firing on their runaway captain. Lieutenant
Espiau and M. Bredilf, another engineer,
returned for them with great difficulty in the leaky
Iong boat, and rescued all but seventeen, who
preferred waiting till assistance could be sent
them from Senegal. The French flag was then
hoisted on the wreck, the unfortunates were left
to perish, and the boats got into line, led by the
captain's barge, which was preceded by the
pinnace. The hundred and fifty men crowded on
the raft broke into excited cries of "Vive le
roi!" and a little white flag was hoisted on a
soldier's musket. There was a pretence of order,
but it was really only a selfish and cowardly
scramble to land. The raft was cumbrous and
slow. Eh bien! they would desert the raft, and
leave its crew to perish. There was no
irresolution about the cowards now.

Espiau, finding the long boat crazy, leaky,
almost unmanageable, asked the officers of each
of the boats by turns to relieve him of some
twenty men. Lieutenant Maudet, of the third
boat, fearing a collision, in his despair,
especially as his own craft was slight and patched,
let go the tow-rope. The captain made no
effort to recover the rope or preserve the line,
but hurried on his rowers. The governor seeing
this—being by no means a candidate for martyrdom
and two leagues from the frigate—resolved
to let the raft go. Then arose a cry of "Let's
leave them." An officer kept every moment
crying, "Shall I let go?" M. Clanet, a paymaster,
resisted; but the rope was eventually
let go, and the raft remained alone and helpless.

The despairing crowd on the raft could not at
first believe that they were so ruthlessly deserted.
It was thought that the boats had only parted
in order to hasten to some vessel that had been
seen on the horizon. The long boat, too, was still
to leeward; she lowered her foresail, as if going
to take up the tow-rope; but all at once she
tacked, then slowly hoisted her sails and
followed the division.

In fact, brave M. Espiau had urged the
sailors to rejoin the raft, but they feared that
the people on the raft would attack them.
Finding the other boat would not join him,
M. Espiau at last reluctantly set sail,
exclaiming:

"We shall sink, but let us show courage to
the last. Let us do what we can. Vive le roi!"

This cry spread from boat to boat, but not one
turned to save the men on the raft, who, frantic
at the desertion, which, in their rage, they
believed to be premeditated, swore that they would
cut to pieces whoever they overtook. Thirst and
famine, pestilence and death, hovered over those
miserable and doomed men; terror in the sea,
terror in the burning sky. The soldiers and
sailors were either petrified with despair or
maddened with fear. The officers alone preserved
an outward fortitude, and by degrees partially
calmed or consoled the herd of howling, base,
and frantic creatures.

Let us describe the floating grave which
these panic-stricken men had so clumsily
constructed. It was twenty metres long and seven
broad, but was so flimsy that only the centre
could be relied upon for safety, and on this space
there was barely standing room for fifteen men.
It had neither sails nor a mast. It was
composed of the Medusa's masts, poles, boom, and
yards. The groundwork and the sides were
solid, and strongly lashed and bound together;
on these supports were nailed crossboards, and
on the sides there was a low breastwork. The
head of this lattice-work raft was formed by two
top-gallant yards, which crossed each other.
The angular space thus formed was crossed by
slight planks, and was continually submerged.
The raft had, before starting, been used as a
depot for the flour barrels. There had also been
placed on it six barrels of wine and two small
casks of water. But the first fifty men, finding
the raft sink seventy centimetres, threw over
all the flour barrels, and let them drift away
with their store of life. Even when thus
lightened, the raft at the head and the stern,
when the hundred and fifty men had all
embarked, was still three feet under water. At the
moment of putting off, a man threw down to the
raft a bag with twenty-five pounds of biscuit.
It fell into the sea, but the briny paste was
preserved, and with the casks carefully lashed to the
crossbeams of the raft.

The commander of these unhappy people
was M. Coudin, "an aspirant of the first class,"
to use a term of the French navy. He had
injured his leg while in the Aix roads,
and the salt water distressed the wound;
but, being the oldest officer of his class
on board the Medusa, he had refused to
relinquish his dangerous post. His noblest coadjutor
was M. Corréard, the engineer, who had
been ordered to the boats, but refused to
leave his twelve workmen who were on the
raft. M. Savigny, the young Swiss surgeon,
was also very generous in his devotion to save
these unworthy men. Only two military
officers had deserted their soldiers. A captain
had been ordered, with thirty-six soldiers, to fire
on any who should desert the raft, but he
resisted his men when they began to load; the
other, Lieutenant Danglas, forsook the raft, and
then threatened to fire at the governor and
captain, who in their turn deserted him and left
him on the wreck.

The first inquiry of the abandoned men was
for the charts, anchor, and compass, which they
had been told had been left for them. Cries of
horror and rage ran through the group of
half-famished men when they found that neither
compass nor chart was there. All at once, M.
Corréard remembered that one of his workmen
carried a small compass about the size of a
crown-piece, and there was a smile of joy among
these mobile people at the discovery. A few
hours after, they lost it between the interstices
of the raft, and had only the sun to guide them.
Having left the frigate without a meal (another
fatal oversight), and having for several days had
no regular food, the biscuit paste, to the last
mouthful, was now mixed with wine and
distributed to the men, with a pint of wine each.