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Page 62
"Sit down, Mr. Wyatt," replied the captain, somewhat sternly, "you
will capsize us if you do not sit quite still. Our gunwhale is almost
in the water now."
"The box!" vociferated Mr. Wyatt, still standing -- "the box, I say!
Captain Hardy, you cannot, you will not refuse me. Its weight will be
but a trifle -- it is nothing- mere nothing. By the mother who bore
you -- for the love of Heaven -- by your hope of salvation, I implore
you to put back for the box!"
The captain, for a moment, seemed touched by the earnest appeal of
the artist, but he regained his stern composure, and merely said:
"Mr. Wyatt, you are mad. I cannot listen to you. Sit down, I say, or
you will swamp the boat. Stay -- hold him -- seize him! -- he is
about to spring overboard! There -- I knew it -- he is over!"
As the captain said this, Mr. Wyatt, in fact, sprang from the boat,
and, as we were yet in the lee of the wreck, succeeded, by almost
superhuman exertion, in getting hold of a rope which hung from the
fore-chains. In another moment he was on board, and rushing
frantically down into the cabin.
In the meantime, we had been swept astern of the ship, and being
quite out of her lee, were at the mercy of the tremendous sea which
was still running. We made a determined effort to put back, but our
little boat was like a feather in the breath of the tempest. We saw
at a glance that the doom of the unfortunate artist was sealed.
As our distance from the wreck rapidly increased, the madman (for as
such only could we regard him) was seen to emerge from the companion
-- way, up which by dint of strength that appeared gigantic, he
dragged, bodily, the oblong box. While we gazed in the extremity of
astonishment, he passed, rapidly, several turns of a three-inch rope,
first around the box and then around his body. In another instant
both body and box were in the sea -- disappearing suddenly, at once
and forever.
We lingered awhile sadly upon our oars, with our eyes riveted upon
the spot. At length we pulled away. The silence remained unbroken for
an hour. Finally, I hazarded a remark.
"Did you observe, captain, how suddenly they sank? Was not that an
exceedingly singular thing? I confess that I entertained some feeble
hope of his final deliverance, when I saw him lash himself to the
box, and commit himself to the sea."
"They sank as a matter of course," replied the captain, "and that
like a shot. They will soon rise again, however -- but not till the
salt melts."
"The salt!" I ejaculated.
"Hush!" said the captain, pointing to the wife and sisters of the
deceased. "We must talk of these things at some more appropriate
time."
We suffered much, and made a narrow escape, but fortune befriended
us, as well as our mates in the long-boat. We landed, in fine, more
dead than alive, after four days of intense distress, upon the beach
opposite Roanoke Island. We remained here a week, were not
ill-treated by the wreckers, and at length obtained a passage to New
York.
About a month after the loss of the "Independence," I happened to
meet Captain Hardy in Broadway. Our conversation turned, naturally,
upon the disaster, and especially upon the sad fate of poor Wyatt. I
thus learned the following particulars.
The artist had engaged passage for himself, wife, two sisters and a
servant. His wife was, indeed, as she had been represented, a most
lovely, and most accomplished woman. On the morning of the fourteenth
of June (the day in which I first visited the ship), the lady
suddenly sickened and died. The young husband was frantic with grief
-- but circumstances imperatively forbade the deferring his voyage to
New York. It was necessary to take to her mother the corpse of his
adored wife, and, on the other hand, the universal prejudice which
would prevent his doing so openly was well known. Nine-tenths of the
passengers would have abandoned the ship rather than take passage
with a dead body.
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