A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

In the Sargasso Sea

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




For some minutes longer I sat on the hatch thinking the matter over
and trying to hit on something that would open to me a better prospect
of success; and all the while I had a hungry pain in my stomach that
made clear thinking difficult, and that at the same time urged me to
do quickly anything that gave even the least promise of getting food.
And so the upshot of the matter was that I slung my two bottles of
water over my shoulders with a bit of line that I found in the brig's
cabin--making the slings short, that the bottles might hang close
under my arms and be pretty safe against breaking--and then away I
went on my cruise after a compass still on speaking terms with the
north pole.

That I would find one seemed for a good while unlikely; for I searched
a score and more of wrecks, and on every one of them the binnacle
either was empty or the needle entirely rusted away. But at last I
came to a barque that had a newer look about her than that of the
craft amidst which she was lying, and that also had her binnacle
covered with a tarred canvas hood such as is used when vessels are
lying in port. How the hood came to be where it was on that broken
wreck was more than I could account for; but by reason of its being in
place the binnacle had been well protected from the weather, and I
found to my delight that the compass inside was in working trim.

It was an awkward thing to carry, being an old-fashioned big square
box heavily and clumsily made; but I was so glad to get it that I was
not for quarrelling with it, though it did for a little put me to a
puzzle as to how I should pack it along. What I came to was to sling
it on my back knapsack-fashion, which was a poor way to have it, since
every time that I looked at it I had to unsling it and then to sling
it again; yet there was no other way for me to manage it, because in
my scrambling from one wreck to another I needs must have both hands
free. But what with this big box strapped to my shoulders, and the two
big bottles dangling close up under my arm-pits, I must have
looked--only there was nobody to look at me--nothing less than a
figure of fun.

As I knew not which way I ought to go, and so had all ways open to me,
I laid my course for the head of the compass; and was the more
disposed thus to go due north because that way, as far as I could see
for the mist and the mast-tangle, the wrecks lay packed so close
together that passing from one to another would be easy for me--which
was a matter to be considered in view of the load that I had to
carry along.

But just as I was ready to start another notion struck me. I had
noticed the modern look of the barque, as compared with the ancient
build of the hulks amidst which she was lying, when I first came
aboard of her; and as I was about to leave her--my eye being caught by
the soundness of a bit of line made fast to a belaying-pin on her
rail--the thought occurred to me that I might find on her something or
other still fit to be called food. And when this thought came to me I
unslung my compass and my water-bottles in a hurry--for I was as
ravenous as a man well could be.





XXII

I GET SOME FOOD IN ME AND FORM A CRAZY PLAN


The sun by that time being risen so high that the mist was changing
again to a golden haze, and the cabin of the barque well lighted
through the skylight over it, I felt less creepy and uncomfortable as
I went down the companion-way than I had felt when I went below into
the old brig's dusky cabin in the early dawn. But for all that I
walked gingerly, and stopped to sniff at every step that I took
downward; for I could not by any means get rid of my dread of coming
upon some grewsome thing. However, the air was sweet enough--the slide
of the hatch being closed, but the doors open and the cabin well
ventilated--and when I got to the foot of the stair I saw nothing
horrible in my first sharp look around.

It was a small cabin, but comfortably fitted; and almost the first
thing that caught my eye was a work-basket spilled down into a corner
and some spools and a pair of rusty scissors lying on the floor, and
then in another corner I saw a little chair. And the sight of these
things, which told that the barque's captain had had his wife and his
child along with him, gave me a heavy sorrowful feeling--for all that
if death had come to this sea-family the pain of it must have been
over quickly a long while back in the past.

Two of the state-room doors, both on the starboard side, were open;
and both rooms were empty, save for the mouldy bedding in the bunks
and in one of them a canvas bed-bag such as seamen use. The doors of
the other two rooms, there being four in all, were closed, and I
opened them hesitatingly; and felt a good deal easier in my mind when
I found that in neither of them was what I dreaded might be there. In
one of them the bunk had been left in disorder, as though some one had
risen from it hurriedly, and a frock and a bonnet were hanging against
the wall; but the other one seemed to have been used only as a sort of
storeroom--there being in it a pair of rubber boots and a suit of
oil-skins, and a locker in which were some pretty trifles in
shell-work such as might have been picked up in a West Indian port,
and a little rack of books gone mouldy with the damp. One of these
books I opened, and found written on the flyleaf: "Mary Woodbridge,
with Aunt Jane's love. For the coming Christmas of 1879"--and this
date, though it did not settle certainly when the barque had started
on the voyage that had come to so bad an ending, at least proved that
she had not been lying where I found her for a very great
many years.

As to how the barque had got so deep into the wreck-pack, she being so
lately added to it, I could not determine; but my conjecture was that
some storm had broken the pack and had driven her down into it, and
then that the opening had closed again, leaving her fast a good way in
its inside. But about the way of her getting there I did not much
bother myself, my one strong thought being that I had a chance of
finding on board of her something that I could eat; and so--being by
that time pretty well satisfied that I was safe not to come upon
anything horrid hid away in a dark corner of her--I went at my farther
explorations with a will. Indeed, I was so desperately hungry by that
time that even had I made some nasty discoveries I doubt if they would
have held me back from my eager search for food.

Luckily I had not far to look before I found what I was after, the
very first door that I tried--a door in the forward side of the
cabin--opening into a pantry in which were stowed what had been, as I
judged from the nature of them and the place where I found them, the
captain's private stores. The door was not locked, and a good many
empty boxes were lying around on the floor with splintered lids, as
though they had been smashed open in a hurry--which looked as though
the pantry had been levied on suddenly to provision the boats after
the wreck occurred, and so made me hope that the captain and his wife
and baby had got away from the barque alive.

But the stock of stores had been a big one, and I saw that I was safe
enough against starvation if only a part of what was left still were
sound--and that uncertainty I settled in no time by picking up a
hatchet that was lying among the broken boxes and splitting open the
first tin on which I laid my hands. The tin had beans in it, and when
I cracked it open that way more than half of them went flying over the
floor; and they looked so good, those blessed beans, that without
stopping to smell at them critically, or otherwise to test their
soundness, I fell to feeding myself out of the open tin with my
hand--and never stopped until all that remained of them were in my
inside. I don't suppose that they were the better for having lain
there so long, but they certainly were not much the worse for it--as I
proved more conclusively, having by that time taken off the sharp edge
of my hunger, by eating a part of another tin of them and finding them
very good indeed. After that I opened a tin of meat--but on the
instant that the hatchet split into it there came bouncing out such a
dreadful smell that I had to rush on deck in a hurry with it and heave
it over the side.

But even without the meat my food supply was secure to me for a good
while onward, there being no less than ten boxes with two dozen tins
of beans in each of them--quite enough to keep life in me for more
than half a year. I rummaged through the place thoroughly, but found
nothing more that was fit to eat there. Some boxes of biscuit and a
barrel of flour had gone musty until they fairly were rotten; and all
the other things that I came across were spoiled utterly by damp and
mould. As for the stores for the crew, when I went forward to have a
look at them, they were spoiled too--the flour and biscuit rotten, and
the pickled meat a mouldy mass of tough fibre encrusted thickly
with salt.

One other thing I did find in the captain's pantry that was as good,
save for the mould that coated the outside of it, as when it came
aboard--and because of its excellent condition was all the more
tantalizing. This was a case of plug tobacco--a bit of which shredded
and filled into one of the pipes that I found with it, could I have
got it lighted, would have made me for the moment almost a happy man.
But as I could think of no way of lighting it I was worse off than if
I had not found it at all.

Having made my tour of inspection and taken a general inventory of my
new possessions, I came on deck again and seated myself on the roof of
the cabin that I might do some quiet thinking about what should be my
next move; for I realized that only by a stroke of rare good fortune
had I come upon this supply of food far away from, the coast of my
continent, and that should I leave it and keep on the course northward
that I had set for myself I very likely might starve before another
such store fell in my way. And yet, on the other hand, to stay on
where I was merely because I was able to keep alive there--with no
outlook of hope to stay me--was but making a bid for that madness
which comes of despair.

As to carrying any great quantity of food on with me, it was a sheer
impossibility. The tins of beans weighed each of them more than five
pounds, and a score of them would make as much of a load as I well
could carry on level ground--and far more of a load than I could
manage in the scramble that was before me if I decided to go on.
Indeed, I had found my two bottles of water a serious inconvenience;
and yet I would have them to carry also, and the big compass too. As
to water, however, since the shower of the morning. I felt less
anxiety: and the event proved that my confidence in the rainfall was
justified--for the showers came regularly a little after dawn, and
only once or twice after that first sharp experience did I feel more
than passing pain from thirst.

I sat there on the roof of the cabin for a good part of the morning
cogitating the matter; and in the end I could think of no better
plan than one which promised certainly a world of hard labor, and only
promised uncertainly to serve my turn. This was to stick to my project
of going steadily northward--carrying with me as much food as I could
stagger under--until I came again to the outer edge of the
wreck--pack; but to safeguard my return to the barque, should my food
give out before my journey was accomplished, by blazing my path: that
is to say, by making a mark on each wreck that I crossed so that I
could retrace my steps easily and without fear of losing my way. What
I would gain in the end I did not try very clearly to tell
myself--having only a vague feeling that in getting again to the coast
of my great dead continent I would be that much the nearer to the
living world once more; and having a clearer feeling that only by
sticking at some sort of hard work that had a little hopefulness in it
could I save myself from going mad. And I cannot but think now,
looking back at it, that a touch of madness already was upon me; for
no man ever set himself to a crazier undertaking than that to which I
set myself then.





XXIII

HOW I STARTED ON A JOURNEY DUE NORTH


The morning was well spent by the time that I had made my mind up, and
I was growing hungry again. I made a good meal on what was left in the
second tin of beans that I had opened for my breakfast; and when I was
done I tried to get a light for my pipe by rubbing bits of wood
together, but made nothing of it at all. I had read about castaways on
desert islands getting fire that way--but they went at it with dry
wood, I fancy, and in my mist-sodden desert all the wood was soaked
with damp.

For that afternoon I decided to go forward only as far as I could
fetch it to be back on board the barque again by sunset, taking with
me as many tins of beans as I could carry and leaving them where I
made my turn: by which arrangement I would save the carriage of my
supper and my breakfast, and would have a little store of victuals to
fall back upon--when I should be fairly started on my journey--without
coming all the way again to the barque.

I got the bed-bag that I had seen in the stateroom, and managed with
the rusty scissors to cut it down to half its size. Into this I packed
ten tins of beans, and made them snug by whipping around the bag one
end of a longish line--which served when coiled as a handle for it;
and, being uncoiled, enabled me to haul it up a ship's side after me,
or to let it down ahead of me, or to sway it across an open space
between two vessels, and so go at my climbing and jumping with both
hands free. As for the compass, my back was the only place for it and
I put it there--where it did not bother me much, having little weight;
and I stuck the hatchet to blaze my path with into a sort of a belt
that I made for myself with a bit of line.

Considering what a load I was carrying, and that on every vessel which
I crossed I had to stop while I blazed a mark on her, I made a good
long march of it before the waning of the daylight was a sign to me
that I must put about again; and my return journey was both quick and
easy, for I left the whole of my load, excepting the empty bag, behind
me and came back lightly along my plainly marked path. But I was tired
enough when I got on board the barque again, and glad enough to eat my
supper and then stretch myself out to sleep upon the cabin floor.

That night, being easy in my body--except for my wholesome
weariness--and easier in my mind because it seemed to me that I was
doing something for my deliverance, and being also aboard a vessel
that I knew was clean and pure, I had no visions of any kind whatever,
but went to sleep almost in a moment, and slept like a log, as the
saying is, the whole night through. Indeed, I slept later than suited
my purposes--being for rising early and making a long day's march of
it--and I might have wasted still more time in drowsing lazily had I
not been wakened a little before sunrise by the rattle on the cabin
roof of a dashing burst of rain. I was on deck in a moment, and by
stopping a scupper--as I had done the previous morning--presently had
by me a far bigger supply of water than I needed; from which I got a
good drink lying down to it, and filled an empty bean-tin for another
drink after my breakfast, and so had my two bottles full to last me
until the next day--and was pretty well satisfied by the rain's
recurrence that I could count upon a shower every morning about the
hour of dawn.

When I had finished my breakfast I stowed ten tins of beans in the bag
and lashed four more together so that I could carry them on my
shoulders--being able to manage them in that way because I had no
other back-load--and so was ready to set out along my blazed path. But
before leaving the barque--hoping never again to lay eyes on her--I
took one more look through the cabin to make sure that I had not
passed over something that might be useful to me: and was lucky enough
to find under one of the bunks a drawer--that had been hidden by the
tumbled sheets hanging down over it--in which were some shirts and a
suit of linen clothing that most opportunely supplied my needs. They
all were badly mildewed, but sound enough, and the trousers--I had no
use for the coat and waistcoat--fitted me very well. So I threw off
the rags and tatters that I was wearing and put on in their place
these sound garments; and then I picked up my load and was off.

Not having to stop to take bearings or to blaze my way, I made such
good time that I got to the end of the course over which I had spent a
good part of the previous afternoon in not much more than three hours.
I was pretty well pleased to find that I could make such brisk
marching under such a load; for it showed me that even when I should
get a long way from my base of supplies, that is to say from the
barque, I still could return to it at no great expense of time--and
the thought never entered my head that time was of no value to me,
since only by what would be close upon a miracle could I hope for
anything better than to find ways for killing it through all the
remainder of my days.

Being thus come to my place of deposit I had to rearrange my
packing--going forward with a lighter load of food that I might
carry also the compass and the hatchet; and going slowly because of my
constant stops to take fresh bearings and to mark my path. But that
time I went straight onward until nightfall; and my heart sank a good
deal within me as I found that the farther I went the more antique in
model, and the more anciently sea-worn, were the wrecks which I came
upon--and so I knew that I must be making my way steadily into the
very depths of my maze.

Yet I could not see that I would gain anything by going back to the
barque and thence taking a fresh departure. The barque, as I knew
certainly from the sort of craft surrounding her, was so deeply bedded
in the pack that no matter how I headed from her I should have to go
far before I came again to the coast of it; and on the other hand I
thought that by holding to my course northward I might work my way in
no great time across the innermost huddle of ancient wrecks--for of
the vast number of these I had no notion then--and so to the outer
belt of wrecks new-made: on board of which I certainly should find
fresh food in plenty, and from which (as I forced myself to believe) I
might get away once more into the living world. And so I pushed on
doggedly until the twilight changed to dusk and I could not venture
farther; and then I ate my supper on board of a strange old ship, as
round as a dumpling and with a high bow and a higher stern; and when
I had finished settled myself for the night, being very weary, under
the in-hang of her heavy bulging side.

When morning came--and a shower with it that gave me what drink I
wanted and a store of water for the day--I debated for a while with
myself as to whether I should go onward with my whole load, or leave a
part of it in a fresh deposit to which I could return at will. The
second course seemed the better to me; and, indeed, it was necessary
for me to go light-loaded in order to get on at all. For I had come
among ships of such strange old-fashioned build, standing at bow and
stern so high out of the water, that unless they happened to be lying
side by side so that I could pass from one to another amidships--which
was the case but seldom--I had almost as much climbing up and down
among them as though I had been a monkey mounting and descending a
row of trees.

Therefore I ate as much breakfast as I could pack into myself--that
being as good a way as any other of carrying food with me--and then I
tore the sleeves from my shirt and stuffed them from the tins that I
opened until I had two great bean sausages, which I fastened
belt-fashion about my waist and so carried without any trouble at all.
Indeed, but for this new arrangement of my load I doubt if I could
have gone onward; and even with it I had all that I could do to make
my way. The bag with the remaining tins in it I stood away inside the
cabin of the old ship--which I should have explored farther, so
strange-looking was it, but for my eager desire to get on; and I felt
quite sure that I would find all just as I had left it there even
though I did not come back again for twenty years.





XXIV

OF WHAT I FOUND ABOARD A SPANISH GALLEON


Bent as I was upon hurrying forward, I could not but stop often in my
wearying marches--which began each morning at sunrise and did not end
until dusk--to gaze about me in wonder at the curious ancient craft
across which lay my way. It seemed to me, indeed, as though I had got
into a great marine museum where were stored together all manner of
such antique vessels as not for two full centuries, and a good many of
them for still longer, had sailed the seas. Some of them were mere
shallops, so little that sailormen nowadays would not venture to go
a-coasting in them, and others were great round-bellied old
merchantmen--yet half war-ships, too--with high-built fore-castles,
and towering poops blossoming out into rich carvings and having
galleries rising one above another and with a big iron lantern at the
top of all. And all of them had been shattered in fights and tempests,
and were so rotten with age that the decks beneath my feet were soft
and spongy; and all were weathered to a soft gray, or to a brownish
blackness, with here and there a gleam of bright upon them where there
still clung fast in some protected recess of their carving a little of
the heavy gilding with which it all had been overlaid. Guns of some
sort were on every one of them--ranging upward from little swivels
mounted on the rail (mere pop-guns they looked like) to long bronze
pieces of which the delicate ornamentation was lost in a thick coat of
verdigris that had been gathering slowly through years and years. But
as to the strange rig that they had worn in their days of active
sea-faring, I could only guess at it; for such of them as had come
into this death-haven with any of their top-hamper still standing, as
some of them no doubt had come, long since had lost it--first the
standing-rigging and later the masts rotting, and so all together
falling in a heap anyway upon the decks or over the side. And such a
company of withered old sea-corpses as these ancient wrecks made
there, all huddled together with the weed thick about them, was as
hopeless and as dismal a sight as ever was seen by the eyes of man.
But a matter that to me was more instantly dismal, as I pressed on
among them, came when I found that I was getting so close to the end
of my stock of provisions--while yet apparently no nearer to the end
of my journey--that there was no shirking the necessity of returning
to the distant barque for a fresh supply: a journey involving such
desperate toil, and so much of it, that the mere thought of it sent
aches through all my bones.

It was about noon one day, while I was trying to nerve myself to make
this hard expedition, that I called a halt in order to eat my
dinner--which I knew would be a very little one--being just then come
aboard of a great ungainly galleon that from the look of her I thought
could not be less than two centuries and a half old: she being more
curiously ancient in her build than any vessel that I had got upon,
and her timbers so rotten that I had ticklish climbing as I worked my
way up her high quarter--and, indeed, one of her galleries giving way
under me, was near to spilling down her tall side to my death beneath
the tangled weed. And when at last I got to her deck I found it so
soft, partly with rottenness and partly with a sort of moss growing
over it, that I was fearful at each step that it would give way under
me and let me down with a crash into her hold.

I would have been glad of a better place to eat my dinner in--she
being sodden wet everywhere, and with a chill about her for all the
warmth of the misty air shimmering with dull sunshine, and with a rank
unwholesome smell rising from her rotting mass. But all the hulks
thereabouts were in so much the same condition that by going on I was
not likely greatly to better myself; and I was so tired and so hungry
that I had no heart to attempt any more hard scrambling until I had
had both rest and food. And so I hunted out a spot on her deck where
the moss was thinnest and least oozy with moisture--being a place a
little sheltered by a sort of porch above her cabin doorway--and there
I seated myself and with a good deal of satisfaction fell to upon my
very scanty ration of beans.

For a while I was busied wholly with my eating, being mighty sharp set
after my morning's walk; but when my short meal was ended I began to
look about me, and especially to peer into the deep old cabin--that
was pretty well lighted through the stern-windows and through the
doorway at my shoulder, of which the door had rotted away.

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