In the Sargasso Sea - Thomas A. Janvier (top books to read txt) 📗

each side of

it. The mainmast still stood, but with its topmast 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 mainmast

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 companionway to begin my explorations below.

And when, being come to the cabin again, I had another sup of Don

Jos�‘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 staterooms; but just beyond the

companionway I came at last to the pantry—and beyond this again, as

I found later, were the storerooms 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 lighthearted—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 storerooms: 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 storeroom 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 mainmast; 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 seaworthy; 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