Gudule could not consent to cast her dead children into its mighty depth; but anon she repented of it bitterly, for the eight seamen who remained, after a long conference on the forecastle, and frequently casting glances aft towards the cabin—glances like those of wolves—came in a body, and demanded that the dead children should be surrendered to them as food!
The entreaties and tears of the parents were vain. The Heer (now shorn of his strength) and his miserable helpmate were thrust into their cabin, while the wasted bodies of their children were borne away and laid on the drum of the capstan, where they were cut to pieces by the cook's knife, and then devoured raw. Hunger seemed to make the sailors insane, and able to overcome all aversion for food so unnatural; but whether it was that they ate immoderately, or that with satiety came a horror of their meal, I know not, but they were immediately assailed by a dreadful sickness, which left their bodies weaker than ever.
Gudule lay in a stupor on her bed, but the Heer loaded his pistols, though scarcely knowing for what purpose; and exerting all his strength, he contrived to burst open the cabin door and stagger on deck, when the crew, whom the hunger of another day assailed again, had just concluded the last of a second dreadful banquet—a banquet on his children!
On the capstan there lay the head of one. It had the fair curly locks of little Erasmus.
"Oh, madness and agony!" groaned the miserable Van Estell, as he took it in his tremulous hands, kissed it tenderly thrice, and slowly and solemnly dropped it into the glassy sea.
He could not weep—his hot dry eyes refused a tear, but groans burst from his overcharged breast and parched lips, and he swooned on the deck. There he lay, and so another day passed. When he recovered it was about the time of midnight, and a full round moon was shining on that now neglected ship of death and of despair.
The atmosphere was mild and warm.
The Heer stole into the cabin, and saw that his poor, sad, childless wife lay very still and motionless. Tremblingly he drew near, lest she might be dead; for then he had resolved to cast her and himself into the sea, lest her fair form might also be devoured by the madmen on deck. But she was in a soft sleep, dreaming, perhaps, that her lost little ones were alive, and seated by her side in a palm grove of Peru, listening to the voice of the campanero, or sweet bell-bird of Brazil. The deep slumber that follows long hours of mental and bodily suffering had fallen upon her.
The poor man wept and kissed her tenderly, but at that moment the mate, George Carpinger, entered, and roughly ordered him to come forward to the capstan head, where he and his comrades were deliberating on what was to be done next.
Heer Van Estell assured himself that his pistols were still in his pocket, that they were primed and loaded, and then he obeyed. As these nine men stood round the capstan, they resembled spectres rather than human beings, when the cold lustre of the moon fell on their pallid visages and bloodshot eyes that glared wildly from out their sunken sockets.