In the Sargasso Sea Part 11

But my thirst was not severe enough to trouble me greatly; and, indeed, I partly forgot it in my steadily growing excitement as I pressed forward and more and more distinctly saw the funnels of a whole fleet of steamers looming up through the golden mist ahead of me like chimneys in a sun-shot London fog. And so the afternoon went by, and my crooked rough path slipped away behind me so rapidly that by a good hour before sunset I was near enough to the steamers to see not only their funnels but their hulls.

The look of one of them, and she was one of the nearest, was so familiar as I began to make her out clearly that I was sure that I had got back again to the _Hurst Castle_; for she was just about the size of the _Hurst Castle_, and was lying with her bow down in the water and her stern high in the air--and the delight of this discovery threw me into such a ferment that I quite forgot how tired I was and fairly ran across the last half dozen vessels that I had to traverse before I came under her tall side. However, when I got close to her I saw that she was not the _Hurst Castle_ after all, but only another unlucky vessel that had broken her nose in collision and so had filled forward and gone sagging down by the bows.

As it happened, the wreck from which I had to board her was a little water-logged brig, close under her quarter, so low-lying that the tilted-up stern of the steamer fairly towered above the brig like a three-story house; and at first it seemed to me that I was about as likely to climb up a house-front as I was to climb up that high smooth wall of iron. But a part of the brig's foremast still was standing, and from it a yard jutted out to within jumping distance of the steamer's rail; and while that was not a way that I fancied--nor a way that ever I should have dared to take, I suppose, had there been any choice in the matter--up it I had to go. Hot as I was though with eagerness, I was a badly scared man as I slowly got to my feet and steadied myself for a moment on the end of the yard and then jumped for it; and a very thankful man, an instant later, when I struck the steamer's rail and fell floundering inboard on her deck--though I bruised myself in my fall pretty badly, and got an unexpected crack on the back of my head as my bag of jewels flew up and hit me with a bang.

However, no real harm was done; and I was so keen to look about me that in a moment I was on my legs again and went forward, limping a little, that I might get up on the bridge: for my strongest desire--stronger even than my longing to go in search, of the water that I did not doubt I would find in the steamer's tanks--was to gaze out over the open ocean, across which I had to go in some way if ever again I was to be free.

The sun was close down on the horizon, a red ball of fire glowing through the mist, and in the mist above and over the surface of the sea below a red light shone. But as I stood on the bridge looking at this strange splendor all my hope died away slowly within me and a chill settled upon my heart. As far as ever I could see the water was covered thickly with tangled and matted weed, broken only here and there by hummocks of wreckage and by a few hulks drifting in slowly to take their places in the ranks of the dead. The almost imperceptible progress of these hulks showed how dense was the ma.s.s through which they were drifting; and showed, too, how utterly impossible it would be for me to force my way in a boat driven by oars or sails to the clear water lying far, far off. Even a steamer scarcely could have pushed through that tangle; and could not have gone twice her own length without hopelessly fouling her screw. And it seemed to me that I might better have died on one of the old rotten hulks among which I had been for so long a time wandering--where hope was not, and where I was well in the mood for dying--rather than thus to have got clear of them, and have hope come back to me, only to bring up short against the wall of my sea-prison and so find myself held fast there for all the remainder of my days. And I was the more savagely bitter because I had no right whatever to be disappointed. What I saw was not new to me, and I had known what I was coming to--though I had kept down my thoughts about it--all along.

x.x.xI

HOW HOPE DIED OUT OF MY HEART

The steamer that I had come aboard of proved to be French; and that she had not long been abandoned I knew by finding an abundance of ice in her cold-room and a great deal of fresh meat there too. Had she been manned by a stiff-necked crew she would not have been abandoned at all. She had been in collision, and her bow-compartment was full of water; but the water had not got aft of her foremast, and except that she was down by the head a little she was not much the worse for her bang. That her captain had tried to carry on after the accident was shown by the sail that had been set in place very snugly over her smashed bows; and I greatly wondered why he had given up the fight, until I found--getting a look at her stern from one of the wrecks lying near her--that her screw was gone. This second accident evidently had been too much for her people and they had taken to the boats and left her. But I think that an English or an American crew would have stood by her, and would have succeeded in getting her towed into port--or even would have brought her in under her own sails. She was called the _Ville de Saint Remy_, and was a fine boat of about five thousand tons.

All that I had hoped to find aboard of her in the way of comforts and luxuries was there, and more too. Indeed, if a good bed, and the best of food, and excellent wines and tobacco, had been all that I wanted I very well might have settled myself on the _Ville de Saint Remy_ for the balance of my days. But I almost resented the luck which had brought me all these things--for which I had been longing so keenly but a few hours before--because I did not find with them what I desired still more earnestly: the means that would enable me to get away seaward and leave them all behind. What such means would be, it is only fair to add, I could not imagine; at least, I could not imagine anything at all reasonable--for the only thing I could think of that would carry me out across that weed-covered ocean to open water was a balloon.

And so, although I fed daintily and drank of the best, and had good tobacco to cheer me after my meals, my first day aboard the _Ville de Saint Remy_ was as sad a one as any that I had pa.s.sed since I had come into my sea-prison; for while the daylight lasted, and I wandered about her decks looking always at the barrier of weed which held me there, I had clearly before me the impossibility of ever getting away. Only when darkness came, hiding my prison walls from me, did I become a little more cheerful--as the very human disposition to make light of difficulties when they no longer are visible began to a.s.sert itself in my mind.

Down in the comfortable cabin, well lighted and airy, I had a capital dinner--and a bottle of sound Bordeaux with it that no doubt added a good deal to my sanguine cheerfulness; and to end with I made myself some delicious coffee--over a spirit-lamp that I found in the pantry--and had with it a gla.s.s of Benedictine and a very choice cigar. And all of these luxurious refreshments of the flesh--which set me to smiling a little as I thought of the contrast that they made to my surroundings--so comforted my spirit that my gloomy thoughts left me, and I began to plan airily how I would start off in a boat well loaded with provisions and somehow or another push my way through the weed. I even got along to details: deciding that it would be quite an easy matter to open a way through the tangle over the bows of my boat with an oar--or with an axe, if need be--and then press forward by poling against the weed on each side; which seemed so feasible a method that I concluded I could accomplish readily at least a mile a day. And so, with these fine fancies dancing in my brain, I settled myself into a delightful bed; and as I drowsed off deliciously I had the comforting conviction that in a little while longer all my difficulties would be conquered and all my troubles at an end.

With the return of daylight, giving me an outlook over the weed-covered water again, most of my hopefulness left me along with most of my faith in my airily-made plan; but even in this colder mood it did seem to me that there was at least a chance of my pulling through--and my slim courage was strengthened by the feeling within me that unless I threw myself with all my energy into work of some sort I presently would find myself going melancholy mad. And so, but only half-heartedly, I mustered up resolution to make a trial of my poor project for getting away.

On board the _Ville de Saint Remy_ there was nothing to be done. The corner-stone of my undertaking was finding a boat and launching it, and the Frenchmen--in their panic-stricken scamper from a danger that was mainly in their own lively imaginations--had carried all their boats away. It was necessary, therefore, that I should go on a cruise among the other wrecks lying around me in search of a boat still in a condition to swim; but I was very careful this time--profiting by my rough experience--to make sure before I started of my safe return.

Fortunately the stern of the steamer was so high out of the water that it rose conspicuously above the wrecks lying thereabouts; but to make her still more conspicuous I roused out a couple of French flags and an American flag from her signal-chest and set them at her three mastheads--giving to our own colors the place of honor on the mainmast--and so made her quite unmistakable from as far off as I could see her through the haze. And as a still farther precaution against losing myself I hunted up a hatchet to take along with me to blaze my way. All of which matters being attended to, I made a rope fast to the rail--knotting it at intervals, so that I could climb it again easily--and so slipped down the steamer's side.

My business was only with the wrecks lying along the extreme outer edge of the pack--from which alone it would be possible for me to launch a boat in the event of my finding one--but in order to get from one to the other of them I had to make so many long detours that my progress was very slow. Indeed, by the time that noon came, and I stopped to eat my dinner--which I had brought along with me, that I need not have to hunt for it--I had made less than half a mile in a straight line. And in none of the vessels that I had crossed--except on one lying so far in the pack as to be of no use to me--had I found a single boat that would swim. Nor had I any better luck when I went on with my search again in the afternoon. As it had been in the case of the _Hurst Castle_ so it had been, I suppose, in the case of all the wrecks which I examined that day: either their boats had been staved-in or washed overboard by tempest, or else had served to carry away their crews. But what had become of them, so far as I was concerned, made no difference--the essential matter was that they were gone. And so, toward evening, I turned backward from my fruitless journey and headed for the _Ville de Saint Remy_ again--for I had found no other s.h.i.+p so comfortable in the course of my explorations--and got safe aboard of her just as the sun was going down.

That night I had not much comfort in the good dinner that I set out for myself--though I was glad enough to get it, being both hungry and tired--and I only half plucked up my spirits over my coffee and cigar.

But still, as the needs of my body were gratified, my mind got so far soothed and refreshed that I held to my purpose--which had been pretty much given over when I came back tired and hungry after my vain search--and I went to bed resolute to begin again my explorations on the following day.

But when the morning came and I set off--though I had a good breakfast inside of me, and such a store of food by me as fairly would have set me dancing with delight only a week before--I was in low spirits and went at my work rather because I was resolved to push through with it than because I had any strong hope that it would give me what I desired.

This time--having already examined the wrecks for near a mile northward along the edge of the pack--I set my course for the south; and again, until late in the afternoon, I worked my way from s.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+p--with long detours inland from time to time in order to get around some break in the coast-line--and on all of them the result was the same: not a boat did I find anywhere that was not so riven and shattered as to be beyond all hope of repair. And at nightfall I came back once more to the _Ville de Saint Remy_ wearied out in body and utterly dispirited in mind.

Even after I had eaten my dinner and was smoking at my ease in the cheerfully lighted cabin, sitting restfully in a big arm-chair and with every sort of material comfort at hand, I could not whip myself up to hoping again. It was true that I had not exhausted the possibilities of finding the boat that I desired so eagerly, for my search along the coast-line had extended for only about a mile each way; but in my down-hearted state it seemed to me that my search had gone far enough to settle definitely that what I wanted was not to be found. And this brought down on me heavily the conviction that my prison--though it was the biggest, I suppose, that ever a man was shut up in--must hold me fast always: and with that feeling in it there no longer was room for hope also in my heart.

x.x.xII

I FALL IN WITH A FELLOW-PRISONER

When I had finished my breakfast the next morning I faced the worst thing which I had been forced to face since I had been cast prisoner into the Sarga.s.so Sea: a whole day of idleness without hope. Until then there had not been an hour--save when I was asleep--that I had not been doing something which in some way I had hoped would better my condition temporarily, or would tend toward my deliverance. But that morning I was without such spurs to effort and there was absolutely nothing for me to do. My condition could not be improved by making my home on another vessel; it was doubtful, indeed, if in all the wreck-pack I could find a home so comfortable and so abundantly stocked with the best provisions as I had found aboard of the _Ville de Saint Remy_. As for working farther for my deliverance, I had set that behind me after my experience during the two preceding days. And so I brought a steamer-chair out on the deck and sat in it smoking, idle and hopeless, gazing straight out before me with a dull steadfastness over the very gently undulating surface of the weed-covered sea.

After a while, tiring of sitting still, I began to pace the deck slowly; and I was so heavy with my sorrow that I could not think clearly, but had only in my mind a confused feeling that I was taking the first of a series of walks such as wild animals imprisoned take endlessly back and forth behind the bars that shut them in. And from this I went on to thinking, still in the same confused way, that the wild animals at least were not outcast in their captivity--having living people and living beasts around them, and the pleasure of hearing living sounds--while one of the worst things about my prison was the absolute dead silence that hung over it like a dismal cloud.

And perhaps it was because my thoughts happened at that moment to be set to take notice of such matters that I fancied I heard a very faint sound of scratching and an instant later a still fainter little cry.

I was standing just then close to the water-line on the deck forward, beside a covered hatch that seemed to lead to what had been the quarters of the crew; and it was from beneath this hatch, I was certain, that the sounds came. Slight though the noise was, it greatly startled me; and at the same time it aroused in me the strangely-thrilling hope that there possibly might be a living man still aboard of the steamer and that I would be no longer horribly alone. Yet I would not suffer myself too much to give room to this happy hope, for the little faint scratching--which I heard again presently--was not the sort of noise that a man shut in would be likely to make; nor did the little plaintive sound seem like a human cry. But the matter was one to be investigated in a hurry, and with an energy quite astonis.h.i.+ng, in comparison with my la.s.situde of a moment before, I got the hatch open and leaned down it, listening; and then I heard the scratching so plainly that I hurried down the stair.

The between-decks was well enough lighted by a good-sized skylight, and the place that I had got into had fixed tables set in it and seemed to be the mess-room of the crew. Doors opened out from it both fore and aft; and from behind the after door--so plainly that I had no difficulty in placing it--came the scratching sound that I was pursuing: and with it came the cries again, and this time so distinctly as to shatter my hope of finding a human being there, but at the same time to make me, for all my sorrow, almost smile. For the cry was a very long and plaintive m-i-i-a-a-u! And the next moment, when I had the door open, a great black cat came out upon me--so overcome with delight at meeting a human being again that he was almost choking with his gurgling purr. Indeed the extravagant joy of the poor lonely creature was as great as mine would have been had I found a man there--and he manifested it by lunging sidewise against my legs, and by standing up on his hind paws and reaching his fore paws up to my knees and clutching them, and then with a spring he climbed right up me--all the while choking with his great gurgling purring--and was not satisfied until he found himself bundled close against my breast as I held him tight in my arms. And on my side--after I had gulped down my first disappointment because it was only a cat who was my fellow-prisoner--I was as glad to meet him as he was to meet me; and I am not ashamed to say that I fairly cried over him--as a warm rush of joy went over me at finding myself at last, after being for so long a time surrounded only by the dead, in the company of a living creature; and a creature which showed toward me by every means that a brute beast could compa.s.s its grat.i.tude and its love.

And I must add without delay that my cat's affection for me was wholly disinterested; at least, I am sure that he loved me--from the first moment of our encounter--not because he wanted me to do something for him, but because he longed, as I did, for human companions.h.i.+p and was filled up with happiness because he had found again a human friend. As I discovered upon investigation, his prison had been the galley in which food for the crew had been cooked; and upon the odds and ends left there he had fared very well indeed--not overeating himself by gobbling down all his food in a hurry, and then dying of starvation, as a dog would have done, but temperately eating for his daily rations only what his sustenance required; and for drink he had had a pot partly full of what had been hot water that stood upon the galley stove. But I also must add that this coa.r.s.e fare was not at all to his liking; and that thereafter he ordered me around pretty sharply, in his own way, and insisted always upon my providing him with dainty food.

It was a good thing for the cat, certainly, that I had found him; for his stock of provisions was pretty nearly exhausted, and in a little while longer he would have come to a dismal end. But my finding him was a still better thing for me. When I first heard his faint little scratching, and his still fainter plaintive little call for help, I was so deep in my despairing melancholy that my reason was in a fair way to go, and with it all farther effort on my part to set myself free. From that desperate state my small adventure with him roused me, which was a good deal to thank him for; but I had more to thank him for still.

In the little time that I had been aboard of the _Ville de Saint Remy_--my days having been pa.s.sed away from her--I had made no exploration of her interior beyond her cabin and the region in which were carried her cabin stores; which latter were so abundant as to set me at my ease for an indefinite period in regard to food. But this meeting with my fellow-prisoner so stirred me up, and put such fresh spirit into me, that I began to think of having a general look all over her: that I might in a way take stock of my belongings and at the same time have something to occupy my mind--for I knew that to sit down idly again would be only again to fall back into despair. And so, my cat going with me--and, indeed, making a good deal of a convenience of me, for he by no means would walk on his own legs but insisted upon jumping up on my shoulder and going that way as a pa.s.senger--I set off on my round.

As well as I could make out from what I found on board of her--for her papers either had been carried away or were stowed in some place which I did not discover--the _Ville de Saint Remy_ had been bound outward to some colonial port and carried a cargo of general stores. When I got her hatches off--though that came later--I saw in one place a lot of wheelbarrows, and some heavy wagons stowed with their wheels inside of them, and some machinery for thres.h.i.+ng along with a portable steam-engine; and in another place were boxes which seemed to have dry-goods in them, and a great many cases of wines, and some very big cases that evidently contained pianos--and so on with a great lot of stuff such as the people of a flouris.h.i.+ng colony would be likely to need.

But in my round that morning with the cat on my shoulders--for he was not content to remain perched on one of them quietly, but kept pa.s.sing from one to the other with affectionate rubs against the back of my head, and all the while purring as hard as he could purr--I did not get below the main-deck except into the engine-room, my attention being given to finding out fully what the steamer had on board of her in the way of work-shops and tools: for already, with my renewed cheerfulness, the notion was beginning to take hold of me that I might set to work and build a boat for myself--and so make what I could not find. And, indeed, I don't doubt that I should have set myself to this big undertaking--for the appointments of the vessel were admirably complete and everything that I wanted for my work was there--had not a bigger, but a more promising, undertaking presented itself to me and so turned my efforts into another way.

x.x.xIII

I MAKE A GLAD DISCOVERY

It was directly to my cat that I owed the great piece of good fortune that then came to me: but I must confess that he was an unwilling agent in the matter, and probably wished himself well out of it, the immediate result in his case being rather a bad squeeze to one of his fore paws.

We had been examining the machine-shop, the cat and I, and whatever his views about it may have been mine were of great satisfaction; for when I had got the dead-lights unscrewed so that I could see well about me I had been delighted by finding there everything that my boat-building project required. Indeed, I almost fancied myself back again in one of the work-shops of the Stevens Inst.i.tute, so well was the place fitted and supplied--a completeness probably due to the fact that the _Ville de Saint Remy_ was intended for long voyages to out-of-the-way ports, and very well might have to depend upon her own resources for important repairs.

It was as we were leaving the machine-shop to continue our round of investigations that my cat suddenly took it into his head to jump down from my shoulders and stretch his own legs a little; and away he scampered--being much given to such frisking dashes, as I later discovered, though for the next week or so after that one he went limping on three legs mighty soberly--first down the deck aft, and then past me and up a dark pa.s.sage leading toward the bows; and I, being pretty well accustomed to cat habits, stood waiting until he should have his fun out and so come back again with a miau by way of "if you please" to be taken up into my arms. But he did not come back in any great hurry, and off in the darkness I could hear his paws padding about briskly; and then there was silence for a moment; and then he broke out into a loud miauling which showed that he was in trouble of some sort and also in pain.

As there was no helping him until I could see what was the matter with him, I hurried first into the machine-shop for a wrench, and then went forward into that dark place cautiously--until by a glint of light on the s.h.i.+p's side I made out where a port was, and so got loose the deadlight and could look around. What I saw was my poor cat in such a pickle that I did not in the least blame him for crying out about it; he having, as it seemed, made an unlucky jump upon some small bars of iron which were lying loose and disorderly, with the one on which he landed balanced so nicely that it had turned suddenly and jammed fast his paw. And so he was anch.o.r.ed there very painfully, and was telling what he thought about it in the most piercing yowls.

Fortunately it was an easy matter to let him loose from the trap that he had got into; but even while I was doing it--and before I picked him up to look at his hurt and to comfort him--I gave a shout of delight on my own account that was a good deal louder than any of my poor cat's yells of pain. For there before me was a very stout-looking and large steam-launch--thirty-two feet over all, as I found when I came to measure her--stowed snugly in a cradle set athwart-s.h.i.+p and looking all ready to be put overboard into the sea. And at finding in this unexpected fas.h.i.+on what I had been so long looking for, and had quite done with hoping for, it is no wonder that I shouted with joy.

My cat coming limping to me to be pitied and cared for, holding up his pinched paw and with little miaus asking for my sympathy quite like a Christian, I had first of all to give him my attention. But his hurt was not a very serious one--the flesh not being cut, and no bones broken--and when I had comforted him as well as I could, until I got him soothed a little, I put him down out of my arms that I might examine carefully my great prize; but first of all opening all the ports so that I might have plenty of light for what I wanted to do.

Coming to this deliberate survey, I found that the launch truly enough was complete, but that she was very far from being ready to take the water; for while all her parts were there--and even duplicates of her more important pieces, in readiness against a break-down--most of her fittings and all of her machinery was lying inside of her boxed for transportation; being arranged that way, I suppose, because she would have been far too heavy to swing into the snug place where I found her and out again with everything bolted fast. She was a very beautiful little boat, evidently intended for a pleasure craft--but very strong and seaworthy, too; and it no doubt was to keep her in good order for delivery that she had been stowed between-decks for the long voyage.

Indeed, only with a steam-winch and a good many men to handle her, could she have been got down there; and the first of my uncomfortable thoughts about her, of the many that I had first and last, came while I was taking stock of her equipment--as I fell to wondering how in the world I should manage, with only a cat to help me, ever to get her overboard into the sea.

As to a.s.sembling her parts, and so making her ready for cruising, I had no doubts whatever. That piece of work was directly in the line of my training and I felt entirely secure about it; but even on that score I quaked a good deal at the size of the contract to be taken by a single pair of hands, and at thought of the long, long while that would be required to carry it through. Yet the hope that came with finding this boat put such heart into me that my spirits did not go down far. Working on her--aside from the pleasure that any man with a natural love for mechanics finds in serious and difficult labor with his hands--would be a constant delight to me because of what it would be leading to; and in every moment of my work I would have to sustain me the thought that each rivet set in place and each bolt fastened brought me appreciably nearer to being set free.

Having cursorily finished with the boat, I continued my survey to her surroundings; that I might plan roughly my scheme of work upon her, and that I might plan also for getting her launched when my work upon her should be done. She was stowed on the main-deck--in a place that probably was intended for the use of third-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers, when such were carried--and the machine-shop was so close to her that in the matter of fetching tools and so on my steps would be well saved.

Directly over her was the forward hatch; through which she had been lowered and set in place in the cradle previously made ready for her, and there fixed firm and fast. For a moment I had the fancy that I might get up steam to work the donkey-engine and so hoist her out again by that same way, and overboard too. But a very little reflection showed me that this airily formed plan must be abandoned, as all my work on her then would have to be done far away from the machine-shop and with the additional disadvantage that through the long time that certainly must pa.s.s before I could get her finished she would lie open to the daily heavy rains. And then I had the much more reasonable notion--though the amount of extra labor that it involved was not encouraging to contemplate--that I would do my work on her where she lay; and when I had finished her that I would cut loose a sufficient number of plates from the side of the steamer to make a hole big enough to get her overboard that way.