In the Sargasso Sea - Thomas A. Janvier (top books to read txt) 📗
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feel—no matter how tight a fix they may be in—when they have the
backing of the sun.
My first thought was to get on deck and have a look about me; the
feeling being strong in my mind that on one or another of the near-by
wrecks I should find the man who had uttered that thrilling cry, and
would find him in some trouble that I might be able to help him out
of. But my second thought, and it was the wiser, was to eat first of
all a good breakfast and so get strength in me that would make me
ready to face whatever might come along—for a vague dread hung by me
that I was in the way of danger, and whatever it might be I knew that
I could the better stand up against it after a hearty meal. Therefore
I got out another tin of meat and ate the whole of it, and a hunk of
stale bread along with it, and washed down my breakfast with a bottle
of beer—longing greatly for a cup of coffee in place of the beer, but
being in too much of a hurry to stop for that while I made a fire.
As the food got inside of me—though in that smoky and smelly place
eating it was not much of a pleasure—my thoughts took a more cheerful
turn. The hope of meeting a live man to talk to and to help me out of
my utter loneliness rose strong in my mind; and I felt that no matter
who or what he might be—even a man in desperate sickness and pain,
whom I must nurse and care for—finding him in that solitude would
make my own case less sad. And so, when I went on deck, my longing
hope for companionship was the strongest feeling in my heart.
With my first glance around I saw that during the night my hulk had
made more progress than I had counted on; having moved the faster, I
suppose, as it felt more strongly the pull of the mass of floatage
near by. Be this as it may, I found myself so close alongside the big
cargo-boat that a good jump would carry me aboard of her; and I was so
eager to begin my investigations that I took the jump without a single
moment of delay. And being come to her deck, the first thing that I
saw there was a dead man lying in the middle of it with a pool of
still fresh blood staining the planks by his side.
I never had seen anything like that, and as I looked at the dead
man—he was a big strong coarse fellow, dressed in a pair of dirty
sail-cloth trousers and in a dirty checked shirt—I went so queasy and
giddy that I had to step back a little and lean for a while against
the steamer’s rail. It was clear enough that he had died fighting. His
face had a bad cut on it and there was another on his neck, and his
hands were cut cruelly, as though he had caught again and again at a
sharp knife in trying to keep it away from him; but the stab that had
finished him was in his breast, showing ghastly as he lay on his back
with his shirt open—and no doubt it was as the knife went into him
there that he had uttered the cry of mortal agony which had come to me
through the darkness, with so thrilling a note in it, while I was
sitting in bright comfort drowsily smoking my cigar. And then, as I
remembered my drowsiness, for a moment I seemed to get back into
it—and I had a half hope that perhaps what I was looking at was only
a part of a horrible dream.
Had there been any sign of a living man about, of the murderer as well
as the murdered, I should have been less broken by what I saw; for
then I should have had something practical to attend to—either in
bringing the other man to book on the poor dead fellow’s account, or
in fighting him on my own. But the nearest thing to life in sight, on
that storm-swept hulk under the low-hanging golden haze, was the rough
body out of which life had but just gone forever; and the bloody
stains everywhere on the deck showing that he and another must have
been fighting pretty much all over it before they got to an end. And
the horror of it all was the stronger because of the awful and
hopeless loneliness: with the dead-still weed-covered ocean
stretching away to the horizon on the one hand, and on the other only
dead ships tangled and crushed together going off in a desolate
wilderness that grew fainter—but for its faintness all the more
despairing—until it was lost in the dun-gold murky thickness of
the haze.
As I got steadier, in a little while, I realized that I must hunt up
the other man, the one who had done the killing, and have things out
with him. Pretty certainly, his disposition would be to try to kill
me; and if I were to have a fight on hand as soon as I fell in with
him it was plain that my chances would be all the better for downing
him could I take him by surprise. I would have given a good deal just
then for a knife, and a good deal more for a pistol; but the best that
I could do to arm myself was to take an iron belaying-pin from the
rail, and with this in my hand I walked aft to the companionway
—feeling sure that my best chance of coming upon my man
unexpectedly was to find him asleep in the cabin below. And then,
suddenly, the very uncomfortable thought came to me that there might
be more than one man down there—with the likelihood that if I roused
them they all would set upon me together and finish me quickly; and
this brought me to a halt just within the companionway, in the
shadowy place at the head of the cabin stair.
I stood there for a minute or two listening closely, but I heard no
sound whatever from below; and presently the dead silence made me feel
rather ashamed of myself for being so easily scared. And then I
noticed, my eyes having become accustomed to the shadow, that there
was a splash of blood on the top step and more blood on the steps
lower down—as though a man badly hurt, and without any one to help
him, had gone down the stair slowly and had rested on almost every
step and bled for a while before he could go on; and seeing this made
it seem likely to me that I would have but a single man to deal with,
and he in such a state that I need not fear him much. But for all that
I kept a tight grip on my belaying-pin, and held it in such a way that
I could use it easily, as I put my foot on the first of the bloody
steps and so went on down.
The cabin, when I got to it, was but a small one—the boat not being
built to carry passengers—and so dusky that I could not make it out
well; for the skylight was covered with a tarpaulin—put there, I
suppose, to protect it when the gale came on that the steamer was
wrecked in—and all the light there was came in from one corner where
the covering had fetched away. It gave me a sort of shivering feeling
when I looked into that dusky place, where I saw nothing clearly and
where there was at least a chance that in another moment I might be
fighting for my life. I stood in the doorway, gripping my
belaying-pin, until I began to see more clearly—making out that a
small fixed table, with a water-jug and some bottles and glasses on
it, filled a half of the cabin, and that three stateroom doors—one
of which stood open—were ranged on each of its sides. And then, just
as I was about to enter, I fairly jumped as there came to me softly
through the silence a low sad sound that was between a groan and a
sigh. But in an instant my reason told me that this was not the sort
of sound to come from a man whom I need be afraid of; and as it came
plainly enough from the stateroom of which the door stood open I
stepped briskly over there and looked inside.
XVI HAVE SOME TALK WITH A MURDERER
At first—the deadlight being fast over the port, and the stateroom
in darkness save for the little light which came in from the dusky
cabin, and my own person in the doorway making it darker still—I was
sure of nothing there. But presently I made out a biggish heap of some
sort in the lower berth, and then that the heap was a man lying with
his back toward me and his face turned to the ship’s side.
The noise of my footsteps must have roused him, either from sleep or
from the stupor that his hurts had put him in: for while I stood
looking at him his body moved a little, and then his head turned
slowly and in the shadows I caught the glint of his open eyes. What
little light there was being behind me, all that he could see—and
that but in black outline—was the figure of a tall man looming in the
doorway; but instantly at sight of me he let off a yell as sharp as
though I had run a knife into him, and then he covered his head all up
with the bedclothes and lay kicking and shaking as though he were in
deadly fear. I myself was so upset by his outburst, and by the
half-horror that came to me at sight of his spasms of terror, that I
stood for a moment or so silent; but in one way satisfied, since it
was evident that this poor scared wretch could not possibly do me
harm. Just as I was about to speak to him, hoping to soothe him a
little, he pushed the bedclothes down from over his eyes and took
another look at me—and straightway yelled again, and then cried out
at me: “Go away, damn you! Go away, damn you! You’re dead! You’re
dead, I tell you! Do you want me to kill you all over again, when I’ve
done it once as well as I know how?” And with that he fell to kicking
again, and to shouting out curses, and to letting off the most
dreadful shrieks and cries—until suddenly a gasping choking checked
him, and he lay silent and still.
Then the notion came to me that he took me for the dead man up on
deck; I being about the dead fellow’s size and build, and therefore
looking very like him as I stood there with the light behind me and
the shadows too deep for him to make out my face. And so, to ease his
mind and get him quiet—and this was quite as much for my own sake as
for his, for his wild fear was strangely horrible to witness—I spoke
to him, asking him if he were badly hurt and if I could help him; and
at the sound of my voice he gave a long sigh, as though of great
relief, and in a moment said: “Who the devil are you, anyway? I
thought you was Jack—come back after my killin’ him to
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