Collected Works of Poe | Page 5

has seen, both Augustus and
myself were rescued; and our deliverance seemed to have been brought
about by two of those almost inconceivable pieces of good fortune
which are attributed by the wise and pious to the special interference of
Providence.
While the ship was yet in stays, the mate lowered the jolly-boat and
jumped into her with the very two men, I believe, who spoke up as
having seen me at the helm. They had just left the lee of the vessel (the
moon still shining brightly) when she made a long and heavy roll to
windward, and Henderson, at the same moment, starting up in his seat
bawled out to his crew to back water. He would say nothing else-
repeating his cry impatiently, back water! black water! The men put
back as speedily as possible, but by this time the ship had gone round,
and gotten fully under headway, although all hands on board were
making great exertions to take in sail. In despite of the danger of the
attempt, the mate clung to the main-chains as soon as they came within
his reach. Another huge lurch now brought the starboard side of the
vessel out of water nearly as far as her keel, when the cause of his
anxiety was rendered obvious enough. The body of a man was seen to
be affixed in the most singular manner to the smooth and shining
bottom (the Penguin was coppered and copper-fastened), and beating
violently against it with every movement of the hull. After several
ineffectual efforts, made during the lurches of the ship, and at the
imminent risk of swamping the boat I was finally disengaged from my
perilous situation and taken on board- for the body proved to be my
own. It appeared that one of the timber-bolts having started and broken
a passage through the copper, it had arrested my progress as I passed
under the ship, and fastened me in so extraordinary a manner to her
bottom. The head of the bolt had made its way through the collar of the
green baize jacket I had on, and through the back part of my neck,
forcing itself out between two sinews and just below the right ear. I was
immediately put to bed- although life seemed to be totally extinct.
There was no surgeon on board. The captain, however, treated me with
every attention- to make amends, I presume, in the eyes of his crew, for

his atrocious behaviour in the previous portion of the adventure.
In the meantime, Henderson had again put off from the ship, although
the wind was now blowing almost a hurricane. He had not been gone
many minutes when he fell in with some fragments of our boat, and
shortly afterward one of the men with him asserted that he could
distinguish a cry for help at intervals amid the roaring of the tempest.
This induced the hardy seamen to persevere in their search for more
than half an hour, although repeated signals to return were made them
by Captain Block, and although every moment on the water in so frail a
boat was fraught to them with the most imminent and deadly peril.
Indeed, it is nearly impossible to conceive how the small jolly they
were in could have escaped destruction for a single instant. She was
built, however, for the whaling service, and was fitted, as I have since
had reason to believe, with air-boxes, in the manner of some life-boats
used on the coast of Wales.
After searching in vain for about the period of time just mentioned, it
was determined to get back to the ship. They had scarcely made this
resolve when a feeble cry arose from a dark object that floated rapidly
by. They pursued and soon overtook it. It proved to be the entire deck
of the Ariel's cuddy. Augustus was struggling near it, apparently in the
last agonies. Upon getting hold of him it was found that he was
attached by a rope to the floating timber. This rope, it will be
remembered, I had myself tied around his waist, and made fast to a
ringbolt, for the purpose of keeping him in an upright position, and my
so doing, it appeared, had been ultimately the means of preserving his
life. The Ariel was slightly put together, and in going down her frame
naturally went to pieces; the deck of the cuddy, as might have been
expected, was lifted, by the force of the water rushing in, entirely from
the main timbers, and floated (with other fragments, no doubt) to the
surface- Augustus was buoyed up with it, and thus escaped a terrible
death.
It was more than an hour after being taken on board the Penguin before
he could give any