An agreement had been made beforehand that all the boats should stay with the raft and together tow it to the nearby shore. But in their haste to reach land, the men in the boats soon cut the cables which held them to the heavy raft, leaving its crew to the mercy of currents and winds, without means of navigation, without sufficient drink for even a short voyage, and so desperately crowded on their flooded timbers as to make every movement an affliction.
"We were not convinced", Savigny recalled, "that we were entirely abandoned until the boats were almost out of sight. Our consternation was then extreme: all the horrors of famine and thirst were then depicted to our imaginations; and we had also to struggle with a treacherous element, which already covered one-half of our bodies. All the sailors and soldiers gave themselves up to despair, and it was with great difficulty that we succeeded in calming them."
The first day passed quietly, with talk of rescue and revenge, but during the night the wind freshened and the waves rose higher. "A great number of our passengers who had not a seaman's foot tumbled over one another; in fine, after ten hours of the most cruel sufferings, day arrived.
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