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

have another

round with me. Is Jack true dead?”

 

“If you mean the man on deck,” I answered, “he is true dead—as dead

as any man can be with a cut straight through his heart.”

 

He gave another sigh of relief, as though what I told him was a real

comfort to him; and in a moment he said: “Well, that’s a good job, and

I’m glad of it. He’s killed me, too, I reckon; but I’m glad I got in

on him first an’ fixed him fur his damn starin’ at me. Now he’s dead I

guess he won’t stare at me no more.” He was silent for nearly a

minute, and then he added: “Jest get me a drink, won’t you? I’m all

burnin’ up inside. There’s water in th’ jug out there. An’ put a good

dash of gin in it—there’s gin out there, too.”

 

I got him some water from the jug on the cabin table, but when he

tasted it and found that it was water only he began to swear at me for

leaving out the gin; and when I added the gin—thinking that he

probably was so used to strong drink as really to need a little to put

some life into him—he took off the whole glassful at a gulp and

asked for more.

 

I told him to wait for another drink until I should have a look at his

hurts and see what I could do to better them; for, while hanging

seemed to be what he deserved, I had a natural desire to ease the

pain that was racking him—as I could tell by the gasps and groans

which he was giving and by the sharp motions which he made.

 

“Jest shet your head an’ gimme some more drink,” he said in a surly

way. “Jack’s give me a dose that’ll settle me, an’ lookin’ at me won’t

do no good—‘cause there’s nothin’ to be done. He’s ripped me up, Jack

has, an’ no man can live long that way. All I can do is to die

happy—so it’s a good thing there’s lots of gin. You’ll find a kag of

it over there in th’ fur corner. Me an’ Jack filled it from th’ spirit

room yesterday, afore our fuss begun.”

 

But I stuck out that I must have a look at his hurts first, and

managed to open the deadlight—which luckily had not been screwed

tight—and so had some light in the room; and in the end, finding that

I would not give him a drink otherwise, he let me have my way. But I

had only to take a glance over him to see that what he said about the

other man having settled him was true enough; for he was cut in a

dozen places savagely, and had one desperate slash—which had laid him

all open about the waist—from which alone he was certain to die in a

very little while.

 

There was nothing for me to do, and I did not know what was best to

say to him; and while I was casting about in my mind to comfort him a

little, for his horrible hurts could not but stir my pity, he settled

the matter for both of us in his own way—grunting out that he guessed

I’d found he knew what he was talking about, and then asking for

more gin.

 

This time I gave it to him, and gave it to him strong—being certain

that he was past hurting by it, and hoping that it might deaden his

pain. And presently, when he asked for another drink, I gave him

that too.

 

The liquor did make him easier, and it raised his spirits so much that

he fell to swearing quite cheerfully at the man Jack who had given him

his death—and seemed to feel a good deal better for freeing his mind

that way. And after a while he began of his own accord to tell me

about the wreck that he had passed through, and about what had come

after it—only stopping now and then to ask for more gin-and-water,

and gulping it down with such satisfaction that I gave him all he

cared to have. Indeed, it was the only thing that I could do to ease

him, and I knew that no matter how much he drank the end shortly would

be the same.

 

As well as I could make out from his rambling talk, the storm that had

wrecked him had happened about three months earlier: a tremendous

burst of tempest that had sent everything to smash suddenly, and had

washed the captain and first and second officers overboard—they all

being on the bridge together—and three or four of the crew as well.

At the same time the funnel was carried away, and such a deluge of

water got down to the engine-room that the fires were drowned. This

brought the engineers on deck and the coal-passers with them; and the

coal-passers—“a beach-combin’ lot,” he called them—led in breaking

into the spirit-room, and before long pretty much all the men of the

crew were as drunk as lords. What happened after that for a while he

did not know; but when he got sober enough to stagger up on deck he

found the man Jack there—who also had just come up after sleeping off

his drunk below somewhere—and they had the ship to themselves. The

others might have found a boat that would float and tried their luck

that way, or they might have been washed overboard. He didn’t know

what had become of them, and he didn’t care. Then the hulk had taken

to drifting slowly, and at the end of a month or so had settled into

the berth where I found her; and since then the two of them had known

that all chance of their getting back into the world again was gone.

 

“At first I didn’t mind it much,” he went on, “there bein’ lashins to

eat aboard, an’ more to drink than me an’ Jack ever’d hoped to get a

show at in all our lives. But pretty soon Jack he begun to be

worryin’. He’d get drunk, an’ then he’d set an’ stare at me like a

damn owl—jest a-blinkin’ and a-blinkin’ his damn eyes. You hev no

idee, ontil it’s done to you, how worryin’ it is when a drunken man

jest sets an’ stares at you fur hours together in that fool way. I

give Jack fair warnin’ time and agen when he was sober that I’d hurt

him ef he kep’ on starin’ at me like that; but then he’d get drunk

agen right off, an’ at it he’d go. I s’pose I wouldn’t ‘a’ minded it

in a ornary way an’ ashore, or ef we’d had some other folks around.

But here we was jest alone—oh, it was terr’ble how much we was

alone!—an’ Jack more’n half the time like a damn starin’ owl, till he

a-most druv me wild.”

 

“An’ Jack said as how I was onbearable too. He said it was me as

stared at him—the damn fool not knowin’ that I was only a-tryin’ to

squench his beastly owlin’ by lookin’ steady at him; an’ he said he’d

settle me ef I kep’ on. An’ so things went like that atween us fur

days an’ days—and all th’ time nothin’ near us but dead ships with

mos’ likely dead men fillin’ ‘em, an’ him an’ me knowin’ we’d soon got

to be dead too. An’ the stinks out of th’ rotten weed, and out of all

th’ rotten ships whenever a bit of wind breezed up soft from th’

s’uthard over th’ hull mess of ‘em, was horrider than you hev any

idee! Gettin’ drunk was all there was lef’ fur us; and even in gettin’

drunk there wasn’t no real Christian comfort, ‘cause of Jack’s damn

owlin’ stares.”

 

“I guess ef anybody stared steady at you fur better’n three months

you’d want to kill him too. Anyway, that’s how I felt about it; an’ I

told Jack yesterday—soon as he waked up in th’ mornin’, an’ while he

was plumb sober—that ef he didn’t let up on it I’d go fur him sure.

An’ that fool up an’ says it was me done th’ starin’, and I’d got to

stop it or he’d cut out my damn heart—an’ them was his very words.

An’ by noon yesterday he was drunker’n a Dutchman, an’ was starin’

harder’n ever. An’ he kep’ at it all along till sunset, an’ when we

come down into th’ cabin to get supper he still was starin’; and after

supper—when we mought ‘a’ been jest like two brothers a-gettin’ drunk

together on gin-an’-water—he stared wust of all.”

 

“Nobody could ‘a’ stood it no longer—and up I gets an’ goes fur him,

keepin’ my promise fair an’ square. At fust we jest punched each other

sort o’ friendly with our fists, but after a while Jack give me a clip

that roused my dander and I took my knife to him; an’ then he took his

knife to me. I don’t remember jest all about it, but I know we licked

away at each other all over th’ cabin, an’ then up through th’

companionway, an’ then all over th’ deck—me a-slicin’ into him an’

him a-slicin’ into me all th’ time. And at last he got this rippin’

cut into me, an’ jest then I give him a jab that made him yell like a

stuck pig an’ down he fell. I knowed he’d done fur me, but somehow I

managed to work my way along th’ deck an’ to get down here to my

bunk, where I knowed I’d die easier; an’ then things was all black fur

a while—ontil all of a sudden you comes along, and I sees you

standin’ in the door there, an’ takes you fur Jack’s ghost, an’ gets

scared th’ wust kind. But he’s not doin’ no ghost racket, Jack ain’t.

I’ve settled him an’ his damn owl starin’—and it’s a good job I have.

Gimme some more gin.”

 

And then, having taken the drink that I gave him, he rolled over a

little—so that he lay as I found him, with his face turned away from

me—and for a good long while he did not speak a word.

XVI

I RID MYSELF OF TWO DEAD MEN

 

Only an hour before I had been longing for any sort of a live man to

talk with and so break my loneliness; but having thus found a live

man—who, to be sure, was close to being a dead one—I would have been

almost ready to get rid of him by going back to my mast in the open

sea. Indeed, as I stood there in the shadows beside that dying brute,

and with the other brute lying dead on the deck above me, the feeling

of dull horror that filled me is more than I can put into words.

 

I think that the underlying strong strain of my wretchedness was an

intense pity for myself. In what the fellow had told me I saw clearly

outlined a good deal of what must be my own fate in that vile

solitude: which I perceived suddenly must be strewn everywhere with

dead men lying unhidden, corrupting openly; since none there were to

hide the dead from sight as we hide them in the living world. And I

realized that until I myself should be a part of that indecent

exhibition of human carcasses—which might not be for a long while,

for I was a strong man and not likely to die soon—I should have to

dwell in the midst of all that corruption; and always with the

knowledge that sooner or later I must take