But only a very few obeyed him. Many of those who had not gone in the boats "broke open every box and chest they could reach, stove in the heads of the casks of wine and brandy," and got so helplessly intoxicated that "they were drowned on board, and lay floating about the decks for days afterward."
Those who had reached land in the boats, the number amounting in all to no less than 140 persons, had but little to congratulate themselves upon. Whichever way they looked, horror and desolation presented themselves: on one side the wreck, containing all they had to subsist upon; on the other, bleak and barren rocks. They found, however, a deserted Indian hut, into which they crowded for shelter from the storm which still raged.
In the morning the pangs of hunger seized them. Most of them had fasted for forty-eight hours, yet only three pounds of biscuit dust had been brought ashore with them, while all the land afforded had been a single sea-gull and a handful of wild celery. These they made into a kind of soup, which, little as it was among so many, caused the most violent sickness and swooning. The biscuit dust had been put into a tobacco bag which had not been entirely cleaned out, and thus the whole party was very nearly poisoned to death.
The Captain and officers had now come on shore, but many of the crew had refused to do so. The storm continuing worse than ever, however, they got frightened, and since the boats could not be got out to them immediately "they fired one of the quarter-deck guns at the hut" as a gentle reminder.
The men on land occupied a rocky promontory so exceedingly steep that they were obliged to cut steps to ascend and descend it, which they called—not inaptly—Mount Misery. The knowledge that their comrades were in a state of open mutiny did not tend to raise their spirits. They would have been willing enough, perhaps, to leave them to their fate, but for the necessity of getting provisions.
WITH ONE BLOW CAPTAIN CHEAP FELLED HIM TO THE GROUND.
When at last they were brought to land, they presented an extraordinary appearance. They were armed to the teeth, and only by the resolution of the officers, who "held loaded pistols to their breasts," could they be induced to give up their weapons. They had rifled the chests in the cabins, and put the laced clothes they found in them over their own greasy raiment, and the boatswain, their ring-leader, was rigged out in the most splendid attire. One is glad to read that, without respect to the figure he made, Captain Cheap felled him to the ground with his cane, and for a few hours order was restored.
As the hut could only hold a few people, the cutter was turned keel upward, and fixed on props, which made a very tolerable habitation. But food was still so scarce, though the scanty provisions from the ship had been hoarded with great frugality, that the men were glad to eat the carrion crows that preyed on the corpses from the wreck, which every tide cast on shore.
The ship was now under water, except the quarter-deck and part of the forecastle, and all that was procurable from it had to be drawn up by large hooks—"an occupation much obstructed by the bodies floating between-decks."