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

my boiler, or to lie down at night with every one of

my bones and muscles heavy with a dull pain.

 

And all the sound that there was in that still misty solitude was the

puffing of my engine, and the wheel churning in the water, and the

sharp hiss of the saw as it severed the matted fibres, and the

crunching and rustling that the boat made as it went onward with a

leaden slowness through the weed.

XXXIX

WHY MY CAT CALLED OUT TO ME

 

I had thought that I had struck the bed-rock of misery when I was

wandering in the dead depths of the wreck-pack, with the conviction

strong upon me that in a little while I would be dead there too. But

as I look back upon that long suffering of lonely sorrow I think now

that the worst of it came to me after I had left the wreck-pack

behind. In that last round that I fought with misfortune the strength

of my body was exhausted so completely that it could give no support

to my spirit; and as the days went on and on—always with the same

weed-covered sea around me and the same soft golden mist over me, and

I always working wearily but with the stolid steadiness of a

machine—so deadening a numbness took hold of me that I seemed to

myself like some far-away strange person—yet one with whom I had a

direct connection, and must needs sorrow for and sympathize

with—struggling interminably through the dull jading mazes of a

nightmare dream.

 

Once only was I aroused from this stupor of spirit that went with my

vigorous yet apathetic bodily action. Just at sunset one evening I

sighted a vessel of some sort far ahead of me—a black mass looming

uncertainly against the rich glow of crimson that filled the west—and

for some reason or another I took into my head the fancy that I was

nearing open water and that this was not a wreck but a living ship on

board of which I would find living men: and at the thought of meeting

with live men again I fairly cried with joy. Then darkness fell and

shut her out from me; leaving me so eager that I could not sleep for

thinking of her, and almost tempting me to press on through the night

that I might be close up to her by dawn. But when in the first faint

grey light of early morning I made her out again, and saw that she was

in just the same position and at just the same distance ahead of me, I

was almost as sorry as I would have been had she vanished; for I knew

that had she been a living ship in that long night-time she would have

sailed away. And by noon, being then close upon her, I could see that

she was floating bottom upwards: and so knew certainly that she was

only a dead wreck drifting in slowly to take her place among the dead

wrecks which I had left behind me; and beyond her, instead of open

water, I saw only the weed—covered ocean stretching onward unbroken

until it was lost in the golden haze.

 

Even then, though, I had a foolish hope that there might be living men

clinging to her, and I edged my boat off its course a little so that I

might run close under her stern. But no one showed on her hull as I

neared her, and only my own voice broke the heavy silence as I crazily

hailed her again and again. And then I fell into a dull rage with her,

so weary was I of my loneliness and so bitter was my disappointment at

finding her deserted—until suddenly a very different train of

emotions was aroused in me as I made out slowly the weathered inverted

lettering on her up-tilting stern, and so read her name there:

Golden Hind!

 

Like a flash I had before me clearly all the details of my last

moments aboard of her: my quick sharp words with Captain Luke, my step

backward with my arms up as he and the mate pressed upon me, the

smasher that I got in on the mate’s jaw, the crack on my own head that

stunned me—and then my revival of consciousness as I found myself

adrift in the ocean and saw the brig sailing away. And while these

thoughts crowded upon me my boat went onward through the weed

slowly—and presently I had again parted company with the _Golden

Hind_, and this time for good and all.

 

After that break in it my dull despairing weariness settled down upon

me again—as the heavy days drifted past me and I pressed steadily on,

and on, and on. How time went I do not know. I could keep no track of

days which always were the same. But I must have been on my voyage for

nearly a month when I fell in with the Golden Hind: as I know

because a little while after passing her I used the last of the coal

that was on the raft and cast it off—and my calculation at starting

had been that the coal aboard the raft would last me for about

thirty days.

 

Getting rid of the raft was a good thing for me in one way, for when

the boat was relieved from that heavy mass dragging through the weed

after her she went almost twice as fast. But in another way it was a

bad thing for me, for it left me with only what coal I had on the boat

herself and, so far as I could judge from my surroundings, I was no

nearer to being over the wall of my prison than I was on that first

morning when I put off from the Ville de Saint Remy. Still the weed

stretched away endlessly on all sides of me, and still the golden mist

ceaselessly hung over me—only it did seem to me, though I did not

trust myself to play much with this hopeful fancy, that the mist was a

good deal thinner than it had been during the earlier part of

my voyage.

 

But I was too broken to take much notice of my surroundings. Still I

worked on and on, with the steadfastness and the hopelessness of a

machine: up and down over the bows with my saw interminably, with

only little breaks for rest and eating and to keep my fires up or for

a struggle with a bit of wreckage that barred my way; and at night to

weary sleep that did not rest me; and then up before sunrise to begin

it all again with a fresh day that had no freshness in it—and was

like all the many days of desperate toil which had gone before it, and

like the others which still were to come.

 

Even when I saw ahead of me one morning a long lane of open water, a

wide break in the weed, I was too dull to think much about it beyond

steering my way into it thankfully—and then feeling a slow wonder as

the boat slid along with no rustling noise on each side of her at what

seemed to me an almost breathless speed. But as that day went on and

the mist grew lighter and lighter about me and I came to more and more

of these open spaces, and at the same time found that the weed between

them was so much thinner that the boat almost could push through it

without having a path cut for her, I began faintly to realize that

perhaps I had got to the beginning of the end. And then, for the first

time since I had lapsed into my stolid insensibility, a little weak

thrill of hope went through me and I seemed to be waking from my

despairing dream.

 

With the next day, however, hope full and strong fairly got hold of

me: for I was out of the mist completely, and the weed was so thin

that I brought my saw inboard and finally had done with it, and the

stretches of open water were so many and so large that I knew that the

blessed free ocean must be very near at hand. And I think that my cat

knew as well as I did that our troubles were close to a good ending;

for all of a sudden he gave over his moping and fell to frisking about

me and to going through all the tricks which I had taught him of his

own accord; and thence onward he spent most of his time on the roof of

the cabin—looking about him with a curious intentness, for all the

world as though I had stationed him there to watch out for a ship

bearing down on us, or for land. Even when I found that day that only

a dozen bags of coal were left to me—for I had fed my furnace while

my heaviness was upon me without paying any attention to how things

were going with my stock of fuel—my spirits were none the worse for

my discovery; for with every mile that I went onward the weed was

growing thinner and I felt safe enough about continuing my voyage

under sail.

 

Because my rousing out of my lethargy had been so slow, this change in

my chances seemed to come upon me with a startling suddenness—when in

reality, I suppose, I might have seen signs of it a good while sooner

than I did see them had my mind been clear. But the actual end of my

adventure, the resolving of my hopes into a glad certainty of rescue,

really did come upon me with a rush at last.

 

We fairly were in open water, and the cat and I were dining in the

cabin together very cheerfully—with the helm lashed and the boat

going on her course at half speed. I was disposed to linger over my

meal a little, for I was beginning to enjoy once more the luxury of

getting rest when I rested, and when my cat suddenly left me and went

on deck by himself—a thing that he never before had done—I took his

desertion of me in ill part. A moment later I heard the padding of his

feet on the roof of the cabin over me, and smiled to myself as I

thought of him going on watch there; and then, presently, I heard him

calling me—for I had come to understand a good many of his turns of

language—with a lively “Miau!” But it was not until he called me

again, and more urgently, that the oddness of his conduct came home to

me and made me hurry on deck after him; and my first glance at him

made me look in the direction in which he was looking eagerly: and

there I saw the smoke of a steamer trailing black to the horizon, and

beneath it her long black hull—and she was heading straight for me,

and coming along at such a ripping rate that within twenty minutes she

would be across my bows.

 

Half an hour more brought matters to a finish. I had only to wait

where I was until the steamer was close down upon me, and then to run

in under her counter so that her people might throw me a line. Her

whole side was crowded with faces as she stopped her way and I came up

with her, and on her rail a tall officer was standing—holding fast

with one hand to the rigging and having in the other a coil of rope

all ready to cast.

 

One face among the many clustered there, and a mighty