On the rude joists that bound the rafters
of the roof together, rested a light canoe with its paddles, and over
against me, on the wall, hung some Indian fishing implements, and a
long--barrelled Spanish gun. Underneath lay a corpse, wrapped in a
boat--sail, on which was clumsily written, with charcoal,--"The body of
John Deadeye, Esq. late Commander of his Britannic Majesty's Sloop,
Torch."
There was a fire on the floor, at which Lieutenant Splinter, in his shirt
and trowsers, drenched, unshorn, and deathlike, was roasting a joint of
meat, whilst a dwarfish Indian, stark naked, sat opposite to him,
squatting on his hams, more like a large bull--frog than a man, and
fanning the flame with a palm leaf. In the dark corner of the hut half a
dozen miserable sheep shrunk huddled together. Through the open door I
saw the stars in the deep blue heaven, and the cold beams of the newly
risen moon were dancing in a long flickering wake of silver light on the
ever--heaving bosom of the ocean, whilst the melancholy murmur of the surf
breaking on the shore, came booming on the gentle night--wind. I was
instantly persuaded that I had been nourished during my delirium; for the
fierceness of my sufferings was assuaged, and I was comparatively strong.
I anxiously enquired of the Lieutenant the fate of our shipmates.
"All gone down in the old Torch; and had it not been for the launch and
our four--footed friends there, I should not have been here to have told
it; but raw mutton, with the wool on, is not a mess to thrive on, Tom.
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