310 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
tunes, suspended, adrift upon the merciless ocean, they were 
soon tortured betAveen the pieces of wood which formed the 
scaffold on which they floated. The bones of their feet and 
their legs were bruised and broken eveiy time the fury of 
the waves agitated the raft ; their flesh covered with contu- 
sions and hideous wounds, dissolved, as it were, in the briny 
waves, whilst the roaring flood around them was colored with 
their blood. 
As the raft, when it was abandoned, was nearly two leagues 
from the frigate, it was impossible these unfortunate persons 
could reach it ; they were soon after far out at sea. These 
victims still appeared above their floating tomb ; and stretch- 
ing out their supplicating hands toward the boats which fled 
from them, seemed yet to invoke, for the last time, the names 
of the wretches who had deceived them. O horrid day ! a 
day of shame and reproach ! Alas ! that the hearts of those 
who were so well acquainted with misfortune, should have 
been so inaccessible to pity ! 
After witnessing that most inhuman scene, and seeing they 
were insensible to the cries and lamentations of so many un- 
happy beings, I felt my heart burst with sorrow. It seemed 
to me that the waves would overwhelm all these wretches, 
and I could not suppress my tears. My father, exasperated 
to excess, and bursting with rage at seeing so much coward- 
ice and inhumanity among the officers of the boats, began to 
regret that he had not accepted the place which had been as- 
signed for us upon the raft. " At least," said he, " we would 
have died with the brave, or we would have returned to the 
wreck of the Medusa ; and not have had the disgrace of sa- 
ving ourselves with cowards." Although this produced no 
effect upon the officers, it proved very fatal to us afterward ; 
for, on our arrival at Senegal, it was reported to the governor, 
and very probably was the principal cause of all those evils 
and vexations which we endured in that colony. 
Let us now turn our attention to the several situations of 
all those who were endeavoring to save themselves in the dif- 
ferent boats, as well as to those left upon the wreck of the 
Medusa. 
We have already seen that the frigate was half sunk when 
it was deserted, presenting nothing but a hulk and a wreck. 
Nevertheless, seventeen still remained upon it, and had food, 
which, although damaged, enabled them to support themselves 
for a considerable time ; whilst the raft was abandoned to 
float at the mercy of the waves, upon the vast surface of the 
