VIII
THE _HURST CASTLE_ IS DONE FOR
At last, having worn itself out, as sailors say, the storm began tolessen: first showing its weakening by losing its little lulls andfiercer gusts after them, and then dropping from a tempest to a meregale--that in turn fell slowly to a gentle wind. But even after thewind had fallen, and for a good while after, the ship labored in atremendous sea.
As I grew easier in my mind and body, and so could think a little, Iwondered why my friend the doctor did not come to me; and when at lastmy door was opened I looked eagerly--my eyes being the only free partof me--to see him come in. But it was the steward who entered, and Ihad a little sharp pang of disappointment because I missed the facethat I wanted to see. However, the man stooped over me, kindly enough,and lifted off the mattress and did his best to make me comfortable;only when I asked him where the doctor was he pretty dismallyshook his head.
"It's th' doctor himself is needin' doctorin', poor soul," heanswered, "he bein' with his right leg broke, and with his blessedhead broke a-most as bad as yours!" And then he told me that when thestorm was near ended the doctor had gone on deck to have a look atthings, and almost the minute he got there had been knocked over by afalling spar. "For th' old ship's shook a-most to pieces," the manwent on; "with th' foremast clean overboard, an' th' mizzen so wobblythat it's dancin' a jig every time she pitches, and everything at ragsan' tatters of loose ends."
"But the doctor?" I asked.
"He says himself, sir, that he's not dangerous, and I s'pose he oughtto know. Th' captain an' th' purser together, he orderin' 'em, haveset his leg for him; and his head, he says, 'll take care of itself,bein' both thick an' hard. But he's worryin' painful because he can'tlook after you, sir, an' th' four or five others that got hurt in th'storm. And I can tell you, sir," the man went on, "that all th' ship'scompany, an' th' passengers on top of 'em, are sick with sorrow thatthis has happened to him; for there's not a soul ever comes near th'doctor but loves him for his goodness, and we'd all be glad to breakour own legs this minute if by that we could be mendin' his!"
The steward spoke very feelingly and earnestly, and with what he saidI was in thorough sympathy; for the doctor's care of me and hisfriendliness had won my heart to him, just as it had won to him thehearts of all on board. But there was comfort in knowing that he hadgot off with only a broken leg and a broken head from a peril that soeasily might have been the death of him, and of that consolation Imade the most--while the steward, who was a handy fellow and prettywell trained as a surgeon's assistant, freshly bandaged my head for meas the doctor had ordered him to do, and so set me much more at myease. After that, for the rest of the day, he came every hour or so tolook after me; giving me some broth to eat and a biscuit, and somemedicine that the doctor sent me with the message that it would putstrength enough into a dead pig to set him to dancing--by which I knewthat even if his head and leg were broken there was no break in hiswhimsical fun.
The steward was the only man who came near me; but this did notsurprise me when he told me more about the condition that the ship wasin, and how all hands--excepting himself, who had been detailedbecause of his knowledge that way to look after the hurt people underthe doctor's direction--were hard at work making repairs, with what menthere were among the passengers helping too. The ship was not leaking,he said, and this was the luckier because her frame was so strainedthat it was doubtful if her water-tight compartments would hold; butthe foremast had been carried away, and all the weather-boats had beenmashed out of all shape or swept overboard, and the mizzen was soshaky that it seemed likely at any moment to fall. Indeed, the mastwas in such a bad way, he said, that the first and second officerswere for getting rid of it--and of the danger that there was of itscoming down all in a heap anyway--by sending it overboard; but thatthe captain thought it safe to stand now that the sea was gettingsmooth again, and was setting up jury-stays to hold it until we madethe Azores--for which islands our course was laid.
By the time that night came again the sea had pretty well gone down,and beyond the easy roll that was on her the ship had no motion savethe steady vibration of her screw. With this comforting change thepain in my head became only a dull heavy aching, and I had a chance tofeel how utterly weary I was after the strain of mind and body thathad been put on me by the gale. A little after eight o'clock, as Iknew by hearing the ship's bell striking--and mighty pleasant it wasto hear regularly that orderly sound again--the steward brought me abowl of broth and propped me up in my berth while I drank it; andcheered me by telling me that the doctor was swearing at his brokenleg like a good fellow, and was getting on very well indeed. And thenmy weariness had its way with me, and I fell off into that deep sleepwhich comes to a man only when all his energy has slipped away fromhim on a dead low tide. How long I slept I do not know. But I doknow that I was routed suddenly into wakefulness by a jar that almostpitched me out of my berth, and that an instant later there was atremendous crash as though the whole deck above me was smashing topieces, and with this a rattle of light woodwork splintering and thesharp tinkling of breaking glass. For a moment there was silence; andthen I heard shouts and screams close by me in the cabin, and a littlelater a great trampling on deck, and then the screw stopped turningand there was a roar of escaping steam.
I was so heavy with sleep that at first I thought we still were in thestorm and that this commotion was a part of it; but as I shook off mydrowsiness I got a clearer notion of the situation--remembering whatthe steward had told me of the condition of the mizzen-mast, and soarriving at the conclusion that it had fetched away bodily and hadcome crashing through the cabin skylight in its fall. But what theshock was that had sent it flying--unless we had been in collision--Icould not understand. And all this while the trampling on deckcontinued, and out in the cabin the shouts and cries went on.
I thought that the steward would come to me--forgetting that in timesof danger men are apt to think only of saving their own skins--and solaid still; being, indeed, so weak and wretched that it did not seempossible to me to do anything else. But he did not come, and at theend of what seemed to me to be a desperately long time--though I doubtif it were more than five minutes--I realized that I must try to dosomething to help myself; and was the more nerved to action by thefact that there no longer was the sound of voices in the cabin, whilethe noises on deck a good deal had increased. Indeed, I began to hearup there the puffing and snorting of the donkey-engine, and so feltcertain that they were hoisting out the boats.
Somehow or another I managed to get out of my berth, and on my feet,and so to the door; but when I tried to open the door I could notbudge it, and in the darkness I struck my head against what seemed tobe a bar of wood that stuck in through one of the upper panels and soheld it fast. The blow dizzied me, for it took me close to where mycut was and put me into intense pain.
While I stood there, pulling in a weak way at the door-knob and makingnothing of it, I heard voices out in the cabin and through my brokendoor saw a gleam of light. But in the moment that my hope rose it wentdown again, for I heard some one say quickly and sharply: "It's nogood. The way the spar lies we can't get at him--and to cut it throughwould take an hour."
And then a voice that I recognized for the steward's answered: "Butthe doctor ordered it. Where's an axe for a try?" To which the otherman answered back again: "If it was the doctor himself we couldn't doit, and we'll tell him so. The ship'll be down in five minutes. We'vegot to run for it or the boats'll be off." And then away they rantogether, giving no heed in their fright to my yells after them tocome back and not leave me there to drown.
For a little while I was as nearly wild crazy as a man can be and yethave a purpose in his mind. The keen sense of my peril made me strongagain. I kicked with my bare feet and pounded with my hands upon thedoor to break it, I shouted for help to come to me, and I gave outshrill screams of terror such as brutes give in their agony--for I wasdown to the hard-pan of human nature, and what I felt most stronglywas the purely a
nimal longing to keep alive.
But no one answered me, and I could tell by the sounds on deck gettingfainter that some of the boats already had put off; and in a littlewhile longer no sound came from the deck of any sort whatever, and bythat I knew that all the boats must have got away. And as I realizedthat I was forsaken, and felt sure from what I had heard that the shipwould float for only a few minutes longer, I gave a cry of downrightdespair--and then I lost track of the whole bad business by tumblingto the floor in the darkness in a dead swoon.
In the Sargasso Sea Page 8
