been reduced, from over thirty, to the number of six-and-twenty, exclusive of the skeleton!

Chapter Sixty Seven.

A Crew of Cannibals

“Allons!” cried a black-bearded man, in whose emaciated frame it was not easy to recognise the once corpulent bully of the slave-ship, – the Frenchman, Le Gros. “Allons! messieurs! It’s time to try fortune again. Sacré! we must eat, or die!”

The question may be asked, What were these men to eat? There appeared to be no food upon the raft. There was none, – not a morsel of any kind that might properly be called meat for man. Nor had there been, ever since the second day after the departure of the raft from the side of the burning bark. A small box of sea-biscuits, that, when distributed, gave only two to each man, was all that had been saved in their hurried retreat from the decks of the Pandora. These had disappeared in a day. They had brought away water in greater abundance, and caught some since in their shirts, and on the spread sail, – nearly after the same fashion and in the same rain-storm that had afforded the well-timed supply to Ben Brace and his protégé.

But the stock derived from both sources was on the eve of being exhausted. Only a small ration or two to each man remained in the cask; but thirsty as most of them might be, they were suffering still more from the kindred appetite of hunger.

What did Le Gros mean when he said they must eat? What food was there on the raft, to enable them to avoid the terrible alternative appended to his proposal, – “eat, or die”! What had kept them from dying: since it was now many days, almost weeks, since they had swallowed the last morsel of biscuit so sparingly distributed amongst them?

The answer to all these interrogatories is one and the some. It is too fearful to be pronounced, – awful even to think of!

The clean-stripped skeleton lying upon the raft, and which was clearly that of a human being; the bones scattered about, – some of them, as already observed, held in hand, and in such fashion as to show the horrid use that was being made of them, – left no doubt as to the nature of the food upon which the hungering wretches had been subsisting.

This, and the flesh of a small shark, which they had succeeded in luring alongside, and killing with the blow of a handspike, had been their only provision since parting with the Pandora. There were sharks enough around them now. A score, at the very least, might have been quartering the sea, within sight of the raft; but these monsters, strange to say, were so shy, that not one of them would approach near enough to allow them an opportunity of capturing it! Every attempt to take them had proved unsuccessful. Such of the crew as kept sober had been trying for days. Some were even at that moment engaged with hook and line, angling for the ferocious fish, – their hooks floating far out in the water, baited with human flesh.

It was only the mechanical continuation of a scheme that had long since proved to be of no avail, – a sort of despairing struggle against improbability. The sharks had taken the alarm; perhaps from observing the fate of that one of their number that had gone too near the odd embarkation; or, perhaps, warned by some mysterious instinct, that, sooner or later, they would make a grand banquet on those who were so eager to feast upon them.

In any case, no sharks had been taken, or were likely to be taken; and once more the eyes of the famishing castaways were wolfishly turned upon one another, while their thoughts reverted to that horrible alternative that was to save them from starvation.

Le Gros – on board the raft, as upon the deck of the slave-ship – still held a sort of fatal ascendency over his comrades; and with Ben Brace no longer to oppose his despotic propensities, he had established over his fellow-skeletons a species of arbitrary rule.

His conduct had all along been guided by no more regard for fair-play than was just necessary to keep his subordinates from breaking out into open mutiny; and among these the weaker ones fared even worse than their fellows, bad as that was.

A few of the stronger, – who formed a sort of bodyguard to the bully, and were ready to stand up for him in case of extremity, – shared his ascendency over the rest; and to these were distributed larger rations of water, along with the more choice morsels of their horrid food.

This partiality had more than once led to scenes, that promised to end in bloodshed; and but for this occasional show of resistance, Le Gros and his party might have established a tyranny that would have given them full power over the lives of their feebler companions.

Things were fast tending in this direction, – merging, as it were, into absolute monarchy, – a monarchy of “cannibals,” of which Le Gros himself would be “king.” It had not yet, however, quite come to that, – at least when it became a question of life and death. When the necessity arose of finding a fresh victim for their horrible but necessary sacrifice, there was still enough republicanism left among the wretches to influence the decision in a just and equitable manner, and cause the selection to be made by lot. When it comes to crises like these, – to questions of life and death, – men must yield up their opposition to the ballot, and acknowledge its equity.

Le Gros and his cruel bodyguard would have opposed it had they been strong enough, – as do equally cruel politicians who are strong enough, – but the bully still doubted the strength of his party. A proposal so atrocious had beep made, in the case of little William, at the very outset, and had met with but slight opposition. Had it not been for the brave English sailor, the lad would certainly have fallen a sacrifice to the horrid appetites of these horrid men. With one of themselves, however, the case was different. Each had a few adherents, who would not have submitted to such an arbitrary cruelty; and Le Gros was influenced by the fear of a general “skrimmage,” in which more than one life, – among the rest perhaps his own, – might be forfeited. The time for such a high-handed measure had not yet arrived; and when it came to the question of “Who dies next?” it was still found necessary to resort to the ballot.

That question was once more propounded, – now for the third time, – Le Gros himself acting as the spokesman. No one said anything in reply, or made any sign of being opposed to an answer being given. On the contrary, all appeared to yield, if not a cheerful, at least a tacit assent to what they all knew to be meant for a proposal, – knowing also its fearful nature and consequences.

They also comprehended whence the answer was to come. Twice before had they consulted that dread oracle, whose response was certain death to one of their number. Twice before had they recognised and submitted to its decree. No preliminaries needed to be discussed. These had been long ago arranged. There was nothing more to do than cast the lots.

On the moment after Le Gros had put the question, a movement was visible among the men to whom it was addressed. One might have expected it to startle them; but it did not appear to do this, – at least, to any great extent. Some only showed those signs of fear distinguishable by blanched cheeks and white lips; but there were some too delirious to understand the full import of what was to follow; and the majority of the crew had become too callow with suffering to care much even for life!

Most that could, however, – for there were some too feeble to stand erect, – rose to their feet, and gathered around the challenger, exhibiting both in their words and attitudes, an earnestness that told them not altogether indifferent to death.

By a sort of tacit agreement among them, Le Gros acted as master of the ceremonies, – the dispenser of that dread lottery of life and death, in which he himself was to take a share. Two or three of his fellows stood on each side of him, acting as aids or croupiers.

Solemn and momentous as was the question to be decided, the mode of decision was simple in the extreme. Le Gros held in his hand a canvas bag, of oblong bolster shape, – such as sailors use to carry their spare suit of “Sunday go-ashores.” In the bottom of this bag, – already carefully counted into it, – were twenty-six buttons: the exact number of those who were to take part in the drawing. They were the common black buttons of horn, – each pierced with four holes, – such as may be seen upon the jacket of the merchant sailor. They had been cut from their own garments for the purpose in which they were now, a third time, to be employed, and all chosen so exactly alike, that even the eye would have found it difficult to distinguish one from the other. One, however, offered an exception to this statement. While all its fellows were jet black, it exhibited a reddish hue, – a dark crimson, – as if it had been defiled with blood. And so it had been; stained on purpose, – that for which it was to be employed, – to be the exponent of the prize, in that lottery of blood, of which its colour was an appropriate emblem.

The difference between it and the others was not perceptible to the touch. The fingers of a man born blind could not have distinguished it among the rest, – much less the callous and tar-bedaubed “claws” of a sailor.

The red button was cast into the bag along with the others. “He who should draw it forth must die.”

As we have said, there was no settling about preliminaries, no talking about choice as to the time of drawing. These matters had been discussed before, both openly and by secret mental calculations. All had arrived at the conclusion that the chances were even, and that it could make no difference in the event as to whose fate was first decided. The red button might be the last in the bag, or it might be the first drawn out of it.

Under this impression, no one hesitated to inaugurate the dread ceremony of the drawing; and as soon as Le Gros held out the bag, – just open enough to admit a hand, – a man stepped up, and, with an air of reckless indifference, plunged his arm into the opening!

Chapter Sixty Eight.

The Lottery of Life and Death

One by one the buttons were drawn forth from the bag, – each man, as he drew his, exhibiting it in his open palm, to satisfy the others as to its colour, and then placing it in a common receptacle, – against the contingency of its being required again for another like lottery!

Solemn as was the character of the ceremony, it was not conducted either in solemnity or silence. Many of the wretches even jested while it was in progress; and a stranger to the dread conditions under which the drawing was being made might have supposed it a raffle for some trifling prize!

The faces of a few, however, would have contradicted this supposition. A few there were who approached the oracle with cowed and craven looks; and their trembling fingers, as they inserted them into the bag, proclaimed an apprehension stronger than could have arisen from any mere courting of chance in an ordinary casting of lots.

Those men who were noisiest and most gleeful after they had drawn were the ones who before it had shown the strongest signs of fear, and who trembled most while performing the operation.

Some of them could not conceal even their demoniac joy at having drawn blank, but danced about over the raft as if they had suddenly succeeded to some splendid fortune.

The difference between this singular lottery and most others, was that the blanks were the prizes, – the prize itself being the true blank, – the ending of existence.

Le Gros continued to hold the bag, and with an air of nonchalance; though anyone closely observing his countenance could tell that it was assumed. As had been already proved, the French bully was at heart a coward. Under the influence of angry passion, or excited by a desire for revenge, he could show fight, and even fling himself into positions of danger; but in a contest such as that in which he was now engaged a cool strife, in which Fortune was his only antagonist, and in which he could derive no advantage from any unfair subterfuge, his artificial courage had entirely forsaken him.

So long as the lottery was in its earlier stages, and only a few buttons had been taken out of the bag, he preserved his assumed air of indifference. There were still many chances of life against that one of death, – nearly twenty to one. As the drawing proceeded, however, and one after another exhibited his black button, a change could be observed passing over the features of the Frenchman. His apparent sangfroid began to forsake him; while his glances betokened a feverish excitement, fast hastening towards apprehension.