Frank Mildmay; Or, The Naval Officer

by Frederick Marryat

He then began to use curses and execrations; and, at last, fell on the deck in a fit of drunken frenzy.

I now called my people all together, and having stated to them the peril of our situation, we agreed that a large boat, which lay on the booms, should be instantly hoisted out, and stowed with every thing necessary for a voyage. Our clothes, bread, salt meat, and water, were put into her, with my sextant and spy-glass. The liquor, which was in the cabin, I gave in charge to the midshipman who was sent with me; and, having completely stowed our boat, and prepared her with a good lug-sail, we made her fast with a couple of stout tow-ropes, and veered her astern, with four men in her, keeping on our course in the supposed track of the frigate till daylight.

That wished-for hour arrived, but no frigate was to be seen, even from the mast-head. The ship was getting deeper and deeper, and we prepared to take to the boat. I calculated the nearest part of South America to be seven hundred miles from us, and that we were more than twice that distance from Rio Janeiro. I did not, however, despond, for, under all circumstances, we were extremely well off: and I inspired the men with so much confidence, that they obeyed in everything, with the utmost alacrity and cheerfulness, except in one single point.

Finding the ship could not in all probability float more than an hour or two, I determined to quit her, and ordered the boat alongside. The men got into her, stepped the mast, hooked on the lug-sail, ready to hoist at my orders; and, without my bidding, had spread my boat cloak in the stern-sheets, and made a comfortable place for me to repose in. The master proceeded to get into the boat, but the men repulsed him with kicks, blows, and hisses, swearing most dreadfully that if he attempted to come in, they would throw him overboard. Although in some measure I participated in their angry feeling, yet I could not reconcile myself to leave a fellow-creature thus to perish, even in the pit which he had dug for others, and this too at a time when we needed every indulgence from the Almighty for ourselves, and every assistance from his hand to conduct us into a port.

"He deserves to die; it is all his own doings," said they; "come into the boat yourself, Sir, or we must shove off without you."

The poor captain—who, after sleeping four hours, had recovered his senses, and felt all the horror of his situation—wept, screamed, tore his hair, laid hold of my coat, from which only the strength of my men could disengage him. He clung to life with a passion of feeling which I never saw in a criminal condemned by the law; he fell on his knees before me, as he appealed to us all, collectively and separately; he reminded us of his wife and starving children at Baltimore, and he implored us to think of them and of our own.

I was melted to tears, I confess; but my men heard him with the most stoical unconcern. Two of them threw him over to the opposite side of the deck; and before he could recover from the violence of the fall, pushed me into the boat, and shoved off. The wretched man had by this time crawled over to the side we had just left; and throwing himself on his knees, again screamed out, "Oh, mercy, mercy, mercy!—For God's sake, have mercy, if you expect any!—Oh, God! my wife and babes!"

His prayers, I lament to say, had no effect on the exasperated seamen. He then fell into a fit of cursing and blasphemy, evidently bereft of his senses; and in this state he continued for some minutes, while we lay alongside, the bowman holding on with the boat-hook only. I was secretly determined not to leave him, although I foresaw a mutiny in the boat in consequence. At length, I gave the order to shove off. The unhappy captain, who, till that moment, might have entertained some faint hope from the lurking compassion which he perceived I felt for him, now resigned himself to despair of a more sullen and horrible aspect. He sat himself down on one of the hen-coops, and gazed on us with a ghastly eye. I cannot remember ever seeing a more shocking picture of human misery.

While I looked at him, the black man, Mungo, who belonged to the ship, sprang overboard from the boat, and swam back to the wreck. Seizing a rope which hung from the gangway, he ascended the side, and joined his master. We called to him to come back, or we should leave him behind.

"No, massa," replied the faithful creature; "me no want to lib: no takee Massa Green, no takee me! Mungo lib good many years wi massa cappen. Mungo die wi massa, and go back to Guinea!"