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In the Sargasso Sea

T >> Thomas A. Janvier >> In the Sargasso Sea




In the morning I was so well rested, and felt so fresh again, that I
was eager to get on; and I was so light-hearted that I fell to singing
as I pushed forward briskly, being full of hope once more and of airy
fancies that I had only to reach the edge of the wreck-pack in order
to hit upon some easy way of getting off from it out over the open
sea. A little thinking would have shown me, of course, that my fancies
had nothing to rest on, and that coming once more to the coast of my
continent was only to be where I was when my long journey through that
death-stricken mass of rottenness began; but the reaction of my
spirits was natural enough after the gloom that for so long had held
them, and so was the castle-building that I took to as I went onward
as to what I would do with my great treasure when at last I had it
safe out in the living world.

Although I did not doubt that food of some sort was to be found on
board of all the vessels which I should cross that day, I guarded
against losing time in looking for it by carrying along with me a
couple of tins of meat--slung on my shoulders in a wrapping of
canvas--and on one of these, about noon-time, I made a good meal. When
I had finished it I was sorry enough that I had not brought a tin of
peaches too, for the meat was pretty well salted and made me as
thirsty as a fish very soon after I got it down.

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 mass 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.





XXXI

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 passed 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 assert
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 glass 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 ship 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 ship to
ship--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.





XXXII

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 Sargasso 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 astonishing, in comparison with my lassitude 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 compass its gratitude 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 companionship 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 coarse 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 passed 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 passenger--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 threshing 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 flourishing 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 passing
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.





XXXIII

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 Institute, 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.

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