"Stand by, to heave the guns overboard."
Too late, too late--Oh God, that cry!--I was stunned and drowning, a chaos
of wreck was beneath me, and around me, and above me, and blue agonized
gasping faces, and struggling arms, and colourless clutching hands, and
despairing yells for help, where help was impossible; when I felt a sharp
bite on the neck, and breathed again. My Newfoundland dog, Sneezer, had
snatched at me, and dragged me out of the eddy of the sinking vessel.
For life, for dear life, nearly suffocated amidst--the hissing spray, we
reached the cutter, the dog and his helpless master.
For three miserable days, I had been exposed, half naked and bareheaded,
in an open boat, without water, or food, or shade. The third fierce
cloudless West Indian noon was long passed, and once more the dry burning
sun sank in the west, like a red--hot shield of iron. In my horrible
extremity, I imprecated the wrath of Heaven on my defenceless head, and
shaking my clenched hands against the brazen sky, I called aloud on the
Almighty, "Oh, let me never see him rise again!" I glared on the noble dog,
as he lay dying at the bottom of the boat; madness seized me, I tore his
throat with my teeth, not for food, but that I might drink his hot blood
it flowed, and vampirelike, I would have gorged myself; but as he turned
his dull, grey, glazing eye on me, the pulses of my heart stopped, and I
fell senseless.
When my recollection returned, I was stretched on some fresh plantain
leaves, in a low smoky hut, with my faithful dog lying beside me, whining
and licking my hands and face.
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