Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/362

318 bread and beef aboard or to take the people off if they so preferred, filled away and resumed her course. Captain Harrison of the Peggy had taken to his bed with rheumatism, but he crawled on deck to watch the faithless ship abandon him while his crew cursed like madmen and shouted their appeals for help.

For sixteen days the people of the Peggy lived on candles, whale-oil, and barnacles scraped from the ship's side. Then the crew, led by the mate, invaded Captain Harrison's cabin and told him they could hold out no longer. They had eaten the leather packing of the pump, they had chewed the leather buttons off their jackets, and liquor would not keep them alive. It was now their intention to cast lots for a victim, and the captain was asked to supervise the business. He refused to have anything to do with it, which excited a hubbub of anger, and the mate announced that nobody would be exempted. The captain was to stand his chance with the rest. They tramped out of the cabin, remained a little while in the steerage, and returned to say that the lots had been drawn, and a negro slave who was in the cargo had received the fatal number.

Captain Harrison, bed-ridden as he was, had the courage to tell the men that he suspected them of dealing unfairly with the poor negro, and that he