University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.

Shortly afterward an incident occurred which I am
induced to look upon as more intensely productive of
emotion, as far more replete with the extremes first of delight
and then of horror, than even any of the thousand
chances which afterward befell me in nine long years,
crowded with events of the most startling, and, in many
cases, of the most unconceived and unconceivable character.
We were lying on the deck near the companion-way,
and debating the possibility of yet making our way
into the storeroom, when, looking towards Augustus, who
lay fronting myself, I perceived that he had become all
at once deadly pale, and that his lips were quivering in
the most singular and unaccountable manner. Greatly
alarmed, I spoke to him, but he made me no reply, and
I was beginning to think that he was suddenly taken ill,
when I took notice of his eyes, which were glaring apparently
at some object behind me. I turned my head,

and shall never forget the ecstatic joy which thrilled
through every particle of my frame, when I perceived a
large brig bearing down upon us, and not more than a
couple of miles off. I sprung to my feet as if a musket
bullet had suddenly struck me to the heart; and, stretching
out my arms in the direction of the vessel, stood in
this manner, motionless, and unable to articulate a syllable.
Peters and Parker were equally affected, although
in different ways. The former danced about the deck
like a madman, uttering the most extravagant rhodomontades,
intermingled with howls and imprecations, while
the latter burst into tears, and continued for many minutes
weeping like a child.

The vessel in sight was a large hermaphrodite brig,
of a Dutch build, and painted black, with a tawdry gilt
figurehead. She had evidently seen a good deal of
rough weather, and, we supposed, had suffered much in
the gale which had proved so disastrous to ourselves;
for her foretopmast was gone, and some of her starboard
bulwarks. When we first saw her, she was, as I have
already said, about two miles off and to windward, bearing
down upon us. The breeze was very gentle, and
what astonished us chiefly was, that she had no other
sails set than her foresail and mainsail, with a flying jib
—of course she came down but slowly, and our impatience
amounted nearly to phrensy. The awkward manner
in which she steered, too, was remarked by all of
us, even excited as we were. She yawed about so considerably,
that once or twice we thought it impossible
she could see us, or imagined that, having seen us, and
discovered no person on board, she was about to tack
and make off in another direction. Upon each of these
occasions we screamed and shouted at the top of our
voices, when the stranger would appear to change for a
moment her intention, and again hold on towards us—
this singular conduct being repeated two or three times,
so that at last we could think of no other manner of accounting
for it than by supposing the helmsman to be in
liquor.

No person was seen upon her decks until she arrived

within about a quarter of a mile of us. We then saw
three seamen, whom by their dress we took to be Hollanders.
Two of these were lying on some old sails
near the forecastle, and the third, who appeared to be
looking at us with great curiosity, was leaning over the
starboard bow near the bowsprit. This last was a stout
and tall man, with a very dark skin. He seemed by his
manner to be encouraging us to have patience, nodding
to us in a cheerful although rather odd way, and
smiling constantly so as to display a set of the most
brilliantly white teeth. As his vessel drew nearer, we
saw a red flannel cap which he had on fall from his head
into the water; but of this he took little or no notice,
continuing his odd smiles and gesticulations. I relate
these things and circumstances minutely, and I relate
them, it must be understood, precisely as they appeared
to us.

The brig came on slowly, and now more steadily than
before, and—I cannot speak calmly of this event—
our hearts leaped up wildly within us, and we poured
out our whole souls in shouts and thanksgiving to God
for the complete, unexpected, and glorious deliverance
that was so palpably at hand. Of a sudden, and all at
once, there came wafted over the ocean from the strange
vessel (which was now close upon us) a smell, a
stench, such as the whole world has no name for—no
conception of—hellish—utterly suffocating—insufferable,
inconceivable. I gasped for breath, and, turning to
my companions, perceived that they were paler than marble.
But we had now no time left for question or surmise—the
brig was within fifty feet of us, and it seemed
to be her intention to run under our counter, that we
might board her without her putting out a boat. We
rushed aft, when, suddenly, a wide yaw threw her off
full five or six points from the course she had been running,
and, as she passed under our stern at the distance
of about twenty feet, we had a full view of her decks.
Shall I ever forget the triple horror of that spectacle?
Twenty-five or thirty human bodies, among whom were
several females, lay scattered about between the counter

and the galley, in the last and most loathsome state of
putrefaction! We plainly saw that not a soul lived in
that fated vessel! Yet we could not help shouting to the
dead for help! Yes, long and loudly did we beg, in the
agony of the moment, that those silent and disgusting
images would stay for us, would not abandon us to become
like them, would receive us among their goodly
company! We were raving with horror and despair—
thoroughly mad through the anguish of our grievous disappointment.

As our first loud yell of terror broke forth, it was replied
to by something, from near the bowsprit of the
stranger, so closely resembling the scream of a human
voice that the nicest ear might have been startled and deceived.
At this instant another sudden yaw brought the
region of the forecastle for a moment into view, and we
beheld at once the origin of the sound. We saw the
tall stout figure still leaning on the bulwark, and still
nodding his head to and fro, but his face was now turned
from us so that we could not behold it. His arms were
extended over the rail, and the palms of his hands fell
outward. His knees were lodged upon a stout rope,
tightly stretched, and reaching from the heel of the bowsprit
to a cathead. On his back, from which a portion
of the shirt had been torn, leaving it bare, there sat
a huge seagull, busily gorging itself with the horrible
flesh, its bill and talons deep buried, and its white plumage
spattered all over with blood. As the brig moved
further round so as to bring us close in view, the bird,
with much apparent difficulty, drew out its crimsoned
head, and, after eying us for a moment as if stupified,
arose lazily from the body upon which it had been feasting,
and, flying directly above our deck, hovered there
a while with a portion of clotted and liver-like substance
in its beak. The horrid morsel dropped at length
with a sullen splash immediately at the feet of Parker.
May God forgive me, but now, for the first time, there
flashed through my mind a thought, a thought which I will
not mention, and I felt myself making a step towards
the ensanguined spot. I looked upward, and the eyes

of Augustus met my own with a degree of intense and
eager meaning which immediately brought me to my
senses. I sprang forward quickly, and, with a deep
shudder, threw the frightful thing into the sea.

The body from which it had been taken, resting as it
did upon the rope, had been easily swayed to and fro by
the exertions of the carnivorous bird, and it was this motion
which had at first impressed us with the belief of
its being alive. As the gull relieved it of its weight, it
swung round and fell partially over, so that the face was
fully discovered. Never, surely, was any object so terribly
full of awe! The eyes were gone, and the whole
flesh around the mouth, leaving the teeth utterly naked.
This, then, was the smile which had cheered us on to
hope! this the—but I forbear. The brig, as I have already
told, passed under our stern, and made its way
slowly but steadily to leeward. With her and with her
terrible crew went all our gay visions of deliverance
and joy. Deliberately as she went by, we might possibly
have found means of boarding her, had not our sudden
disappointment, and the appalling nature of the discovery
which accompanied it, laid entirely prostrate every
active faculty of mind and body. We had seen and felt,
but we could neither think nor act, until, alas, too late.
How much our intellects had been weakened by this
incident may be estimated by the fact, that, when the
vessel had proceeded so far that we could perceive no
more than the half of her hull, the proposition was seriously
entertained of attempting to overtake her by swimming!

I have, since this period, vainly endeavoured to obtain
some clew to the hideous uncertainty which enveloped the
fate of the stranger. Her build and general appearance,
as I have before stated, led us to the belief that she was
a Dutch trader, and the dresses of the crew also sustained
this opinion. We might have easily seen the
name upon her stern, and, indeed, taken other observations
which would have guided us in making out her
character; but the intense excitement of the moment
blinded us to everything of that nature. From the saffron-like

hue of such of the corpses as were not entirely
decayed, we concluded that the whole of her company
had perished by the yellow fever, or some other virulent
disease of the same fearful kind. If such were the case
(and I know not what else to imagine), death, to judge
from the positions of the bodies, must have come upon
them in a manner awfully sudden and overwhelming,
in a way totally distinct from that which generally characterizes
even the most deadly pestilences with which
mankind are acquainted. It is possible, indeed, that
poison, accidentally introduced into some of their sea-stores,
may have brought about the disaster; or that the
eating some unknown venomous species of fish, or other
marine animal, or oceanic bird, might have induced it—
but it is utterly useless to form conjectures where all is
involved, and will, no doubt, remain for ever involved, in
the most appalling and unfathomable mystery.