STORY OF CAPTAIN WARRENS. 157 



entering the principal cabin, the first object 

 that attracted their attention was the dead body 

 of a female, reclining on a bed in an attitude 

 of deep interest and attention. Her counte- 

 nance retained the freshness of life, and a con- 

 traction of the limbs alone showed that her 

 form was inanimate. Seated on the floor was 

 the corpse of an apparently young man, hold- 

 ing a steel in one hand and a flint in the 

 other, as if in the act of striking fire upon 

 some tinder which lay beside him. In the fore 

 part of the vessel several sailors were found 

 lying dead in their berths, and the body of a 

 boy was crouched at the bottom of the gang- 

 way stairs. 



Neither provisions nor fuel could be dis- 

 covered anywhere ; but Captain Warrens was 

 prevented, by the superstitious prejudices of his 

 seamen, from examining the vessel as minutely 

 as he wished to have done. He therefore car- 

 ried away the log-book already mentioned, and, 

 returning to his own ship, immediately steered 

 to the southward, deeply impressed with the 

 awful example which he had just witnessed of 



