"Ayr was now recognized as commander, by virtue of his natural superiority, and the first mate, a well-meaning but forceless man, had the good sense to resign his authority to the only one who could do anything for us—if anything could be done at all.
"With a few volunteers to assist him, Ayr rigged and launched a raft, upon which nine of us embarked. The remainder of the crew had already been lost, or were afraid to leave the vessel, and some had lashed themselves to her spars. Ayr was the last to leave her. He jumped overboard, swam to the raft, cut the hawser, and we drifted away from the hulk, which heeled and went down before we were out of sight.
"The raft floated low, and half the time we were up to our necks in water, for all that day and all night heavy seas broke over her. Ayr, who was a powerful swimmer, was swimming about the raft the greater part of the time, sometimes tightening the fastenings where she threatened to break apart, and often saving and hauling on board again some poor wretch who had been swept off. But every few hours a man would be carried away whom Ayr could not reach, and our little company was continually growing smaller.
"As for myself, I was rather a poor swimmer, and either the exposure, or some disease that I had previously contracted, caused an uncomfortable swelling and puffiness in my fingers and toes. I took off, with some difficulty, a ring which I had worn for a dozen years, as it now begun to hurt me, and slipped it upon Ayr's finger, asking him to keep it for me till some happier time.
"In the afternoon of the second day, it became evident that the raft was too large for the strength of the ropes that held it together, and that a smaller one must be made. Ayr set to work to build it almost alone. Indeed, but four of us were now left—Simpson, an Englishman, Hobbes the mate, Ayr, and I. Ayr had lost a great deal of his strength, and his knife slipped from his hand and sank in the sea. I lent him mine, for the other two men were destitute of knives; Hobbes had lost his when Ayr knocked him out of the boat.
"Just as the new raft was ready to be cut loose, a great sea struck us, and widely separated the two, leaving Ayr and Hobbes on what remained of the old one, while Simpson and I were on the new. I saw Ayr plunge into the water and strike out toward us; but after a few strokes he turned back, either because he felt he had not strength to reach us, or because he would not leave Hobbes helpless. The sudden night of the tropics shut down upon us, and when morning dawned the old raft was nowhere to be seen.
"The sea was now much less violent, and Simpson and I managed to maintain our position in spite of our wasted strength. I felt that another night would be our last. But an hour before sunset we were picked up by a Dutch vessel, bound on an exploring voyage to the coasts of Borneo and Celebes. We had not the luck to sight any vessel going in the opposite direction, and so could only return after the explorations had been made, which kept us away from home nearly two years longer.
"When at last I crossed my father's threshold again, a week ago, I found that I was not only given up for dead, but was supposed to have been murdered by my dearest friend, Roderick Ayr. He and Hobbes had been picked up by a vessel bound for Liverpool.
"Hobbes, who, it seems, had never given up his grudge against Ayr, passing through my native town on his way from Boston to his own home, had stopped over a train for the purpose of setting afloat the story of the wreck, in which he so far mingled truth and falsehood as to represent that Ayr, in view of the scanty stock of provisions on the raft, had successively murdered three of the men in their sleep,—of whom I was one,—robbed them, and rolled their bodies off into the sea.
"When Ayr came along on the next train, a policeman's hand was laid upon his arm before he stepped off from the platform. He was taken to police headquarters and searched, and as my watch, my ring, and my knife were found in his possession, the evidence against him seemed conclusive. But the living, lying witness had disappeared, and could not be found. Either he had felt that he would be unable to confront Ayr and withstand cross-questioning, or else he had no desire to send Ayr to the gallows, but only to disgrace him in the estimation of his townsmen. In this he succeeded to a considerable extent. Ayr told the straight story, which his nearest friends believed—except some who feared he might have done, under the peculiar temptations of a wreck, what he would not have done under any other circumstances; and as no murder could be actually proved, he, of course, could not be held. But most of the people ominously shook their heads, and refused to receive his account of the watch, the ring, and the knife as anything but an ingenious triple falsehood. It was more than he could stand, and between two days he disappeared, his nearest relatives not knowing what had become of him.