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

taking

the first of a series of walks such as wild animals imprisoned take

endlessly back and forth behind the bars that shut them in. And from

this I went on to thinking, still in the same confused way, that the

wild animals at least were not outcast in their captivity—having

living people and living beasts around them, and the pleasure of

hearing living sounds—while one of the worst things about my prison

was the absolute dead silence that hung over it like a dismal cloud.

And perhaps it was because my thoughts happened at that moment to be

set to take notice of such matters that I fancied I heard a very faint

sound of scratching and an instant later a still fainter little cry.

 

I was standing just then close to the water-line on the deck forward,

beside a covered hatch that seemed to lead to what had been the

quarters of the crew; and it was from beneath this hatch, I was

certain, that the sounds came. Slight though the noise was, it greatly

startled me; and at the same time it aroused in me the

strangely-thrilling hope that there possibly might be a living man

still aboard of the steamer and that I would be no longer horribly

alone. Yet I would not suffer myself too much to give room to this

happy hope, for the little faint scratching—which I heard again

presently—was not the sort of noise that a man shut in would be

likely to make; nor did the little plaintive sound seem like a human

cry. But the matter was one to be investigated in a hurry, and with an

energy quite astonishing, in comparison with my lassitude of a moment

before, I got the hatch open and leaned down it, listening; and then I

heard the scratching so plainly that I hurried down the stair.

 

The between-decks was well enough lighted by a good-sized skylight,

and the place that I had got into had fixed tables set in it and

seemed to be the mess-room of the crew. Doors opened out from it both

fore and aft; and from behind the after door—so plainly that I had no

difficulty in placing it—came the scratching sound that I was

pursuing: and with it came the cries again, and this time so

distinctly as to shatter my hope of finding a human being there, but

at the same time to make me, for all my sorrow, almost smile. For the

cry was a very long and plaintive m-i-i-a-a-u! And the next moment,

when I had the door open, a great black cat came out upon me—so

overcome with delight at meeting a human being again that he was

almost choking with his gurgling purr. Indeed the extravagant joy of

the poor lonely creature was as great as mine would have been had I

found a man there—and he manifested it by lunging sidewise against my

legs, and by standing up on his hind paws and reaching his fore paws

up to my knees and clutching them, and then with a spring he climbed

right up me—all the while choking with his great gurgling

purring—and was not satisfied until he found himself bundled close

against my breast as I held him tight in my arms. And on my

side—after I had gulped down my first disappointment because it was

only a cat who was my fellow-prisoner—I was as glad to meet him as he

was to meet me; and I am not ashamed to say that I fairly cried over

him—as a warm rush of joy went over me at finding myself at last,

after being for so long a time surrounded only by the dead, in the

company of a living creature; and a creature which showed toward me by

every means that a brute beast could compass its gratitude and

its love.

 

And I must add without delay that my cat’s affection for me was wholly

disinterested; at least, I am sure that he loved me—from the first

moment of our encounter—not because he wanted me to do something for

him, but because he longed, as I did, for human companionship and was

filled up with happiness because he had found again a human friend. As

I discovered upon investigation, his prison had been the galley in

which food for the crew had been cooked; and upon the odds and ends

left there he had fared very well indeed—not overeating himself by

gobbling down all his food in a hurry, and then dying of starvation,

as a dog would have done, but temperately eating for his daily rations

only what his sustenance required; and for drink he had had a pot

partly full of what had been hot water that stood upon the galley

stove. But I also must add that this coarse fare was not at all to his

liking; and that thereafter he ordered me around pretty sharply, in

his own way, and insisted always upon my providing him with

dainty food.

 

It was a good thing for the cat, certainly, that I had found him; for

his stock of provisions was pretty nearly exhausted, and in a little

while longer he would have come to a dismal end. But my finding him

was a still better thing for me. When I first heard his faint little

scratching, and his still fainter plaintive little call for help, I

was so deep in my despairing melancholy that my reason was in a fair

way to go, and with it all farther effort on my part to set myself

free. From that desperate state my small adventure with him roused me,

which was a good deal to thank him for; but I had more to thank him

for still.

 

In the little time that I had been aboard of the _Ville de Saint

Remy_—my days having been passed away from her—I had made no

exploration of her interior beyond her cabin and the region in which

were carried her cabin stores; which latter were so abundant as to set

me at my ease for an indefinite period in regard to food. But this

meeting with my fellow-prisoner so stirred me up, and put such fresh

spirit into me, that I began to think of having a general look all

over her: that I might in a way take stock of my belongings and at the

same time have something to occupy my mind—for I knew that to sit

down idly again would be only again to fall back into despair. And so,

my cat going with me—and, indeed, making a good deal of a convenience

of me, for he by no means would walk on his own legs but insisted upon

jumping up on my shoulder and going that way as a passenger—I set off

on my round.

 

As well as I could make out from what I found on board of her—for her

papers either had been carried away or were stowed in some place which

I did not discover—the Ville de Saint Remy had been bound outward

to some colonial port and carried a cargo of general stores. When I

got her hatches off—though that came later—I saw in one place a lot

of wheelbarrows, and some heavy wagons stowed with their wheels inside

of them, and some machinery for threshing along with a portable

steam-engine; and in another place were boxes which seemed to have

dry-goods in them, and a great many cases of wines, and some very big

cases that evidently contained pianos—and so on with a great lot of

stuff such as the people of a flourishing colony would be likely

to need.

 

But in my round that morning with the cat on my shoulders—for he was

not content to remain perched on one of them quietly, but kept passing

from one to the other with affectionate rubs against the back of my

head, and all the while purring as hard as he could purr—I did not

get below the main-deck except into the engine-room, my attention

being given to finding out fully what the steamer had on board of her

in the way of work-shops and tools: for already, with my renewed

cheerfulness, the notion was beginning to take hold of me that I might

set to work and build a boat for myself—and so make what I could not

find. And, indeed, I don’t doubt that I should have set myself to this

big undertaking—for the appointments of the vessel were admirably

complete and everything that I wanted for my work was there—had not a

bigger, but a more promising, undertaking presented itself to me and

so turned my efforts into another way.

XXXIII I MAKE A GLAD DISCOVERY

It was directly to my cat that I owed the great piece of good fortune

that then came to me: but I must confess that he was an unwilling

agent in the matter, and probably wished himself well out of it, the

immediate result in his case being rather a bad squeeze to one of his

fore paws.

 

We had been examining the machine-shop, the cat and I, and whatever

his views about it may have been mine were of great satisfaction; for

when I had got the deadlights unscrewed so that I could see well

about me I had been delighted by finding there everything that my

boat-building project required. Indeed, I almost fancied myself back

again in one of the work-shops of the Stevens Institute, so well was

the place fitted and supplied—a completeness probably due to the fact

that the Ville de Saint Remy was intended for long voyages to

out-of-the-way ports, and very well might have to depend upon her own

resources for important repairs.

 

It was as we were leaving the machine-shop to continue our round of

investigations that my cat suddenly took it into his head to jump down

from my shoulders and stretch his own legs a little; and away he

scampered—being much given to such frisking dashes, as I later

discovered, though for the next week or so after that one he went

limping on three legs mighty soberly—first down the deck aft, and

then past me and up a dark passage leading toward the bows; and I,

being pretty well accustomed to cat habits, stood waiting until he

should have his fun out and so come back again with a miau by way of

“if you please” to be taken up into my arms. But he did not come back

in any great hurry, and off in the darkness I could hear his paws

padding about briskly; and then there was silence for a moment; and

then he broke out into a loud miauling which showed that he was in

trouble of some sort and also in pain.

 

As there was no helping him until I could see what was the matter with

him, I hurried first into the machine-shop for a wrench, and then went

forward into that dark place cautiously—until by a glint of light on

the ship’s side I made out where a port was, and so got loose the

deadlight and could look around. What I saw was my poor cat in such a

pickle that I did not in the least blame him for crying out about it;

he having, as it seemed, made an unlucky jump upon some small bars of

iron which were lying loose and disorderly, with the one on which he

landed balanced so nicely that it had turned suddenly and jammed fast

his paw. And so he was anchored there very painfully, and was telling

what he thought about it in the most piercing yowls.

 

Fortunately it was an easy matter to let him loose from the trap that

he had got into; but even while I was doing it—and before I picked

him