Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/121

 repeated, as they stood over us, and directed our labor. The poor creatures seemed to obey as if instinctively, this voice of command. They collected about me and began to work the pumps. If it had no other good effect, at least it served to call off our attention from the horrors with which we were surrounded. We plied our work till one of the pumps was broken and the other choked and rendered useless. By this time the storm had abated, and the vessel, notwithstanding all our fears to the contrary, still rode the waves.

It grew lighter by degrees. Presently the clouds began to break away, and to drive in huge, misty masses along the sky. Occasionally the sun broke out; and after a considerable dispute, whether it were rising or setting, we concluded it must be some four or five hours past sunrise.

As soon as the women had recovered from the first paroxysm of their terror, they gave such care as they could, to the poor sufferers, who had been wounded. They had bound up their wounds, and had collected them together on the quarter deck. One poor fellow who had been shot through the body with a pistol ball, was much worse hurt than the others. His wife was supporting his head on her lap, and was trying to prevent the pitching of the vessel from aggravating his sufferings. She had been standing by him, or rather clinging to him, at the moment he was wounded. She had caught him in her arms as he fell, had dragged him from the press, and from that moment seemed to forget all the horrors of our situation, in her incessant efforts to soothe his pains. Her affectionate care had proved of little avail. The struggle was now almost over. In a little while, he expired in her arms. When she found that he was dead, her grief, which she had controlled and suppressed so long, burst forth in all its energy. Her female companions gathered about her, — but the poor woman was beyond the reach of consolation.

Some of us now ventured below, and took the liberty of overhauling the steward's stores. Every thing was more or less damaged with salt water; but we lighted upon a cask or two of bread, which was tolerably dry, and which sufliced to furnish us a sumptuous repast.

We had not finished it, before we discovered a vessel