They were all Robinson’s followers. Taking some of the rigging that trailed from the spar, they lashed it to the hatch, and the two pieces together made a serviceable raft.
Then all drew themselves clear of the water and lay prone on the float to rest.
It was an awful night we spent on that bit of wood washed by the waves, but when morning dawned the breeze fell away entirely, so the sea no longer broke over us.
The sun rose and shone hot on a glassy ocean, and not a sail was in sight.
There is little use in describing the four days of suffering spent on that float. Robinson was horribly burned and badly cut by a blow from a cutlass. His left arm was shattered from the shot I fired at him, and he was otherwise used up from the minor blows he had received in his fierce rush. But he lived long enough to prevent his ruffian crew from killing me. I was bound by a solemn oath to say nothing of the affair as I had seen it, so that if we were the sole survivors—which we were not certain of being at that time—there could be no evidence to implicate my shipmates.
Robinson must have known that he was fatally hurt, and that is the reason he made them spare my life. Whatever I told would not harm him; and, besides, I really think he turned to the memory of my sister during those last hours.
He died very shortly after the Yarmouth picked us up, and the British officers and men buried him with some ceremony; especially respectful were they when they were told that he was our executive officer.
There was some truth in this grim falsehood, although not of the kind suspected.
He was sewn carefully in canvas the day after we were rescued, and had a twelve-pound shot lashed to his feet. The burial service was read by the ship’s chaplain in much the same tone I had heard Robinson quote from the Scriptures in my father’s house.
All the officers uncovered as he was dropped over the side, and the silence that followed the splash of his body into the sea was the most impressive I have ever observed to fall on so large a body of men.