perdus" leaped up, drew his sabre, assembled his
armed workmen, and remaining at the front of
the raft, stood on the defensive. Every moment
they were charged by drunken mutineers armed
with clubbed carbines, sabres, knives, and
bayonets. The men thrown overboard also swam
round, and clambering over the front of the
raft attacked them in the rear.

One of the workmen, named Dominique, joining
the rebels, was knocked overboard; but M.
Corréard, hearing his voice over the side, dragged
him up by the hair of his head, and bound up
a large sabre-wound on his head. This wretch,
the moment he had recovered, returned to the
mutineers, and was struck dead in a subsequent
charge. Such were the monsters of which the
African battalion was composed, and it is difficult
to lament their fate. Hearing cries and
screams from the waves, M. Corréard found that
the mutineers had flung the sutler and her
husband into the sea, where they were frantically
invoking the aid of Our Lady of Laux (department
of Upper Alps). Fastened to a rope, M. Corréard
rescued the woman, while an artilleryman saved
her husband. The grateful woman instantly
gave her preserver all that she had in the world
—a little parcel of snuff, which M. Corréard
presented to a sailor, who subsisted on it for
four days. The soldier and his wife could hardly
believe their senses when they found themselves
once more safe in each other's arms.

"Save me, for I am useful," the delighted,
garrulous woman said to the workmen. "I
was in all the Italian campaigns; I followed the
grand army twenty-four years; I braved death;
I helped the wounded; I brought them brandy,
whether they had money or not. In battle I
generally lost some debtors, but then the
survivors paid me double; so I, too, shared every
victory."

After that rough check the mutineers lost
heart, and, throwing themselves at the officers'
feet, asked and received pardon. At midnight,
however, they broke out again, charging
savagely at the officers who stood armed round
the mast. The soldiers who had no arms bit
the officers, and tore them with their teeth. If
they got a man down, they beat him with their
sabres and carbines. Sous-Lieutenant Lozach,
who had served with the Vendeans under St.
Pol de Léon, and was therefore obnoxious to
the troops, was with difficulty rescued from their
cruel hands, as they dragged him to the side.
Their cry was constantly for the head of
Lieutenant Danglas, who had been harsh with them
when in garrison in the Isle of Rhé. They could
not be persuaded that he was with the boats.
They then seized M. Coudin, who held a boy in
his arms, and flung them both overboard. M.
Coudin, though wounded, was saved.

M. Savigny has left on record his feelings at
this time. An irresistable lethargy came, during
which the most beautiful wooded country
scenes delightful to the senses, passed before his
mind. If such torpor was not resisted,men
became furious, or calmly drowned themselves
saying "they were going for assistance, and
would soon return." At times a soldier would
rush at his comrades with his sabre drawn, and
demand bread or the wing of a fowl; others
called for their hammocks, saying they wanted
to go between decks and get some sleep. Many
believed they saw ships passing, and hailed them;
others described a harbour and a magnificent
city, which seemed to rise in the air. M.
Corréard fancied himself travelling across the
plains of Lombardy. One of the officers said to
him, gravely, "I know, Corréard, that the boats
have deserted us; but never fear. I have just
written to the governor, and in a few hours it
will be all right." M. Corréard replied in good
faith, and asked if he had a carrier-pigeon to
take the message. The moment the fighting
ceased, the men sank again into these semi-
trances, and when they awoke in the morning
regarded the combats as nightmare dreams
With the daylight the unhappy men grew
calmer; but the terror always rose up again in
the darkness.

When day broke, it was found that upwards
of sixty men had perished in the mutiny;
about a fourth of these having drowned
themselves in paroxysms of despair. Two of the
loyal side had perished, but neither of
them was an officer. Sobered by fatigue,
the soldiers, shedding tears, loudly bewailed
their fate after the demonstrative French
manner. A new misfortune had happened.
In spite of all the struggles of the officers, the
mutineers during the night had thrown into the
sea two barrels of wine and the only two kegs
of water. There was only one cask of wine.
left for the sixty survivors; they at once, therefore,
put themselves on half allowance.

The sea had now grown calm, and the mast
was once more raised. Some of the practised
sailors thought they saw a line of desert shore
glittering in the distance, and tried to believe
they felt the hot breath of the adjacent
Sahara; but the sail was now spread to every
wind, so the raft alternately approached
and receded from the land. The soldiers,
fainting with fatigue and the relapse from their
drunken fury, still groaned out their execrations
at their officers, whom they accused as the cause
of their tortures. The officers, though now
forty-eight hours without food, were upheld by
their higher moral feeling, and held up bravely.
They collected tags from their men, and bent
them into hooks for fishing; but the current
carried them under the raft, and there they got
entangled and lost. They then twisted a bayonet
into a hook, but a shark bit at it and straightened
it. All was useless.

Suddenly the horrible impulse of cannibalism
seized the more degraded of the soldiers (it is
with pity as much as indignation that we record
this horror). They instantly leaped on the dead
bodies that strewed the raft, cut off lumps of flesh,
and devoured them voraciously. Many (especially
the officers) refused to share in this unnatural
meal, and still bore up, subsisting on a larger
portion of wine. The men, feeling stronger
after their cruel meal, set to work and dried the