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

my lively

hunger required. When I had finished I sat on there for a good while

longer, being very loath to go into the cabin; but at last, by finding

myself nodding with weary drowsiness, I knew that sleep would come

quickly, and so went inside and laid myself down upon the floor. There

still was a faint glimmer of dying daylight outside, and this little

glow somehow comforted me as I lay there facing the doorway and

blinking now and then before my eyes were tight closed; but I did not

lie long that way half-waking, being so utterly fagged in both mind

and body that I dropped off into deep slumber before the

darkness fell.

 

I suppose that even in my sleep I had an uneasy sense of my bleak

surroundings; and that this, in the course of three or four hours—by

which time I was a good deal rested and so slept less soundly—got the

better of my weariness and roused me awake again. But when I first

woke I was sure that I had slept the night through and that early

morning was come—for there was so much light in the cabin that I

never thought to account for it save by the return of day. Yet the

light was not like daylight, as I realized when I had a little more

shaken off my sleepiness, being curiously white and soft.

 

I turned over—for I had rolled in my uneasy sleep and got my back

toward the doorway—and raised myself a little on my elbow so that I

might see out clearly; and what I saw was so unearthly strange, and in

a way so awe-compelling, that in another moment I was on my feet and

staring with all my eyes. Over the whole deck of the galleon a soft

lambent light was playing, and this went along her bulwarks and up

over her high forecastle so that all the lines of her structure were

defined sharply by it; and pale through the mist against the

blackness, out over her low waist, I could catch glimpses of the other

tall old ships lying near her all likewise shining everywhere with the

same soft flames—which yet were not flames exactly, but rather a

flickering glow.

 

In a moment or so I realized that this luminous wonder, which at the

first look had so strong a touch of the supernatural in it, was no

more than the manifestation of a natural phenomenon: being the shimmer

of phosphorescent light upon the soaking rotten woodwork of the

galleon and of the ships about her, as rotten and as old. But making

this explanation to myself did not lessen the frightening strangeness

of the spectacle, nor do much to stop the cold creeps which ran over

me as I looked at it: I being there solitary in that marvellous

brightness—that I knew was in a way a death-glow—the one

thing alive.

 

But presently my unreasoning shivering dread began to yield a little,

as my curiosity bred in me an eager desire to see the whole of this

wondrous soft splendor; for I made sure from my glimpses over the

galleon’s bulwarks that it was about me on every side. And so I

stepped out from the cabin upon the deck, where my feet sank into the

short mossy growth that coated the rotten planks and I was fairly

walking in what seemed like a lake of wavering pale flame; and from

there, that I might see the better, I climbed cautiously up the rotten

stair leading to the roof of the cabin, and thence to the little

over-topping gallery where the stern-lantern was. And from that height

I could gaze about me as far as ever the mist would let me see.

 

Everywhere within the circle that my eyes covered—which was not a

very big one, for in the night the mist was thick and lowlying—the

old wrecks wedged together there were lighted with the same lambent

flames: which came and went over their dead carcasses as though they

all suddenly were lighted and then as suddenly were put out again; and

farther away the glow of them in the mist was like a silvery

shimmering haze. By this ebbing and flowing light—which seemed to

me, for all that I knew the natural cause of it, so outside of nature

that I thrilled with a creeping fear as I looked at it—I could see

clearly the shapes of the strange ancient ships around me: their great

poops and forecastles rising high above their shallow waists, and

here and there among them the remnant of a mast making a line of light

rising higher still—like a huge corpse-candle shining against the

blackness beyond. And the ruin of them—the breaks in their lines, and

the black gaps where bits of their frames had rotted away

completely—gave to them all a ghastly death-like look; while their

wild tangling together made strange ragged lines of brightness

wavering under the veil of mist, as though a desolate sea-city were

lying there dead before me lit up with lanterns of despair.

 

Yet that which most keenly thrilled me with a cold dread was my strong

conviction that I could see living men moving hither and thither over

those pale-lit decks, where my reason told me that only ancient death

could be; for the play of the flickering light made such a commotion

of fleeting flames and dancing shadows, going and coming in all manner

of fantastic shapes, that every shattered hulk around me seemed to

have her old crew alive and on board of her again—all hurrying in

bustling crowds fore and aft, and up and down the heights of her, as

though under orderly command. And at times these shapes were so real

and so distinct to me that I was for crying out to them—and would

check myself suddenly, shivering with a fright which I knew was out of

all reason but which for the life of me I could not keep down.

 

And so the night wore away: while I stood there on the galleon’s poop

with the soft pale flames flickering around me in the mist, and my

fears rising and falling as I lost and regained control of myself; and

I think that it is a wonder that I did not go mad.

XXVII

I SET MYSELF TO A HEAVY TASK

 

At last, after what seemed to me an age of waiting for it, a little

pinkish tone began to glow in the mist to the eastward; and as that

honest light got stronger the death-fires on the old galleon and on

the wrecks around her paled quickly until they were snuffed out

altogether—and then came the customary morning downpour of rain.

 

With the return of the blessed daylight, and with the enlivening douse

of cool fresh water upon me, I got to be myself again: my fanciful

fears of the night-time leaving me, and my mind coming back soberly to

a consideration of my actual needs. Of these the most pressing, as my

stomach told me, was to get my breakfast; and when that matter, in a

very poor way, had been attended to, and I had drunk what water I

needed—without much relishing it—from a pool that had formed on the

deck where the timbers sagged down a little, I was in better heart to

lay out for myself a plan of campaign.

 

In one way planning was not necessary. By holding to a northerly

course I believed that I had got at least half way across my

continent, and my determination was fixed to keep on by the

north—rather than risk a fresh departure that might only carry me by

a fresh way again into the depths of the tangle—until I should come

once more to the open sea: if I may call open sea that far outlying

expanse of ocean covered with thick-grown weed. But it was needful

that I should plan for my supply of food as I went onward, that was to

be got only by returning to the far-away barque; and also I felt an

itching desire—as strong as at first blush it was unreasonable—to

carry away with me some part of the treasure that I had found. That I

ever should get out into the world again, and so have the good of my

riches, seemed likely to me only in my most sanguine moments; but even

on the slimmest chance of accomplishing my own deliverance I had a

very natural human objection to leaving behind me the wealth that I

had found through such peril—only to lie there for a while longer

idly, and then to be lost forever when the galleon sank to the bottom

of the sea.

 

As to the gold, it was plain that I could carry off so little of it

that I might as well resign myself—having that which was better worth

working for—to losing it all. But my treasure of jewels was another

matter. This was so very much more valuable than the gold—for the

stones for the most part were of a prodigious size and a rare

fineness—that between the two there really was no comparison; and at

the same time it was so compact in bulk and so petty in weight that I

might easily carry the whole of it with me and a good store of food

too. And so, to make a beginning, I picked the stones out of the slimy

and stinking ooze in which they were lying and washed them clean in

the pool of water on the deck; and then I packed them snugly into the

shirt-sleeve in which my beans had been stored—and tickled myself the

while with the fancy that most men would be willing for the sake of

stuffing a shirt-sleeve that way to cut off the arm to which

it belonged.

 

My packing being finished, and my precious bag laid away in a corner

of the cabin until I should come to fetch it again, I was in a better

mood for facing my long march back to the barque: for I had come to

have fortune as well as life to work for, and those two strong

stimulants to endeavor working together gave my spirits a great upward

pull. And, fortunately, my cheerfulness staid by me through my long

scrambling struggle backward along my blazed path; nor was it, in

reality, as hard a journey as I had expected it to be—for I had but a

light load of food to carry, barely enough to last me through, and the

marks which I had left upon the wrecks in passing made my way plain.

And so, at last, I got back to the barque one evening about sunset,

and had almost a feeling of homecoming in boarding her again; and I

was thankful enough to be able to eat all the supper I wanted, and

then to lie down comfortably in her clean cabin and to rest myself in

sound slumber after my many restless nights on rotten old ships

reeking with a chill dampness that struck into my very bones.

 

I slept soundly and woke refreshed; and for that I was thankful, since

the work cut out for me—to get back to the galleon with enough

provisions to last me until I could cross the rest of the

wreck-pack—was about as much as a strong man in good condition could

do. However, I had thought of something that would make this hard job

less difficult; for the ease with which I had carried a part of my

food in long narrow bags, sausage-fashion—thereby getting rid of

both the weight and the awkwardness of the tins—had put into my head

the notion of carrying in that way the whole of my fresh supply, and

so carrying at least twice as much