In The Dingey Of The Lady Vain

: The Island Of Doctor Moreau

I DO not propose to add anything to what has already been written

concerning the loss of the "Lady Vain." As everyone knows,

she collided with a derelict when ten days out from Callao.

The longboat, with seven of the crew, was picked up eighteen days after

by H. M. gunboat "Myrtle," and the story of their terrible privations

has become quite as well known as the far more horrible "Medusa" case.

But I have to add to th
published story of the "Lady Vain"

another, possibly as horrible and far stranger. It has hitherto

been supposed that the four men who were in the dingey perished,

but this is incorrect. I have the best of evidence for this assertion:

I was one of the four men.



But in the first place I must state that there never were four men

in the dingey,--the number was three. Constans, who was "seen

by the captain to jump into the gig,"{1} luckily for us and unluckily

for himself did not reach us. He came down out of the tangle

of ropes under the stays of the smashed bowsprit, some small rope

caught his heel as he let go, and he hung for a moment head downward,

and then fell and struck a block or spar floating in the water.

We pulled towards him, but he never came up.



{1} Daily News, March 17, 1887.



I say lucky for us he did not reach us, and I might almost

say luckily for himself; for we had only a small breaker

of water and some soddened ship's biscuits with us, so sudden

had been the alarm, so unprepared the ship for any disaster.

We thought the people on the launch would be better provisioned

(though it seems they were not), and we tried to hail them. They could

not have heard us, and the next morning when the drizzle cleared,--which

was not until past midday,--we could see nothing of them. We could

not stand up to look about us, because of the pitching of the boat.

The two other men who had escaped so far with me were a man named Helmar,

a passenger like myself, and a seaman whose name I don't know,--a short

sturdy man, with a stammer.



We drifted famishing, and, after our water had come to an end,

tormented by an intolerable thirst, for eight days altogether.

After the second day the sea subsided slowly to a glassy calm. It is

quite impossible for the ordinary reader to imagine those eight days.

He has not, luckily for himself, anything in his memory to imagine with.

After the first day we said little to one another, and lay

in our places in the boat and stared at the horizon, or watched,

with eyes that grew larger and more haggard every day, the misery

and weakness gaining upon our companions. The sun became pitiless.

The water ended on the fourth day, and we were already thinking

strange things and saying them with our eyes; but it was, I think,

the sixth before Helmar gave voice to the thing we had all been thinking.

I remember our voices were dry and thin, so that we bent towards

one another and spared our words. I stood out against it with all

my might, was rather for scuttling the boat and perishing together

among the sharks that followed us; but when Helmar said that if his

proposal was accepted we should have drink, the sailor came round

to him.



I would not draw lots however, and in the night the sailor whispered

to Helmar again and again, and I sat in the bows with my clasp-knife

in my hand, though I doubt if I had the stuff in me to fight;

and in the morning I agreed to Helmar's proposal, and we handed

halfpence to find the odd man. The lot fell upon the sailor;

but he was the strongest of us and would not abide by it, and attacked

Helmar with his hands. They grappled together and almost stood up.

I crawled along the boat to them, intending to help Helmar by grasping

the sailor's leg; but the sailor stumbled with the swaying of the boat,

and the two fell upon the gunwale and rolled overboard together.

They sank like stones. I remember laughing at that, and wondering

why I laughed. The laugh caught me suddenly like a thing

from without.



I lay across one of the thwarts for I know not how long,

thinking that if I had the strength I would drink sea-water

and madden myself to die quickly. And even as I lay there I saw,

with no more interest than if it had been a picture, a sail come

up towards me over the sky-line. My mind must have been wandering,

and yet I remember all that happened, quite distinctly.

I remember how my head swayed with the seas, and the horizon

with the sail above it danced up and down; but I also remember

as distinctly that I had a persuasion that I was dead, and that I

thought what a jest it was that they should come too late by such

a little to catch me in my body.



For an endless period, as it seemed to me, I lay with my head

on the thwart watching the schooner (she was a little ship,

schooner-rigged fore and aft) come up out of the sea.

She kept tacking to and fro in a widening compass, for she was

sailing dead into the wind. It never entered my head to attempt

to attract attention, and I do not remember anything distinctly after

the sight of her side until I found myself in a little cabin aft.

There's a dim half-memory of being lifted up to the gangway, and of

a big round countenance covered with freckles and surrounded with red

hair staring at me over the bulwarks. I also had a disconnected

impression of a dark face, with extraordinary eyes, close to mine;

but that I thought was a nightmare, until I met it again.

I fancy I recollect some stuff being poured in between my teeth;

and that is all.



More

;