104 



RELICS OF POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS, 



Seven or eight hours devoted to the madness of intoxication, 

 buried nearly half the crew in sleep, while the rest disputed to 

 whom they should give the authority they had usurped. Wasted 

 provision, empty casks, and broken weapons, strewed the deck, 

 when the stupefied ruffians awoke, and found themselves driven 

 far from their track. Cries and commands, which all made and 

 none obeyed, occupied the time that might have retrieved their 

 error. They were urged rajDidly forward by a south-east wind in- 

 to a latitude beyond their chart, while despair, hunger and the 

 remains of delirious intemperance, rendered the crew frantic. 

 Cold and fogs increased their sufferings and dismay, till a few bis- 

 cuits and a small cask of fresh water were all that remained of 

 their stock. These were soon consumed by two or three of the 

 boldest desperadoes, and quarrels produced by rage and frenzy 

 saved nearly half the crew from the lingering tortures of famine. 

 Those that survived assembled on the fifth day of their undirected 

 course, to debate by what means they should avoid or delay their 

 fate. Sturm presided at this gloomy council, and the first propo- 

 sition was to throw the orphan-boy into the sea, and draw lots to 

 decide what man should be sacrificed to preserve the rest a little 

 longer. " I have a right to command once, at least," said Sturm, 

 laying his cutlass deliberately before him, and placing the half- 

 starved and terrified child between his knees — " I freed you from 

 your captain, and now, without the mummery of drawing lots, I 

 will free you from this useless boy, and myself of a troublesome 

 life. Give me one of the boats, a biscuit, and this child, and you 

 may see what chance wall do for you. I choose to die on land," 

 he added, with a deadly smile, " for this boy's father lies under 

 the sea, and I could not rest there." If any mahce or craft lurked 

 against him in the minds of his three companions, his stern and 

 resolute tone, and the assent he gave so readily to their savage 

 selfishness, prevented any opposition. But one of these men, 

 more shrewd or less human than the rest, conceived that a speech 

 in which such singular disregard of life was hinted, must conceal 

 some sinister purpose. Seizing the cutlass, which Sturm had 

 placed unguardedly out of his own grasp, he gave a signal which 

 the confederates obeyed, and rolling Sturm with the dying child 

 into a wide sail cloth, they threw him into the smallest boat, and 

 launched it without oar or sail into the sea. As the current bore 

 it from them, they saw the body of the captain rise breast high 



