The stage upon which it was being enacted was a platform of planks and spars, rudely united together,—in short, a raft. The dramatis persona were men,—all men; although it might have required some stretch of imagination,—aided by a little acquaintanceship with the circumstances that had placed them upon that raft,—to have been certain that they were human beings. A stranger to them, looking upon them in reality,—or upon a picture, giving a faithful representation of them,—might have doubted their humanity, and mistaken them for fiends. No one could have been blamed for such a misconception.
If human beings in shape, and so in reality, they were fiends in aspect, and not far from it in mental conformation. Even in appearance they were more like skeletons than men. One actually was a skeleton,—not a living skeleton, but a corpse, clean-stripped of its flesh. The ensanguined bones, with some fragments of the cartilage still adhering to them, showed that the despoliation had been recent. The skeleton was not perfect. Some of the bones were absent. A few were lying near on the timbers of the raft, and a few others might have been seen in places where it was horrible to behold them!
The raft was an oblong platform of some twenty feet in length by about fifteen in width. It was constructed out of pieces of broken masts and spars of a ship, upon which was supported an irregular sheeting of planks, the fragments of bulwarks, hatches, cabin-doors that had been wrested from their hinges, lids of tea-chests, coops, and a few other articles,—such as form the paraphernalia of movables on board a ship. There was a large hogshead with two or three small barrels upon the raft; and around its edge were lashed several empty casks, serving as buoys to keep it above water. A single spar stood up out of its centre, or “midships,” to which was rigged—in a very slovenly manner—a large lateen sail,—either the spanker or spritsail of a ship, or the mizzen topsail of a bark.
Around the “step” of the mast a variety of other objects might have been seen: such as oars, handspikes, pieces of loose boards, some tangled coils of rope, an axe or two, half a dozen tin pots and “tots,”—such as are used by sailors,—a quantity of shark-bones clean picked, with two or three other bones, like those already alluded to, and whose size and form told them to be the tibia of a human skeleton.
Between twenty and thirty men were moving amid this miscellaneous collection,—not all moving: for they were in every conceivable attitude, of repose as of action. Some were seated, some lying stretched, some standing, some staggering,—as if reeling under the influence of intoxication, or too feeble to support their bodies in an erect attitude. It was not any rocking on the part of the raft that was producing these eccentric movements. The sea was perfectly quiescent, and the rude embarkation rested upon it like a log.
The cause might have been discovered near the bottom of the mast, where stood a barrel or cask of medium size, from which proceeded an exhalation, telling its contents to be rum.
The staggering skeletons were drunk!
It was not that noisy intoxication that tells of recent indulgence, but rather of the nervous wreck which succeeds it; and the words heard, instead of being the loud banterings of inebriated men, were more like the ravings and gibbering of maniacs. No wonder: since they who uttered them were mad,—mad with mania potu! If they were ever to recover, it would be the last time they were likely to be afflicted by the same disease,—at least on board that embarkation. Not from any virtuous resolve on their parts, but simply from the fact that the cause of their insanity no longer existed.
The rum-cask was as dry inside as out. There was no longer a drop of the infernal liquor on the raft; no more spirit of any kind to produce fresh drunkenness or renewed delirium tremens!
The madmen were not heeded by the others; but allowed to totter about, and give speech to their incoherent mumblings!—sometimes diversified by yells, or peals of mania laughter,—always thickly interlarded with oaths and other blasphemous utterances.