"I determined to act on this hideous emergency, knowing full well that sailors are subject to the spirit of authority from long subjection to its practical exercise, and seeing that there was no escape from the result, for I swept the horizon in vain for some signal of approaching succor, I prepared to draw lots. Then arose the other startling and thrilling question, Who shall arrange the lots? There was not much time for argument, and so they agreed, after a moment's pause, that I, their captain, should hold the fates in my hand. I tore a piece of paper into as many strips as there were men to draw, and held them in my hand. All drew, and the owner's son drew the fatal lot. He was perfectly calm, although the youngest and the brightest-hoped of the whole party, and seemed to yield at once, without a murmur, to the horrid fate that in an instant awaited him. Then there sprang up a discussion among the starving crew, and they declared that the lots should be drawn over again: they would not have their favorite slaughtered. I arranged the pieces again, and to my horror and surprise, the youth again drew the fatal slip. Once more the crew, now doubly excited, with their grim, famished faces staring at me, swore in perfect madness that the youth should not die, and ordered me, with savage gestures of insane fury, to draw again. I saw that I was to do a duty beyond their wishes. I felt the terrific responsibility that rested upon me, and it required but a few seconds to make up my mind what course to pursue. All was despair around me; all was hopeless, utterly, and, I thought, eternally hopeless; and I felt that I would not die with the crime of human partiality and injustice upon my soul.
"I agreed to hold the lots again; and when I had arranged them, I said that the youth must be excluded from the drawing, and for that purpose told him to step forward to the bow. He rose to obey me. I remember his thin figure standing between me and the bright line left by the departed sun against the horizon of the heaving sea. One instant, and one instant only, did he stand thus elevated like a living cross, with his arms outstretched to balance his tottering steps, when he fell forward into the arms of the excited sailors, I had shot him, as he stood thus, determined to end the conflict for blood that was raging around me, and satisfy the generous and noble-hearted sailors,
