"After a while," said he, "you can have some salt horse, but you're not ready for it now."
The man at the wheel and the three others on deck were first cared for, two of our sailors assisting the mate, while the other two remained in the boat at the ship's side. After attending to those on deck the mate went to the cabin, where he found the Warwick's first mate lying in his bunk, and hardly able to move. He gave him the same sort of food and drink that he had given to the men on deck, except that he put brandy in the coffee instead of rum, and then he proceeded to the forecastle, where he found four of the crew, one of them in a dying condition, and the other three but little better off. All these were relieved in the manner already described, with the exception of the one whom I have mentioned as in a dying condition; he was too feeble to speak, and the muscles of his throat were so swollen that he could not swallow anything. He died within an hour of the arrival of relief, and it was Mr. Johnson's opinion that if the Warwick had failed to obtain relief for another forty-eight hours she would have been quite without officers or crew.
Our captain said that he would lie by the Warwick for the entire day, and supply her with everything she needed that he could possibly spare.
After the men on board the unfortunate vessel had regained their strength somewhat, they told their story.
The Warwick had sailed from Rio Janeiro nearly a year before, her destination being London. She had been caught in the calms just south of the equator, and lay there without moving a mile for several weeks together. Then she got a breeze that carried her two or three degrees north; the breeze died away, and left her in the doldrums as before. For ten weeks she was held there as though she had been anchored, in the terrific heat that prevails at the equator. She had two passengers, an Englishman and his wife, on their way home from Brazil. Both of them sickened and died from the effects of the heat, the wife being the first to go. Three of the sailors, and also the second mate, became ill during this period; and though they survived the period of calms they never recovered; but died not long after. After a time a wind sprang up which carried the ship to the northward, out of the equatorial belt of calms and into the winds of the tropics.
Then followed a series of gales, some of them reaching the severity of hurricanes. The ship was damaged considerably by the gales, and on two or three occasions it was thought she would founder and carry with her to the bottom of the ocean every one on board. At starting the Warwick had taken provisions and water for six months, expecting long before the end of that period to be safely anchored in the Thames.
She was blown far out of her course, water and provisions ran short, the crew were put on half rations, and afterwards on quarter rations, and on the day we sighted her not one of her party had drunk or eaten anything for nearly twenty-four hours. Starvation, or what is nearly as bad, cannibalism, stared the unfortunate mariners in the face; and Mr. Johnson, our second mate, was no doubt within bounds when he said that not one of the party could have survived forty-eight hours longer.