The two were duly found guilty, Dudley and Stephens, but subsequently obtained a partial royal

pardon, reducing their sentence from death to imprisonment for a term of 6 months without hard
labour. The survivors were not seamen in Fuller's fictional version, but rather a party of
inexperienced explorers exploring a cave. The entrance to the cave collapsed, leaving five of the
explorers trapped and hungry. The starving survivors decided to hold a lottery to decide which of
their number should be killed and eaten after the failure of many rescue attempts so that the
remaining explorers could probably survive until rescued. One of the survivors, Whetmore,
attempted to withdraw from the agreement shortly before holding the lottery, an appeal that was
rejected by the others, who continued to perform the lottery in Whetmore 's absence, the results
of which went against Whetmore. He was sacrificed thereupon for the benefit of the victims,
who were saved shortly afterwards.