808 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
ing compelled to do a good action." The commandant of the 
boat feigned not to understand the reproaches conveyed in 
these words, and to divert our minds from brooding over our 
wrongs, endeavored to counterfeit the man of gallantry. 
All the boats were already far from the Medusa, when they 
were brought to, to form a chain in order to tow the raft. 
The barge, in which was the governor of Senegal, took the 
first tow, then all the other boats in succession joined them- 
selves to that. M. Lachaumareys embarked, although there 
yet remained upon the Medusa more than sixty persons. 
Then the brave and generous M. Espiau, commander of the 
shallop, quitted the line of boats, and returned to the frigate, 
with the intention of saving all the wretches who had been 
abandoned. They all sprang into the shallop ; but as it was 
very much overloaded, seventeen unfortunates preferred re- 
maining on board rather than expose themselves as well as 
their companions to certain death. But, alas ! the greater part 
afterward fell victims to their fears or their devotion. Fifty- 
two days after they were abandoned, no more than three of 
them were alive, and these looked more like skeletons than 
men.* They told that their miserable companions had gone 
afloat upon planks and hen-coops, after having waited in vain 
forty-two days for the succor which had been promised them, 
and that all had perished. 
The shallop carrying with difficulty all these she had sav- 
ed from the Medusa, slowly rejoined the line of boats which 
towed the raft. M. Espiau earnestly besought the officers 
of the other boats to take some of them along with them ; but 
they refused, alledging to the generous officer that he ought 
to keep them in his own boat, as he had gone for them him- 
self. M. Espiau, finding it impossible to keep them all with- 
out exposing them to the utmost peril, steered right for a boat 
which I will not name. Immediately a sailor sprung from 
the shallop into the sea, and endeavored to reach it by SAvim- 
ming; and when he was about to enter it, an officer, who pos- 
sessed great influence, pushed him back, and drawing his sa- 
* Two of the three wretches who w^ere saved from the wreck of the 
Medusa died a few days after their arrival at the colony; and the 
third, who pretended to know a great many particulars relative to the 
desertion of the frigate, was assassinated in his bed at Senegal, when 
he was just upon the eve of setting off for France. The authorities 
could not discover the murderer, who had taken good care to flee from 
his victim, after having killed him. 
