Thomas A. Janvier

“ No doubt it was only because the hiss of the escaping steam startled him; but at the first turn of the engine my cat scampered forward and seated himself in the very bows of the boat—a little black figure-head—and thence gazed out steadfastly westward as though he were the pilot charged with the duty of setting our vessel's course. He had to give place to me in a moment—when I went to the bows to begin my sawing through the weed—but I was cheered by his planting himself that way pointing our course with his nose for me: and again I took his bit of freakishness for a good sign. ”

“ Masts and spars and planks were in sight in all directions, sometimes floating singly and sometimes tangled together in little heaps; half a mile away was what seemed to be a large ship lying bottom upward; near me was a perfectly sound boat, having in its stern-sheets a bit of sail that fell in such folds as to make me think that a human form lay under it; and off toward the horizon was a large raft, with a sort of mast fitted to it, and at the foot of the mast I fancied that I saw a woman in a white robe of some sort stretched out as though asleep. ”

“ If my voyage went well, then all the rest of my life—so far as wealth makes for happiness—would go well too: for in that rough and dirty little bag was such a treasure—that I had won away from the dead ship holding it—as would make me one of the richest men in the world. But against this exultant hope stood up a doubt so dark that there was no great room in my mind for cheerfulness: for as I stowed away the jewels in the boat I could not but think of those others who had stowed them away two hundred years and more before aboard the galleon ”

“ One face among the many clustered there, and a mighty friendly one, was familiar to me; but I could not place it until a jolly voice hailed me that I recognized with a warm thrill—and the sound of it filled me with joy as I thought of my bag of jewels in the cabin locker, and of how at last my doctor's bill would be paid.
"And so it's yourself, my fine big young man, and at your old tricks again. But it's this time that you have the good luck of a black cat for company in your cruising all alone by yourself over the open sea!" ”

“ But in spite of the golden light which hung over it, and which ought to have given it a cheerful look, it was the most desolate and sorrowful place I ever saw; for it seemed to belong—and in a way really did belong, since every hulk in all that fleet was the slowly wasting dead body of a ship slain by storm or disaster—to that outcast region of mortality in which death has achieved its ugliness but to which the cleansing of a complete dissolution has not yet been brought by time. ”

“ Yet that which most keenly thrilled me with a cold dread was my strong conviction that I could see living men moving hither and thither over those pale-lit decks, where my reason told me that only ancient death could be; for the play of the flickering light made such a commotion of fleeting flames and dancing shadows, going and coming in all manner of fantastic shapes, that every shattered hulk around me seemed to have her old crew alive and on board of her again—all hurrying in bustling crowds fore and aft, and up and down the heights of her, as though under orderly command. ”

“ All around the horizon steel-gray clouds were rising, and a soft sort of a haze hung about us and took the life out of the sunshine, and the wind fell away until there was almost nothing of it, and that little fitful—while with the dying out of it the sea began to stir slowly with a long oily swell. Far down to the southeast a line of smoke hung along the horizon, coming from the funnel of some steamer out of sight over the ocean's curve, and the heaviness of the atmosphere was shown by the way that this smoke held close to the surface of the sea. ”

“ IX ON THE EDGE OF THE SARGASSO SEA When I came to myself again, and found my state-room—although the dead-light was set—bright with the light which entered through the broken door, my first feeling was of wonder that I was not yet drowned; for it was evident that the sun must be well up in the heavens to shine so strongly, and therefore that a good many hours must have passed since the smash had happened that had sent everybody flying to the boats believing that the ship was going right down. ”

“ But the faintness that I felt coming over me as the day waned gave me warning that the rope by which I held my life was a short one; and as the sun dropped down into the mist—at once thinning it, so that I could see farther, and giving it a ruddy tone which sent red streams of brightness gleaming over the tangle of wreckage far down into the west—I felt that the rope must come to an end altogether, and that I must stop still and let death overtake me, by the sunset of one day more. ”

“ And by noon, being then close upon her, I could see that she was floating bottom upwards: and so knew certainly that she was only a dead wreck drifting in slowly to take her place among the dead wrecks which I had left behind me; and beyond her, instead of open water, I saw only the weed—covered ocean stretching onward unbroken until it was lost in the golden haze.
Even then, though, I had a foolish hope that there might be living men clinging to her, and I edged my boat off its course a little so that I might run close under her stern. ”

“ What I wanted most in the world was a drink of water; but when I tried to get up, in the hope of finding some in the jug that no doubt was in the state-room, I went so dizzy that I had to plump back into my berth again. As the night went on, and I lay there thinking how deliciously the water would taste going cool and sweet down my throat, I got quite crazy with longing for it; and, in a way, really crazy—for through most of the night I was light-headed and saw visions that sometimes comforted me and sometimes made me afraid. ”

“ That left just the three of us together at the stern of the brig—with Bowers below and so out of sight and hearing, and with all the crew completely cut off from us and put out of sight and hearing by the rise of the cabin above the deck.
Night had settled down on the ocean, but not darkness. Far off to the eastward the full moon was standing well above the horizon and was fighting her way upward through the clouds—now and then getting enough the better of them to send down a dash of brightness on the water, but for the most part making only a faint twilight through their gloom. ”

“ Just at sunset one evening I sighted a vessel of some sort far ahead of me—a black mass looming uncertainly against the rich glow of crimson that filled the west—and for some reason or another I took into my head the fancy that I was nearing open water and that this was not a wreck but a living ship on board of which I would find living men: and at the thought of meeting with live men again I fairly cried with joy. ”

“ I woke as hungry as a hound, but with a comfortable and natural sort of hunger that I set myself to satisfying with good strong food: eating a tin of meat with a lively relish and without any following stomach-ache, and drinking the juice of a tin of peaches after it—there being no water fit to drink on board. My meal began to set me on my feet again; but I still felt so tired and so shaky that I decided to stay where I was until the next morning—having at last a comforting sense of security that took away my desire to hurry and made me wholly easy in my mind. ”

“ Had there been a mast standing on the hulk, with a yard fast to it, I could have rigged a rope from the yard-arm and swung myself across in a moment; but the decks being sea-swept, with nothing left standing on them, that way was not open to me; nor could I find a light spar—even the flag-staff at the stern being snapt away—that I could stretch across from one rail to the other and make a bridge of. ”

“ The only relief to this dull flat surface was when I came upon a wrecked ship, or upon a hummock of wreckage, rising a little up from it—also swaying very gently with a wearying motion that seemed as slow as time. And the silent despairing desolateness of it all sunk down into my very soul.
Even my cat seemed to feel the misery of that great loneliness and lost so much of his cheerfulness that he got to be but a dull companion for me ”

“ A little after eight o'clock, as I knew by hearing the ship's bell striking—and mighty pleasant it was to hear regularly that orderly sound again—the steward brought me a bowl of broth and propped me up in my berth while I drank it; and cheered me by telling me that the doctor was swearing at his broken leg like a good fellow, and was getting on very well indeed. And then my weariness had its way with me, and I fell off into that deep sleep which comes to a man only when all his energy has slipped away from him on a dead low tide. ”

“ Indeed, as I stood there in the shadows beside that dying brute, and with the other brute lying dead on the deck above me, the feeling of dull horror that filled me is more than I can put into words.
I think that the underlying strong strain of my wretchedness was an intense pity for myself. In what the fellow had told me I saw clearly outlined a good deal of what must be my own fate in that vile solitude: which I perceived suddenly must be strewn everywhere with dead men lying unhidden, corrupting openly; since none there were to hide the dead from sight as we hide them in the living world. ”

“ And so, at last, I got back to the barque one evening about sunset, and had almost a feeling of homecoming in boarding her again; and I was thankful enough to be able to eat all the supper I wanted, and then to lie down comfortably in her clean cabin and to rest myself in sound slumber after my many restless nights on rotten old ships reeking with a chill dampness that struck into my very bones. ”

“ With the return of the blessed daylight, and with the enlivening douse of cool fresh water upon me, I got to be myself again: my fanciful fears of the night-time leaving me, and my mind coming back soberly to a consideration of my actual needs. Of these the most pressing, as my stomach told me, was to get my breakfast; and when that matter, in a very poor way, had been attended to, and I had drunk what water I needed—without much relishing it—from a pool that had formed on the deck where the timbers sagged down a little, I was in better heart to lay out for myself a plan of campaign. ”