But all was ready on the raft; an erection had been made on the fore to hold a mast, which was supported by shrouds fastened to the sides of the platform; this mast carried a large royal.
Perhaps, after all, these few frail planks will carry us to the shore which the Chancellor has failed to reach; at any rate, we cannot yet resign all hope.
We were just on the point of embarking at 7 a.m. when the Chancellor all at once began to sink so rapidly that the carpenter and men who were on the raft were obliged with all speed to cut the ropes that secured it to the vessel to prevent it from being swallowed up in the eddying waters. Anxiety, the most intense, took possession of us all. At the very moment when the ship was descending into the fathomless abyss, the raft, our only hope of safety, was drifting off before our eyes. Two of the sailors and an apprentice, beside themselves with terror, threw themselves headlong into the sea; but it was evident from the very first that they were quite powerless to combat the winds and waves. Escape was impossible; they could neither reach the raft, nor return to the ship. Curtis tied a rope round his waist and tried to swim to their assistance; but long before he could reach them the unfortunate men, after a vain struggle for life, sank below the waves and were seen no more. Curtis, bruised and beaten with the surf that raged about the mastheads, was hauled back to the ship.
Meantime, Dowlas and his men, by means of some spars which they used as oars, were exerting themselves to bring back the raft, which had drifted about two cables-lengths away; but, in spite of all their efforts, it was fully an hour—an hour which seemed to us, waiting as we were with the water up to the level of the topmasts, like an eternity—before they succeeded in bringing the raft alongside, and lashing it once again to the Chancellor’s mainmast.
Not a moment was then to be lost. The waves were eddying like a whirlpool around the submerged vessel, and numbers of enormous air-bubbles were rising to the surface of the water.
The time was come. At Curtis’s word “Embark!” we all hurried to the raft. André who insisted upon seeing Miss Herbey go first, was helped safely on to the platform, where his father immediately joined him. In a very few minutes all except Curtis and old O’Ready had left the Chancellor.
Curtis remained standing on the maintop, deeming it not only his duty, but his right, to be the last to leave the vessel he had loved so well, and the loss of which he so much deplored.
“Now then, old fellow off of this!” cried the captain to the old Irishman, who did not move.
“And is it quite sure ye are that she’s sinkin?” he said.
“Ay, ay! sure enough, my man; and you’d better look sharp.”
“Faith, then, and I think I will;” and not a moment too soon (for the water was up to his waist) he jumped on to the raft.
Having cast one last, lingering look around him, Curtis then left the ship; the rope was cut and we went slowly adrift.
All eyes were fixed upon the spot where the Chancellor lay foundering. The top of the mizzen was the first to disappear, then followed the maintop; and soon, of what had been a noble vessel, not a vestige was to be seen.
XXX
Will this frail float, forty feet by twenty, bear us in safety? Sink it cannot; the material of which it is composed is of a kind that must surmount the waves. But it is questionable whether it will hold together. The cords that bind it will have a tremendous strain to bear in resisting the violence of the sea. The most sanguine amongst us trembles to face the future; the most confident dares to think only of the present. After the manifold perils of the last seventy-two days’ voyage all are too agitated to look forward without dismay to what in all human probability must be a time of the direst distress.
Vain as the task may seem, I will not pause in my work of registering the events of our drama, as scene after scene they are unfolded before our eyes.
Of the twenty-eight persons who left Charleston in the Chancellor, only eighteen are left to huddle together upon this narrow raft; this number includes the five passengers, namely M. Letourneur, André, Miss Herbey, Falsten, and myself; the ship’s officers, Captain Curtis, Lieutenant Walter, the boatswain, Hobart the steward, Jynxstrop the cook, and Dowlas the carpenter; and seven sailors, Austin, Owen, Wilson, O’Ready, Burke, Sandon, and Flaypole.
Such are the passengers on the raft; it is but a brief task to enumerate their resources.
The greater part of the provisions in the storeroom were destroyed at the time when the ship’s deck was submerged, and the small quantity that Curtis has been able to save will be very inadequate to supply the wants of eighteen people, who too probably have many days to wait ere they sight either land or a passing vessel. One cask of biscuit, another of preserved meat, a small keg of brandy, and two barrels of water complete our store, so that the utmost frugality in the distribution of our daily rations becomes absolutely necessary.
Of spare clothes we have positively none; a few sails will serve for shelter by day, and covering by night. Dowlas has his carpenter’s tools, we have each a pocketknife, and O’Ready an old tin pot; of which he takes the most tender care; in addition to these, we are in possession of a sextant, a compass, a chart, and a metal teakettle, everything else that
