“How long I floated in my net work of ropes, I cannot tell. I remember the wrath of the panting billows, as they were urged onwards by the furious hurricane. On they dashed over my defenceless head, throwing the shattered mast against my wounded limbs, and straining the cords till they cut into my flesh. I remember, too, that the storm seemed to subside as quickly as it had arisen. Then a noise as if a vessel toiling through the waves came over me, and a mixed feeling of fear and hope passed through my confused brain;—then a shout and a grappling with my coiling ropes;—then a sensation of the soft air, and of my mounting through it;—and then a buzz of voices, as I lay in quietness on a solid floor.
“Alas! how wretched I felt, when I found that all the voices were strange, the language foreign, and the faces dark and unknown to me. A Portuguese merchant vessel, bound for the city and port of Guayaquil, had picked me up.
“I cannot describe to you the forlorn state of my feelings, after the terrible wreck. My own situation, however, and the altered mode of my existence, I did not consider till I was made to feel it severely, by the coarse treatment I met with from those who saved my life. I was made to work my way—that I expected, and could not complain of—but I felt sadly the difference in the manners of the captain and his crew, compared with those of the “Speedwell.”
“I thanked the captain for saving my life, and told him I intended to leave the ship. This, to my surprise, he said I should not do. I replied that he had no control over me; that I was an Englishman, and could not be compelled to serve in a foreign vessel. Then, said he, pay me for your passage from Juan Fernandez, and you may leave the ship. I told him this was impossible, as I had lost every thing in the fatal wreck. At this he only laughed in my face, and said; ‘That is not my look out; you shall pay me or stay where you are;’ and with an oath, turned on his heel, and left me to my own sad feelings.”
Tom determined, at once, to embrace the first opportunity to escape. But they had dropped anchor two or three miles from the shore, and how could he effect it? Besides he was closely watched. But the vessel was soon to sail on a long voyage, and being called to take his turn, one night in the watch, with two or three others, he determined to make the attempt.
“This night, or never—said I to myself, as I took my station. While I was walking the deck, one of my shipmates at the mast-head, and the other astern, the ship suddenly quivered, as if she were in an ague fit!—down slipped the fellow from on high, and fell flat on his face; the other rushed forward, and kneeled beside him, both crossing themselves and saying prayers to their saints. I lost no time, but seizing a board, I hastily lashed it to my back with a rope (that when I became fatigued with swimming, I might turn and float,) and slipping astern, let myself down into the water. The noise of the splash I feared would betray me, and I gave up all for lost, though the next minute, I found they were all praying, and took courage and quietly struck off. I made but little headway, however, owing to the board on my back.
“As I continued my toilsome passage towards the shore, I heard the loud bellowing of the troubled earth, and felt the water jar me, as if it had been a solid substance. Suddenly a towering volcano, which I took to be Cotopaxi, at above one hundred miles distance, appeared illuminated like an immense light-house; the thundering increased, and shrieks and other fearful noises were borne to me over the water. At last, when nearly exhausted, I was thrown ashore, where I lay to recover breath and strength, but oh, the distress and confusion that then took place! Many of the inhabitants came crowding down to the water’s edge, for safety; houses had been destroyed; the earth was rocking and heaving like an angry ocean; streams of water had gushed out of the ground where no water had ever been seen before; suffocating fumes of sulphur burst up under the feet of the terrified and flying sufferers; and when the morning dawned, the face of the country seemed changed. Still the town itself (Guayaquil) had sustained but little damage, and the inhabitants began to return to their dwellings and their business. They are so much accustomed to earthquakes all over Peru, that it is not surprising they should so soon lose their terrors.
“In the general distress, I met with but little compassion or assistance, which I then thought strange, but I had not yet learned that affliction often hardens the heart. No one relieved my hunger; so I ventured to steal a handful of nuts from a heap that had fallen out of a basket which had been thrown down during the night. These I beat between two stones, and mixed with a little water; and this was my food for that day.