LIGHT OUT OF DARKNESS. 887

her child, as if she would have said they should take care of
him.

However, the mate, who was exceedingly moved with the sight,
endeavoured to get some of the broth into her mouth; and as he
said, got two or three spoonfuls down, though I question whether
he could be sure of it or not. But it was too late, and she died
the same night.

The youth, who was preserved at the price of his most affec-
tionate mother’s life, was not so far gone, yet he lay in a cabin-bed
as one stretched out, with hardly any life left in him. He had a
piece of an old glove in his mouth, having eaten up the rest of it.
However, being young, and having more strength than his mother,
the mate got something down his throat, and he began sensibly to
revive; though, by giving him some time after but two or three
spoonfuls extraordinary, he was very sick, and brought it up
again.

But the next care was the poor maid. She lay all along upon
the deck hard by her mistress, and just like one that had fallen
down with an apoplexy, and struggled for life. Her limbs were
distorted; one of her hands was clasped round the frame of a chair,
and she griped it so hard that we could not easily make her let
go; her other arm lay over her head; and her feet lay both
together set fast against the frame of the cabin table; in short,
she lay just like one in the last agonies of: death, and yet she was
alive too.

The poor creature was not only starved with hunger and terrified
with the thoughts of death, but, as the men told us afterwards,
was broken-hearted for her mistress, whom she saw dying for two
or three days before, and whom she loved most tenderly.

We knew not what to do with this poor girl; for when our
surgeon, who was a man of very great knowledge and experience,
had with great application recovered her as to life, he had her
upon his hand as to her senses, for she was little less than dis-
tracted for a considerable time after, as shall appear presently.

Whoever shall read these memorandums must be desired to con-
sider that visits at sea are not like a journey into the country,
where sometimes people stay a week or a fortnight at a place.