78 THE SEA. 



and over forty were taken off in the long-boat. Seventeen men, many of whom were 

 helplessly intoxicated, were, however, left to their fate. 



On the morning of the 5th of July the signal was given to put to sea, and at first 

 some of the boats towed the raft, which had no one to command it but a midshipman named 

 Coudin, who, having a painful wound on his leg, was utterly useless. The other officers 

 consulted their own personal safety only, and, with a few exceptions, this was the case 

 with every one else. When the lieutenant of the long-boat, fearing that he could not 

 keep the sea with eighty-eight men on board, and no oars, entreated three of the other 

 boats, one after the other, to relieve him of a part of his living cargo, they refused utterly ; 

 and the officer of the third, in his hurry to run away, loosed from the raft. This was the 

 signal for a general desertion. The word was passed from one boat to another to leave 

 them to their fate, and the captain had not the manliness to protest. The purser of the 

 Medusa, wfth a few others, opposed such a dastardly proceeding, but' in vain ; and the raft, 

 without means of propulsion, was abandoned. As it proved afterwards, the boats, which 

 all reached the land safely, sighted the coast the same evening ; and the raft could have 

 been towed to it in a day or two, or at all events sufficiently near for the purpose. The 

 people on it could not at first believe in this treacherous desertion, and once and again 

 buoyed themselves up with the hope that the boats would return or send relief. The 

 lieutenant on the long-boat seems to have been one of the few officers possessing any spark 

 of humanity and manliness. He kept his own boat near the raft for a time, in the hope 

 that the others might be induced to return, but at length had to yield to the clamour of 

 some eighty men on board with him, who insisted on his proceeding in search of land. 



The consternation and despair of those on the raft beggars description. The water 

 was, even while the sea was calm, up to the knees of the larger part on board, while 

 the horrors of a slow death from starvation and thirst, and the prospect of being washed 

 off by the waves, should a storm arise, stared them in the face. Several barrels of flour 

 had been placed on the raft at first, along with six barrels of wine and two small casks of 

 water. When only fifty persons had got on it, their weight sunk it so low in the water 

 that the flour was thrown into the sea, and lost. When the raft quitted the ship, with a 

 hundred and fifty souls on her, she was a foot to a foot and a half under water, and the 

 only food on board was a twenty-five-pound bag of biscuit, in a semi-pulpy condition, which 

 just afforded them one meagre ration. 



Some on board, to keep up the courage of the remainder, promulgated the idea that 

 the boats had merely made sail for the island of Arguin, and that, having landed their 

 crews, they would return. This for the moment appeased the indignation of the soldiers 

 and others who had, with frantic gesticulations, been wringing their hands and tearing 

 their hair. Night came on, and the wind freshened, the waves rolling over them, and 

 throwing many down with violence. The cries of the people were mingled with the roar 

 of the waves, whilst heavy seas constantly lifted them off their legs and threatened to wash 

 them away. Thus, clinging desperately to the ropes, they struggled with death the whole 

 night through. 



About seven the next morning, the sea was again calm, when they found that twelve 

 or more unfortunate men had, during the night, slipped between the interstices of ths raft 



