The Boy Tar

by Mayne Reid

For a long while I listened, but neither command nor chorus reached my ears. If I could not hear their loud baritone voices, how could they hear mine?

“Oh! they cannot hear me! They will never hear me! They will never come to my rescue! Here I must die—I must die!”

Such was my conviction, after I had shouted myself hoarse and feeble. The sea-sickness had yielded for a time to the more powerful throes of despair; but the physical malady returned again, and, acting in conjunction with my mental misery, produced such agony as I never before endured. I yielded to it; my energies gave way, and I fell over like one struck down by paralysis.

For a long while, I lay in a state of helpless stupor. I wished myself dead, and indeed I thought I was going to die. I seriously believe, that at that moment I would have hastened the event if I could; but I was too weak to have killed myself, even had I been provided with a weapon. I had a weapon, but I had forgotten all about it in the confusion of my thoughts.

You will wonder at my making this confession—that I desired death; but you would have to be placed in a situation similar to that I was in, to be able to realise the horror of despair. Oh, it is a fearful thing! May you never experience it!

I fancied I was going to die, but I did not. Men do not die either from sea-sickness or despair, nor boys either. Life is not so easily laid down.

I certainly was more than half dead, however; and I think for a good while insensible. I was in a stupor for a long time—for many hours.

At length my consciousness began to return, and along with it a portion of my energies. Strange enough, too, I felt my appetite reviving; for, in this respect, the “sea-sickness” is somewhat peculiar. Patients, under it, often eat more heartily than at other times. With me, however, the appetite of thirst was now far stronger than that of hunger, and its misery was not allayed by any hope of its being appeased. As for the other, I could still relieve it; some morsels were in my pocket.

I need not recount the many fearful reflections that passed through my mind. For hours after, I was the victim of many a terrible paroxysm of despair. For hours I lay, or rather tossed about, in a state of confused thought; but at last, to my relief, I fell asleep.

I fell asleep, for I had now been a long time awake, and this, with the prostration of my strength from mental suffering, had at length deadened the nerve of pain; so that, despite all my misery, I fell asleep.