A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder - James De Mille (best english books to read TXT) 📗

like to go ther for good for they gives good wages in America. O come back my Darlin tom and take me to America an the baby an weel all live an love an di together

“Your loving wife Polley Reed.”

I began to read this, but there came a lump in my throat, and I had to stop. Agnew leaned on my shoulder, and we both read it in silence. He rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes and drew a long breath. Then he walked away for a little distance, and I put the letter carefully away in my own pocketbook. After a little while Agnew came back.

“More,” said he, “do you remember any of the burial-service?”

I understood his meaning at once.

“Yes,” I said, “some of it⁠—a good deal of it, I think.”

“That’s good,” said he. “Let’s put the poor fellow under ground.”

“It would be hard to do that,” I said; “we’ll have to bury him in the snow.”

At this Agnew went off for a little distance and clambered over the rocks. He was not gone long. When he returned he said, “I’ve found some crumbled pumice-stone; we can scoop a grave for him there.”

We then raised the body and carried it to the place which Agnew had found. So emaciated was the poor dead sailor that his remains were no heavier than a small boy. On reaching the spot, we found the crumbled pumice-stone. We placed the body in a crevice among the lava rocks, and then I said what I could remember of the burial-service. After this we carried in our hands the crumbled pumice-stone until we had covered the body, and thus gave the poor fellow a Christian burial.

We then returned to the shore.

“More, old fellow,” said Agnew, “I feel the better for this; the service has done me good.”

“And me too,” said I. “It has reminded me of what I had forgotten. This world is only a part of life. We may lose it and yet live on. There is another world; and if we can only keep that in our minds we shan’t be so ready to sink into despair⁠—that is, I shan’t. Despair is my weakness; you are more hopeful.”

“Yes,” said Agnew, solemnly; “but my hope thus far has referred only to the safety of my skin. After this I shall try to think of my soul, and cultivate, not the hope of escape, but the hope full of immortality. Yes, More, after all we shall live, if not in England, then, let us hope, in heaven.”

There was a long silence after this⁠—that kind of silence which one may preserve who is at the point of death.

“I wonder how he got here?” said Agnew, at last. “The letter mentions a whaler. No doubt the ship has been driven too far south; it has foundered; he has escaped in a boat, either alone or with others; he has been carried along this channel, and has landed here, afraid to go any farther.”

“But his boat, what has become of that?”

“His boat! That must have gone long ago. The letter was written in 1820. At any rate, let’s look around.”

We did so. After some search we found fragments of a rotted rope attached to a piece of rock.

“That,” said Agnew, “must have been fastened to the boat; and as for the boat herself, she has long ago been swept away from this.”

“What shall we do now?” I said, after a long silence.

“There’s only one thing,” said Agnew. “We must go on.”

“Go on?” I asked, in wonder.

“Certainly,” said he, confidently. “Will you stay here? No. Will you go back? You can’t. We must, therefore, go on. That is our only hope.”

“Hope!” I cried. “Do you still talk of hope?”

“Hope?” said Agnew; “of course. Why not? There are no limits to hope, are there? One can hope anything anywhere. It is better to die while struggling like a man, full of hope and energy than to perish in inaction and despair. It is better to die in the storm and furious waters than to waste away in this awful place. So come along. Let’s drift as before. Let’s see where this channel will take us. It will certainly take us somewhere. Such a stream as this must have some outlet.”

“This stream,” said I, “will take us to death, and death only. The current grows swifter every hour. I’ve heard some old yarn of a vast opening at each of the poles, or one of them, into which the waters of the ocean pour. They fall into one, and some say they go through and come out at the other.”

Agnew laughed.

“That,” said he, “is a madman’s dream. In the first place, I don’t believe that we are approaching the south, but the north. The warmth of the climate here shows that. Yes, we are drawing north. We shall soon emerge into warm waters and bright skies. So come along, and let us lose no more time.”

I made no further objection. There was nothing else to be done, and at the very worst we could not be in greater danger while drifting on than in remaining behind. Soon, therefore, we were again in the boat, and the current swept us on as before.

The channel now was about four miles wide. On either side arose the lofty volcanoes vomiting forth flames and smoke with furious explosions; vast stones were hurled up into the air from the craters; streams of molten lava rolled down, and at intervals there fell great showers of ashes. The shores on either side were precipitous and rugged beyond all description, looking like fiery lava streams which had been arrested by the flood, and cooled into gloomy, overhanging cliffs. The lava rock was of a deep, dull slate-color, which at a distance looked black; and the blackness which thus succeeded to the whiteness of the snow behind us seemed like the funeral pall of nature. Through scenes like these we drifted on, and the volcanoes on