392 SHIPWRECK OF THE MEDUSA. 
their reason. They still, however, shared in the distributions, 
and would, before they died, consume thirty or forty bottles of 
wine, which to us were inestimable. We deliberated, that by 
putting the sick on half allowance was but putting them to 
death by halves ; but after a council, at which presided the 
most dreadful despair, it was decided they should be thrown 
into the sea. This means, however repugnant, however hor- 
rible it appeared to us, procured the survivors six days' wine. 
But after the decision was made, who durst execute it ? The 
habit of seeing death ready to devour us ; the certainty of our 
infallible destruction without this monstrous expedient: all, in 
short, had hardened our hearts to every feeling but that of 
self-preservation. Three sailors and a soldier took charge of 
this cruel business. We looked aside and shed tears of blood 
at the fate of these unfortunates. Among them were the 
wretched sutler and her husband. Both had been grievously 
wounded in the different combats. The woman had a thigh 
broken between the beams of the raft, and a stroke of a sabre 
had made a deep wound in the head of her husband. Every 
thing announced their approaching end. We console our- 
selves with the belief that our cruel resolution shortened but 
a brief space the term of their existence. Ye who shudder at 
the cry of outraged humanity, recollect that it was other men, 
fellow-countrymen, comrades, who had placed us in this aw- 
ful situation ! 
This horrible expedient saved the fifteen who remained : 
for when we were found by the Argus brig, we had very little 
wane left, and it was the sixth day after the cruel sacrifice we 
have described. The victims, we repeat, had not more than 
forty-eight hours to live, and by keeping them on the raft we 
would have been absolutely destitute of the means of exist- 
ence two days before we were found. Weak as we were, we 
considered it as a certain thing, that it would have been im- 
possible for us to have lived only twenty-four hours more, 
without taking some food. After this catastrophe we threw 
our arms into the sea ; they inspired us with a horror we 
could not overcome.- We only kept one sabre, in case we had 
to cut some cordage or some pieces of wood. 
A new event, for every thing was an event io wretches to 
whom the world was reduced to the narrow space of a few 
toises, and for whom the winds and waves contended in their 
fury as they floated above the abyss ; an event happened 
which diverted our niinds from the horrors of our situation. 
All on a s.adden a white butterfly, of a species common in 
