Morgan Robertson

“ Memory is treacherous. In a few days I had forgotten this yarn with the other, and might never have recalled it had I not ascended to an upper floor in the lofty Flatiron Building, and looked out of a window at the loftier, but unfinished, tower of the Metropolitan Building across the park. It was a damp, dismal day of fog; but at my elevation I could see clear of it. I was above it, looking over an undulating sea of cloud bank from which the tower rose, massive and mighty, apparently floating on end, like an immense spar buoy at the turn of the tide. ”

“ Amid the roar of escaping steam, and the bee-like buzzing of nearly three thousand human voices, raised in agonized screams and callings from within the inclosing walls, and the whistling of air through hundreds of open deadlights as the water, entering the holes of the crushed and riven starboard side, expelled it, the Titan moved slowly backward and launched herself into the sea, where she floated low on her side—a dying monster, groaning with her death-wound. ”

“ A fog-bank, into which the ship had plunged in the afternoon, still enveloped her — damp and impenetrable; and into the gray, ever-receding wall ahead, with two deck officers and three lookouts straining sight and hearing to the utmost, the great racer was charging with undiminished speed.
At a quarter past twelve, two men crawled in from the darkness at the ends of the eighty-foot bridge and shouted to the first officer, who had just taken the deck, the names of the men who had relieved them. ”

“ And as we—his mother and myself—watched him pacing the poop-deck as sail was being made, giving an occasional quiet order to the helmsman or sending a brazen roar forward to the mate on the forecastle, we were frankly proud of him. Six feet tall to an inch, straight as a man may be, with a chest almost as deep as his shoulders were broad, sunburned and brown-eyed, with only a well-kept mustache to relieve the boyishness of his face, he presented a picture that brought light into the eyes and a smile to the face of that mother as she stood beside me. ”

“ Men died under that storm of steel and flame; shrieks and groans followed the rattle and roar of each exploding shell; smoke and gas came into the conning-tower, blinding and choking the inmates, and Mr. Ryerson, his ears ringing, his eyes streaming, striving to keep a lookout through a peep-hole to port while he attended to three telephones and a speaking-tube, had little time to think of unsolved mechanical problems, or even the fate of poor old Finnegan. ”

“ The cries of the captain had ceased, but awful sounds of huge teeth snapping and grating and crunching, as the monster bit and burrowed, made a horrid accompaniment to the vengeful snarls. Then there was quiet for a moment, but for the noise of combat forward, and Spencer lifted his huge, ungainly shape—a black silhouette against the white paint work of the cabin-trunk—threw himself into a sudden contortion, and something passed over the cage, scattering warm, sticky drops of liquid, a few of which struck my hand. ”

“ Then when Captain Swarth's eyes permitted he took an observation or two, and, after a short lecture to his crew on the danger of sleeping in tropic moonlight, shaped his course for Barbados Island, to take up the burden of his battle with fate where the blindness had forced him to lay it down; to scheme and to plan, to dare and to do, to war and to destroy, against the inevitable coming of the time when fate should prove the stronger—when he would lose in a game where one must always win or die. ”

“ Can an unbeliever, in the full strength of his reasoning powers, come to such trouble that he can no longer stand alone, but must cry for help to an imagined power? Can such time come to a sane man—to me?" He looked at the dark line of vacant horizon. It was seven miles away; New York was nine hundred; the moon in the east over two hundred thousand, and the stars above, any number of billions. He was alone, with a sleeping child, a dead bear, and the Unknown. He walked softly to the boat and looked at the little one for a moment; then, raising his head, he whispered: "For you, Myra." ”

“ He had dropped his marline-spike, which, turning slowly over as it fell, struck the water, point first.
"My God, sir," he sang out to the mate below him on the poop, "d'you see that shark? He's long as the jib-boom, sir."
Mr. Good stepped to the taffrails and peered over, just in time to see the tip of a dorsal fin disappearing from view, and a long, dark-green, shadowy form that merged, as he looked, into the deep blue of the quiet sea. The ripples, splashed by the marline-spike, obstructed his vision; but Green, higher in the air, could see farther. ”

“ What human mind can remain tranquil before such a violation of the laws of nature? Wonder and perplexity grew to terror. They clutched one another, and crouched down, with elbows raised, as though to ward off a blow. Swarth, pale and silent, stared at the rising orb; Yank Tate's face was a picture of childish fright as he helped Angel steer; Angel, doughty ex-missionary, steered a seamanly course, but cast the burden upon the Lord. With his eyes on the compass, his lips moved in prayer. ”

“ The window-blind was coming at a faster speed than the gas-bag could attain. They met a quarter of a mile away on the Argyll's beam, and about an eighth of a mile above the water. The gas-bag vainly strove to dodge, but failed; for the window-blind could do what the kite had not been able to do—slow down; and soon the collision occurred. The pointed nose of the fish-like hull of the Japanese craft impinged upon the huge envelope of the gas-bag, and it bent like a sausage; then it shrank, shriveled, and became a large rag in the air—a floating, falling rag, dragged down by its car and cargo. ”

“ And so, with a crippled crew of schooner sailors, the square-rigger Almena was towed to sea, smoldering rebellion in one end of her, the power of the law in the other—murder in the heart of every man on board. ”

“ At daylight the land was a dim line of blue, and that squall settled down to a three-days' gale that blew us a hundred miles to sea. The mate and I stood watch and watch, while the parson fed the cow and prayed. And the cook? Why, every meal-time hat demented heathen would lug the whole bill of fare to the forecastle door and return in an hour to dump the stuff overboard. Meanwhile we would have eaten what we wanted of it. The mate busied himself plotting the drift of the ship, hammering the cook, and swearing. ”

“ After an interval our first mate and a member of the crew boarded her. The sight that met their gaze was thrilling. Below the wheel lay the skeleton of a man. Treading warily on the rotten deck, which cracked and broke in places as they walked, they encountered three skeletons in the hatchway. In the mess-room were the remains of ten bodies, and six were found, one alone, possibly the captain, on the bridge. An uncanny stillness pervaded everything, and a dank smell of mold which made the flesh creep. A few remnants of books were found in the captain's cabin, and a rusty cutlass. ”

“ He spliced ropes for tackles, and an able seaman could have spliced no better—though, possibly, more quickly; for sailors are made, not born like poets and mechanics. He chopped ice and manipulated tackles—with the drag for power—and by noon had the heavy boom, sail, and gaff on deck, and two holes sunk in the solid bed of ice abaft the stump to receive the jaws when his mast should arise. Salting his work as he left it, he labored on, perspiring with his efforts, and drenched by the merciless seas which boarded the craft amidships. ”

“ A mile away a thing crawled out of a cave—a mindless creature in the form of a man, a disorganized organism that looked into the morning sky with lightless eyes and meaningless smile. Emaciated and begrimed, with hair and beard to his shoulders, clad in what had once been shirt and trousers, but were now a flimsy covering of rags, he presented but one human attribute beyond his meaningless smile: the articulate voice. ”

“ Work stopped, and a call down a hatchway stopped the windlass. In ports and dead-lights appeared faces; and those on deck, officers and men, crowded to the rail, some to cross themselves, some to sink on their knees, others to grip the rail tightly, while they stared in silence at the torso and livid face in the moonlight on the sea—the ghastly face of the man they had marooned to die alone, who had been seen later dead on the beach. ”

“ Men were drowning off to port; men, like myself, were climbing up to temporary safety afforded by the topsides of a craft on her beam ends; and aft, in the alleyway, was the German professor, unlashed, but safe and secure in his narrow confines, one leg through a cabin window, and both hands gripping the rail, while he bellowed like a bull, not for himself, however—but for his menagerie in the empty hold. ”

“ THE MUTINY WHEN you have been shipwrecked, and, sole survivor of the crew, have tramped through the African jungle seven days on the food you can pick from the bushes; when your clothing is in rags and ribbons, your feet blistered and bleeding, and your stomach in a state of unstable equilibrium, you are likely, on touching the coast again, to welcome the sight of a brig at anchor in the bay, and to more than welcome the offer of a berth from a man who sculls ashore at your hail, especially so when he imparts the information that the nearest settlement is still two hundred miles farther on. ”

“ The moon rose above the castellated structure to the left, flooding the icy beach with ashen-gray light, sparkling in a thousand points from the cascades, streams, and rippling pools, throwing into blackest shadow the gullies and hollows, and bringing to his mind, in spite of the weird beauty of the scene, a crushing sense of loneliness—of littleness—as though the vast pile of inorganic desolation which held him was of far greater importance than himself, and all the hopes, plans, and fears of his lifetime. ”

“ As poets and sailors believe that ships have souls, it may be that she gloried in her shame, like other fallen creatures; for her large, slanting oval hawse-pipes and boot-top stripe gave a fine, Oriental sneer to her face-like bow, and there was slur and insult to respectable craft in the lazy dignity with which she would swash through the fleet on the port tack, compelling vessels on the starboard tack to give up their right of way or be rammed; for she was a large craft, and there was menace in her solid, one-piece jib-boom, thick as an ordinary mainmast. ”

“ As it was, only one intrepid soul among those seven hundred men rose superior to this new horror of war. In the hush that followed the cheer, Finnegan's voice could be heard, disputatiously asserting that he had fired the lucky shot.
The aerostat was followed by glasses and was seen to alight in a clear spot about a mile inland, where the beach timber met the scattered bush of the foot-hills; and as the ad vantage gained was too important to be lost, a landing-party was ordered, and Mr. Clark son, after another soul-laden look into the captain's eyes, decreed that Finnegan should go with it. ”

“ Before we reached the Bay of Biscay every man forward, including the carpenter, sailmaker, and steward, had been bitten, either by a mad rat or a mad shipmate, and was more or less along on the way to convulsions and death. The decks, rails, and rigging, the tops, crosstrees, and yards, swarmed with rats darting along aimlessly biting each other, and going on, frothing at their little mouths, and squeaking in pain. By this time all thought of handling the ship was gone from us. The mate and I took turns at steering, and keeping our eyes open for a sail. ”

“ But they did not struggle with each other, only with the life-buoy and with the sea. They drifted to leeward into the lagoon, past the wreckage that might have saved them both, and by which they could have regained the ship. With only their heads showing occasionally, for their struggles kept them under, they went out of sight in the smudge of rain and spindrift, gripping with all their strength the small life-buoy that would have supported one, but not two. ”

“ The tide went down the beach, the typhoon whirled its raging center off to sea, and the tropic moon shone out, lighting up, between the beach and barrier reef, a heaving stretch of oily lagoon on which appeared and disappeared hundreds of shark-fins quickly darting, and, out on the barrier reef, perched high, yet still pounded by the ocean combers raised by the storm, a fragment of ship's stern with a stump of mizzenmast. ”

“ The Argyll had seventy feet beam; the bombs fell about a rod apart. Had that line of explosions crossed her hull, two at least would have struck her. Her protective deck was but two inches thick at its central and horizontal part. A solid piece of metal, falling half a mile, would go through it and her unarmored bottom; enough of them could puncture every compartment and sink her like a tin sieve. A five-million-dollar battle-ship, with every resource that modern science could put into her, would be helpless beneath a gas bag and a cargo of scrap-iron. ”

“ What is the human soul? Is it an entity, or a possible merging of entities? Is it a collection of memory clusters, any of which may assume an individuality, or is it a series of mental planes or concentric spheres? Jack is Jack and Jim is Jim, and there is a separate ego to each. But what part of Jim's soul left him to obsess Jack during the fracas forward when Jack was awake, and why did it not come again before Jack was struck down, and when he was but normally disturbed over the ship's peril. ”

“ We had the ordinary mixed crew of a Yankee ship—only, this craft was a bark; and we had the usual bull-headed and ignorant Yankee skipper and mates; men with no understanding of human or brute nature; men who would rather hit you than listen to your proposition of peace. They hit us all, and got us into a condition of mind that discounted that of the elephant under the hatch. ”

“ He was alive, and his world was again in motion. Seas lifted and dropped him, occasionally breaking over his head. In the calm of the hollows, he listened for voices of possible rescuers. On the tops of the seas,—ears filled with the roar of the gale,—he shouted, facing to leeward, and searching with strained eyes for sign of the ship or one of her boats. At last he saw a pin-point of light far away, and around it and above it blacker darkness, which was faintly shaped to the outline of a ship and canvas—hove to in the trough, with maintopsail aback, as he knew by its foreshortening. ”

“ In the engine-room, oilers passed to and fro, in and out of the plunging, twisting, glistening steel, with oil-cans and waste, overseen by the watchful staff on duty, who listened with strained hearing for a false note in the confused jumble of sound—a clicking of steel out of tune, which would indicate a loosened key or nut. On deck, sailors set the triangular sails on the two masts, to add their propulsion to the momentum of the record-breaker, and the passengers dispersed themselves as suited their several tastes. ”

“ Then he remembered that last drink, and calling down silent curses upon Hennesey, went out on deck.
The big ship was plowing along before the wind with not a rag set except the foretopmast-staysail and jib. Amidships was a man coiling up ropes, at the wheel was another man, and pacing the top of the after-house was Captain Williams, red-bearded, red-eyed, and truculent of gesture and expression. These three bore marks of hard usage, bruises, black eyes, swollen noses, and contusions. Murphy climbed the forecastle deck and looked astern. The land was a thin line of blue on the horizon. ”

“ And so the boy, blue-eyed and fair at the beginning, grew to early manhood, as handsome an animal as the world contains, tall, straight, and clean-featured, with steady eyes wide apart, and skin—the color of old copper from sun and wind—covered with a fine, soft down, which at the age of sixteen had not yet thickened on his face to beard and mustache, though his wavy brown hair reached to his shoulders. ”

“ They'd rather fight than ate, but rather wark than fight."
The big, light ship, even with upper canvas gone and the yards braced to port, was skimming along over the heaving seas at a ten-knot rate, and Murphy's occasional glimpses of that growing landfall showed him details of rock and wood and red sandy soil that bespoke a steep beach and a rocky bottom. The air was full of spume and the gale whistled dismally through the rigging with a sound very much like that of Murphy's big base-burner in his Front Street boarding-house, when the chill wintry winds whistled over the housetops. ”

“ All boilers were hot and hissing steam; all fire-pumps were working; all fire-hose connected and spouting streams of water. Perspiring men with strained faces deluged one another while they waited.
In the turrets were the gun-crews, six men to a gun, with an officer above in the sighting-hood; behind the superstructure-ports were the quick-fire men, sailors and marines; and above all, in the fighting-tops, were the sharp-shooters and men who handled the one-pounders and Gatling guns—the easiest-minded of the ship's company, for they could see and breathe. ”

“ In the first tumultuous riot of inquiry, when underwriters had climbed over desks and each other to hear again of the wreck of the Titan, one—the noisiest of all, a corpulent, hook-nosed man with flashing black eyes—had broken away from the crowd and made his way to the Captain's room, where, after a draught of brandy, he had seated himself heavily, with a groan that came from his soul. ”

“ On the starboard bow of the Argyll was the armored cruiser Orenburg. Her fire, hot and true, ceased on the explosion of a large shell at her water-line, and she swung out of the fight, silent but for the roar of escaping steam, heeled heavily to port, and sank in ten minutes, her ensigns flying to the last. ”

“ Captain Swarth was himself again.
But not so his men. They had become children, with children's fear of the dark. Even the doughty Angel Todd was oppressed by the first horror of the situation, speaking only when spoken to. Above the rushing sound of wind and the smacking of short seas could be heard the voice of the steward in the cabin, while an occasional heart-borne malediction or groan—according to temperament—added to the distraction on deck. One man, more self-possessed than the rest, had dropped the lead over the side. An able seaman needs no eyes to heave the lead. ”

“ In the morning he removed the bandages and took in the sight of his state-room fittings: the bulkhead, his desk, chronometer, cutlass, and clothing hanging on the hooks. It was a joyous sight, and he shouted in gladness. He could not see with his right eye and but dimly with his left, but a scrutiny of his face in a mirror disclosed deep lines that had not been there, distorted eyelids, and the left side where the coffee had scalded puffed to a large, angry blister. He tied up his face, leaving his left eye free, and went on deck. ”