Accidents > Dangers of the deep, or, Narratives of shipwreck and adventure at sea

8T. tAWKENCE.
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Their strength was more reduced, still hunger
forced them to keep to the same diet. At
length two or three days more having elapsed,
they found they had nearly lost their sight,
and so much was their strength now dimin¬
ished, that they could with difficulty keep
in their fire, from the rotten branches of trees.
There seemed at such a moment no alter¬
native but that to which allusion has already
been made, namely, the making one of their
number a sacrifice by lot, to keep his com¬
panions alive; and it at length appears to
have been agreed secretly, that as the cap¬
tain was so very much reduced as to be
clearly the first who must sink under his suf¬
ferings of all the party, and as the loss of the
ship was mainly owing to his misconduct;
and further, as he had deceived all on board
by pretending his passage was for New York,
when in reality it was for the West Indies,
for these reasons it was urged that he should
be the first victim.
They kept this a profound secret from the
miserable man. A few days more, and the
sacrifice must have been offered up, when
fortunately, on the twenty-eighth of February,
as they were all stretched round their miser