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In the Sargasso Sea

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




The steward spoke very feelingly and earnestly, and with what he said
I was in thorough sympathy; for the doctor's care of me and his
friendliness had won my heart to him, just as it had won to him the
hearts of all on board. But there was comfort in knowing that he had
got off with only a broken leg and a broken head from a peril that so
easily might have been the death of him, and of that consolation I
made the most--while the steward, who was a handy fellow and pretty
well trained as a surgeon's assistant, freshly bandaged my head for me
as the doctor had ordered him to do, and so set me much more at my
ease. After that, for the rest of the day, he came every hour or so to
look after me; giving me some broth to eat and a biscuit, and some
medicine that the doctor sent me with the message that it would put
strength enough into a dead pig to set him to dancing--by which I knew
that even if his head and leg were broken there was no break in his
whimsical fun.

The steward was the only man who came near me; but this did not
surprise me when he told me more about the condition that the ship was
in, and how all hands--excepting himself, who had been detailed
because of his knowledge that way to look after the hurt people under
the doctor's direction--were hard at work making repairs, with what men
there were among the passengers helping too. The ship was not leaking,
he said, and this was the luckier because her frame was so strained
that it was doubtful if her water-tight compartments would hold; but
the foremast had been carried away, and all the weather-boats had been
mashed out of all shape or swept overboard, and the mizzen was so
shaky that it seemed likely at any moment to fall. Indeed, the mast
was in such a bad way, he said, that the first and second officers
were for getting rid of it--and of the danger that there was of its
coming down all in a heap anyway--by sending it overboard; but that
the captain thought it safe to stand now that the sea was getting
smooth again, and was setting up jury-stays to hold it until we made
the Azores--for which islands our course was laid.

By the time that night came again the sea had pretty well gone down,
and beyond the easy roll that was on her the ship had no motion save
the steady vibration of her screw. With this comforting change the
pain in my head became only a dull heavy aching, and I had a chance to
feel how utterly weary I was after the strain of mind and body that
had been put on me by the gale. 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. How long I slept I do not know. But I do
know that I was routed suddenly into wakefulness by a jar that almost
pitched me out of my berth, and that an instant later there was a
tremendous crash as though the whole deck above me was smashing to
pieces, and with this a rattle of light woodwork splintering and the
sharp tinkling of breaking glass. For a moment there was silence; and
then I heard shouts and screams close by me in the cabin, and a little
later a great trampling on deck, and then the screw stopped turning
and there was a roar of escaping steam.

I was so heavy with sleep that at first I thought we still were in the
storm and that this commotion was a part of it; but as I shook off my
drowsiness I got a clearer notion of the situation--remembering what
the steward had told me of the condition of the mizzen-mast, and so
arriving at the conclusion that it had fetched away bodily and had
come crashing through the cabin skylight in its fall. But what the
shock was that had sent it flying--unless we had been in collision--I
could not understand. And all this while the trampling on deck
continued, and out in the cabin the shouts and cries went on.

I thought that the steward would come to me--forgetting that in times
of danger men are apt to think only of saving their own skins--and so
laid still; being, indeed, so weak and wretched that it did not seem
possible to me to do anything else. But he did not come, and at the
end of what seemed to me to be a desperately long time--though I doubt
if it were more than five minutes--I realized that I must try to do
something to help myself; and was the more nerved to action by the
fact that there no longer was the sound of voices in the cabin, while
the noises on deck a good deal had increased. Indeed, I began to hear
up there the puffing and snorting of the donkey-engine, and so felt
certain that they were hoisting out the boats.

Somehow or another I managed to get out of my berth, and on my feet,
and so to the door; but when I tried to open the door I could not
budge it, and in the darkness I struck my head against what seemed to
be a bar of wood that stuck in through one of the upper panels and so
held it fast. The blow dizzied me, for it took me close to where my
cut was and put me into intense pain.

While I stood there, pulling in a weak way at the door-knob and making
nothing of it, I heard voices out in the cabin and through my broken
door saw a gleam of light. But in the moment that my hope rose it went
down again, for I heard some one say quickly and sharply: "It's no
good. The way the spar lies we can't get at him--and to cut it through
would take an hour."

And then a voice that I recognized for the steward's answered: "But
the doctor ordered it. Where's an axe for a try?" To which the other
man answered back again: "If it was the doctor himself we couldn't do
it, and we'll tell him so. The ship'll be down in five minutes. We've
got to run for it or the boats'll be off." And then away they ran
together, giving no heed in their fright to my yells after them to
come back and not leave me there to drown.

For a little while I was as nearly wild crazy as a man can be and yet
have a purpose in his mind. The keen sense of my peril made me strong
again. I kicked with my bare feet and pounded with my hands upon the
door to break it, I shouted for help to come to me, and I gave out
shrill screams of terror such as brutes give in their agony--for I was
down to the hard-pan of human nature, and what I felt most strongly
was the purely animal longing to keep alive.

But no one answered me, and I could tell by the sounds on deck getting
fainter that some of the boats already had put off; and in a little
while longer no sound came from the deck of any sort whatever, and by
that I knew that all the boats must have got away. And as I realized
that I was forsaken, and felt sure from what I had heard that the ship
would float for only a few minutes longer, I gave a cry of downright
despair--and then I lost track of the whole bad business by tumbling
to the floor in the darkness in a dead swoon.





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. And
my next wonder was caused by the queer way in which the ship was
lying--making me fancy at first that I was dizzy again, and my eyes
tricking me--with a pitch forward that gave a slope to the floor of my
state-room, of not less than twenty degrees.

For a while, in a stupid sort of way, I ruminated over these matters;
and at last got hold of the simple explanation of them. Evidently, in
spite of the straining of the steamer's frame in the storm, her
water-tight compartments--or some of them--had held, leaving her
floating with her broken bow well down in the water and her stern
canted up into the air. And then the farther comforting thought came
to me that if she had kept afloat for so many hours already, and
seemed so steady in her new position, there was no reason why she
should not keep on floating at least for as long as the fine weather
lasted--which gave me a chance of rescue by some passing vessel, and
so brought a good deal of hope back into my heart.

I still was very weak and shaky, and how I was to get out of the
prison that I was in I did not know. By daylight it was easy to see
what held me there: which was the end of a yard, with the reef-block
hanging to it, smashed through the upper panel and caught so tight in
the splintered wood-work as to anchor the door fast. If the wits of
the steward and of the other fellow had not been scared clean out of
them they easily might have knocked in the lower part of the door with
an axe and so opened a way out for me; but as their only notion had
been to cut away the spar--a tough piece of work--I could not in cool
blood very greatly blame them for having given up my rescue and run
for their own lives.

These thoughts went through my head while I lay there, most
uncomfortably, on the sloping floor. Presently I managed to get up,
but felt so dizzy that I had to seat myself in a hurry on the edge of
the berth until my head got steadier. Fortunately my water-jug was
half full, and I had a good drink from it which refreshed me greatly;
and then I had the farther good fortune to see some biscuit which the
steward had left on a shelf in the corner, and as I caught sight of
them I realized that I was very hungry indeed. I ate one, along with
some more sups of water, and felt much the better for it; but lay down
in my berth that I might save the strength it gave me until I should
have thought matters over a little and settled some line of action
in my mind.

That I was too weak to break the door down was quite certain, and the
only other thing that I could think of was cutting out the lower
panels and so making a hole through which I could crawl. As this
thought came to me I remembered the big jack-knife that had been in my
trousers' pocket when I went overboard from the brig; and in a minute
I was on my feet--and without feeling any dizziness, this time--and
got to where my clothes were hanging on a hook, and found to my joy
that my knife and all the other things which had been in my pockets
had been returned to them after the clothes had been dried. The knife
was badly rusted and I had a hard time opening it; but the rust did
not much dull it, and I seated myself upon the floor and fell to
slicing away at the soft pine wood with a will. I had to rest now and
then, although I found that my strength held out better than I had
hoped for, and that put me back a little; but the wood was so soft
that in not much more than half an hour I had the job finished--and
then I slipped on my trousers, and out I went through the hole on my
hands and knees.

I found the cabin in utter wreck: littered everywhere with broken
glass and broken wood from the skylight, and from the smashed
hanging-racks and the smashed dining-table, and with splinters from
the mast--which had broken in falling, and along the whole length of
the place had made a tangle of its own fragments and of the ropes and
blocks which had held its sails. Of the sails themselves there were
left only some fuzzy traces clinging to the bolt-ropes, all the rest
having been blown loose and frayed away by the storm. Oddly enough,
some of the drinking-glasses still remained unbroken in one of the
racks, and with them a bottle partly filled with wine--to the neck of
which a card was fastened bearing the name, José Rubio y Salinas, of
the passenger to whom it had belonged. I took the liberty of drinking
a glass of Don José's wine--feeling sure that he was not coming back
to claim it--and felt so much better after it that I thanked him
cordially for leaving it there.

Most of the state-room doors stood open, showing within clothing
tossed about and trunks with their lids turned back, and the general
confusion in which the passengers had left things when they scrambled
together their most precious belongings and rushed for the boats--with
death, as they fancied, treading close upon their heels. But with what
remained in the state-rooms I did not concern myself, being desirous
first of all to get on deck and have a look about me that I might size
up my chances of keeping alive. That there was no companion-way up
from the cabin puzzled me a little, for I knew nothing of the internal
arrangements of steamships; but presently I found a passage leading
forward, and by that I came to the stair to the deck of which I was
in search.

Up it I went, but when I fairly got outside and saw the desperate
state of the craft that I was afloat on my heart sank. Indeed, it
seemed a flying in the face of all reason that such an utter wreck
should float at all. Of the foremast nothing but the splintered stump
remained. The starboard rail, which had been to windward of it, was
gashed by chance axe-blows made in cutting away the shrouds; and as to
the port rail, twenty feet of it was gone entirely where the mast had
come crashing down, while the side-plates below were bulged out with
the strain put upon them before the standing-rigging fastened there
had fetched away. The mizzen-mast lay aft across the cabin skylight,
with its standing and running rigging making a tangle on each side of
it. The main-mast still stood, but with its top-mast broken off and
dangling nearly to the deck. Two of the weather-boats remained fast
to the davits, but so smashed that they looked like battered tin
wash-basins, and would have floated just about as well. All the other
boats were gone: those on the weather side, as the splintered ways and
broken ropes showed, having been washed overboard; and those to
leeward having been hoisted out by the tackles, which still hung from
the davits and dipped lazily with the ship's easy motion into the sea.

All this was bad enough, but what most took the spirit out of me was
the way that the ship was lying--her stern high up in the air, and her
bow so deep in the water that the sea came up almost to her main-mast
along her sloping deck. It seemed inevitable that in another moment
she would follow her nose in the start downward that it had made and
go straight to the bottom; and each little wave, as it lapped its way
aft softly, made me fancy that the plunge had begun.

As to the outlook around me, the only comfort that I got from it was
the fairness of the weather and the smoothness of the sea. For close
upon the water a soft haze was hanging that even to the north, out of
which blew a gentle wind, brought the horizon within a mile of me; and
down to leeward the haze was banked so thick that I could make out
nothing beyond half a mile. And so, even though a whole fleet might be
passing near me, my chances of rescue were very small. But from the
look of the ocean I knew that no fleets were likely to be thereabouts,
and that even though the haze lifted I might search long and vainly
for sight of so much as a single sail. As far as I could see around me
the water was covered thickly with gulf-weed, and with this was all
sorts of desolate flotsam--planks, and parts of masts, and fragments
of ships' timbers--lolling languidly on the soft swell that was
running, yet each scrap having behind it its own personal tragedy of
death and storm. And this mess of wreckage was so much thicker than I
had seen when the brig was on the coast--as Bowers had called it--of
the Sargasso Sea as to convince me that already I must be within the
borders of that ocean mystery which a little while before I had been
so keen for exploring; and my fate seemed sealed to me as I realized
that I therefore was in a region which every living ship steered clear
of, and into which never any but dead ships came.





X

I TAKE A CHEERFUL VIEW OF A BAD SITUATION


When I perceived the tight fix that I was in my broken head went to
throbbing again, and my legs were so shaky under me that I had to sit
down on the deck in a hurry in order to save myself from a fall.
Indeed, I was in no condition to face even an ordinary trouble, let
alone an overwhelming disaster; for what with my loss of blood from
the cut on my head, and the little food I had eaten since I got it, I
was as weak as a cat.

Luckily I had the sense to realize that I needed the strength which
food would give me in order to save myself from dropping off into
sheer despair. And with the thought of eating there suddenly woke up
in my inside a hungry feeling that surprised me by its sharpness; and
instantly put such vigor into my shaky legs that I was up on them in a
moment, and off to the companion-way to begin my explorations below.
And when, being come to the cabin again, I had another sup of Don
José's wine I got quite ravenous, and felt strong enough to kick a
door in--if that should be necessary--in order to satisfy my
craving for food.

There was no need for staving in doors, for none of them was fastened;
but it was some little time--because of my ignorance of the
arrangement of steamships--before I could find one that had things to
eat on the other side of it. Around the cabin, and along the passage
leading forward, were only state-rooms; but just beyond the
companion-way I came at last to the pantry--and beyond this again, as
I found later, were the store-rooms and the galley. For the moment,
however, the pantry gave me all that I wanted. In a covered box I
found some loaves of bread, and in a big refrigerator a lot of cold
victuals that set my eyes to dancing--two or three roast fowls, part
of a big joint of beef, a boiled tongue, and so on; and, what was
almost as welcome, in another division of the refrigerator a dozen or
more bottles of beer. On the racks above were dishes and glasses, in a
locker were knives and forks, and I even found hanging on a hook a
corkscrew--and the quickness with which I brought these various things
together and made them serve my purposes was a sight to see!

When I had eaten nearly a whole fowl, and had drunk a bottle of beer
with it, I felt like another man; and then, pursuing my investigations
more leisurely, I found in one of the lockers--which I took the
liberty of prying open with a big carving-knife--four or five boxes
of capital cigars. In the same locker was a package of safety-matches,
and in a moment I was puffing away with such satisfaction that I
fairly grew light-hearted--so great is the comfort that comes to a man
with good smoking on top of a hearty meal. All sorts of bright fancies
came to me: of making one of the battered boats serviceable again and
getting off in it, of a ship blown out of her course coming to my
rescue, of a strong southerly wind that would carry the hulk of the
poor old _Hurst Castle_ back again into the inhabited parts of the
sea. And with these thoughts cheering me I set myself to work to find
out just what I had in the way of provisions aboard my shattered craft.

I did not have to search far nor long to satisfy myself that I had a
bigger stock of food by me than I could eat in a dozen years. Forward
of the galley were the store-rooms: a cold-room, with a plenty of ice
still in it, in which was hanging a great quantity of fresh meat; a
wine-room, very well stocked and containing also some cases of tobacco
and cigars; and in the other rooms was stuff enough to fit up a big
grocery shop on shore--hams and bacon and potted meats, and a great
variety of vegetables in tins, and all sorts of sweets and sauces and
table-delicacies in tins and in glass. Indeed, although I was full to
the chin with the meal that I had just eaten, my mouth fairly watered
at sight of all these good things. In the bakery I found only a loaf
or two of bread, and this--as it was lying on the floor--I suppose
must have been dropped in the scramble while the boats were being
provisioned; but in the baker's store-room were a good many cases of
fine biscuit, and more than twenty barrels of flour. In addition to
all this, I did not doubt that somewhere on board was an equally large
store of provisions for the use of the crew; but with that I did not
bother myself, being satisfied to fare as a cabin-passenger on the
good things which I had found. Finally, two of the big water-tanks
still were full--the others, as I inferred from the cocks being open,
having been emptied for the supply of the boats; and as a
reserve--leaving rain out of the question--I had the ice to fall back
upon, of which there was so great a quantity that it alone would last
me for a long while. In a word, so far as eating and drinking were
concerned, I was as well off as a man could be anywhere--having by me
not only all the necessaries of life but most of its luxuries as well.

Finding all these good things cheered me and put heart in me in much
the same way that I was cheered and heartened by finding my floating
mast after Captain Luke and the mate chucked me overboard. Again I had
the certainty that death for a while could not get a chance at me; and
this second reprieve was of a more promising sort than that which my
mast had given me in the open sea. On board the steamer, or what was
left of her, I was sure of being in positive comfort so long as she
floated; and my good spirits made me so sanguine that I was confident
she would keep on floating until I struck out some plan by which I
could get safe away from her, or until rescue came to me by some lucky
turn of chance. And so, having completed my tour of inspection, and my
general inventory of the property to which by right of survival I had
fallen heir, I went on deck again in a very hopeful mood.

Even the utter wreck and confusion into which the steamer had fallen,
when I got to the deck and saw it again, did not crush the hope out of
me as it did when I came upon it--being then weak and famished--for
the first time. I even found a cause for greater hopefulness in
observing that the water-line still stood, as it had stood an hour and
more earlier, a little forward of the main-mast; for that showed that
the water-tight compartments were holding, and that the hulk was in no
immediate danger of going down. It did seem, to be sure, that the haze
had grown a little thicker, and that the weed and wreckage around the
steamer were thicker too; and I was convinced that my hulk was
moving--or that the flotsam about it was moving--by seeing a broken
boat floating bottom upward that I was sure was not in sight when I
went below. But I argued with myself cheerfully that the thickening
of the haze might be due to a wind coming down on me that would blow
it clean away; and that a small thing like an empty boat drifting down
from windward proved that the _Hurst Castle_ herself was moving
southward very slowly, or perhaps was not moving at all. And so, still
in good spirits, I set myself to looking carefully for something that
would float me, in case I decided to abandon the hulk and make a dash
for it--on the chance of falling in with a passing vessel--out over
the open sea.

But when I had made the round of the deck--at least of the part of it
that was out of water--I had to admit that getting away from the
steamer was a sheer impossibility, unless I might manage it by
cobbling together some sort of a raft. It had been all very well for
me to fancy, while I was being cheered with chicken and beer and
tobacco down in the pantry, that I could make one of the battered
boats sea-worthy; but my round of the deck showed me that with all my
training in mechanics I never could make one of them float again--for
the sea had wrenched and hammered them until they were no better than
so much old iron. The raft, certainly, was a possibility. Spars that
would serve for its body were lying around in plenty, and with the
doors from the rooms below I could deck it over so as to make it both
solid and dry; and somewhere aboard the ship, no doubt, were
carpenter's tools--though, most likely, they were down under water
forward and could be come at only by diving for them. Still, the raft
was a possibility; and so was comforting to think about as giving me
another reprieve from drowning in case the water-tight compartments
broke down--and as that break might come at any moment, and as the job
would take me two days at the shortest, I realized that I could not
set about it too soon.





XI

MY GOOD SPIRITS ARE WRUNG OUT OF ME


But the other chance which I had thought of, that my hulk might be
blown clear of the Sargasso Sea and back into the track of trade
again, still was to be reckoned with; and to know how that chance was
working it was necessary that I should find out my exact position on
the ocean, and then check off the changes in it by fresh observations
taken from day to day. And as I saw that the sun was close upon the
meridian, and no time to waste if I wanted to secure my first
noon-sight, I put off beginning my carpentering until I should have
hunted for the ship's instruments and got the latitude and longitude
that would give me my departure on my drifting voyage.

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