In the Sargasso Sea
Page 22
XXII
I GET SOME FOOD IN ME AND FORM A CRAZY PLAN
The sun by that time being risen so high that the mist was changingagain to a golden haze, and the cabin of the barque well lightedthrough the skylight over it, I felt less creepy and uncomfortable asI went down the companion-way than I had felt when I went below intothe old brig's dusky cabin in the early dawn. But for all that Iwalked gingerly, and stopped to sniff at every step that I tookdownward; for I could not by any means get rid of my dread of comingupon some grewsome thing. However, the air was sweet enough--the slideof the hatch being closed, but the doors open and the cabin wellventilated--and when I got to the foot of the stair I saw nothinghorrible in my first sharp look around.
It was a small cabin, but comfortably fitted; and almost the firstthing that caught my eye was a work-basket spilled down into a cornerand some spools and a pair of rusty scissors lying on the floor, andthen in another corner I saw a little chair. And the sight of thesethings, which told that the barque's captain had had his wife and hischild along with him, gave me a heavy sorrowful feeling--for all thatif death had come to this sea-family the pain of it must have beenover quickly a long while back in the past.
Two of the state-room doors, both on the starboard side, were open;and both rooms were empty, save for the mouldy bedding in the bunksand in one of them a canvas bed-bag such as seamen use. The doors ofthe other two rooms, there being four in all, were closed, and Iopened them hesitatingly; and felt a good deal easier in my mind whenI found that in neither of them was what I dreaded might be there. Inone of them the bunk had been left in disorder, as though some one hadrisen from it hurriedly, and a frock and a bonnet were hanging againstthe wall; but the other one seemed to have been used only as a sort ofstoreroom--there being in it a pair of rubber boots and a suit ofoil-skins, and a locker in which were some pretty trifles inshell-work such as might have been picked up in a West Indian port,and a little rack of books gone mouldy with the damp. One of thesebooks I opened, and found written on the flyleaf: "Mary Woodbridge,with Aunt Jane's love. For the coming Christmas of 1879"--and thisdate, though it did not settle certainly when the barque had startedon the voyage that had come to so bad an ending, at least proved thatshe had not been lying where I found her for a very greatmany years.
As to how the barque had got so deep into the wreck-pack, she being solately added to it, I could not determine; but my conjecture was thatsome storm had broken the pack and had driven her down into it, andthen that the opening had closed again, leaving her fast a good way inits inside. But about the way of her getting there I did not muchbother myself, my one strong thought being that I had a chance offinding on board of her something that I could eat; and so--being bythat time pretty well satisfied that I was safe not to come uponanything horrid hid away in a dark corner of her--I went at my fartherexplorations with a will. Indeed, I was so desperately hungry by thattime that even had I made some nasty discoveries I doubt if they wouldhave held me back from my eager search for food.
Luckily I had not far to look before I found what I was after, thevery first door that I tried--a door in the forward side of thecabin--opening into a pantry in which were stowed what had been, as Ijudged from the nature of them and the place where I found them, thecaptain's private stores. The door was not locked, and a good manyempty boxes were lying around on the floor with splintered lids, asthough they had been smashed open in a hurry--which looked as thoughthe pantry had been levied on suddenly to provision the boats afterthe wreck occurred, and so made me hope that the captain and his wifeand baby had got away from the barque alive.
But the stock of stores had been a big one, and I saw that I was safeenough against starvation if only a part of what was left still weresound--and that uncertainty I settled in no time by picking up ahatchet that was lying among the broken boxes and splitting open thefirst tin on which I laid my hands. The tin had beans in it, and whenI cracked it open that way more than half of them went flying over thefloor; and they looked so good, those blessed beans, that withoutstopping to smell at them critically, or otherwise to test theirsoundness, I fell to feeding myself out of the open tin with myhand--and never stopped until all that remained of them were in myinside. I don't suppose that they were the better for having lainthere so long, but they certainly were not much the worse for it--as Iproved more conclusively, having by that time taken off the sharp edgeof my hunger, by eating a part of another tin of them and finding themvery good indeed. After that I opened a tin of meat--but on theinstant that the hatchet split into it there came bouncing out such adreadful smell that I had to rush on deck in a hurry with it and heaveit over the side.
But even without the meat my food supply was secure to me for a goodwhile onward, there being no less than ten boxes with two dozen tinsof beans in each of them--quite enough to keep life in me for morethan half a year. I rummaged through the place thoroughly, but foundnothing more that was fit to eat there. Some boxes of biscuit and abarrel of flour had gone musty until they fairly were rotten; and allthe other things that I came across were spoiled utterly by damp andmould. As for the stores for the crew, when I went forward to have alook at them, they were spoiled too--the flour and biscuit rotten, andthe pickled meat a mouldy mass of tough fibre encrusted thicklywith salt.
One other thing I did find in the captain's pantry that was as good,save for the mould that coated the outside of it, as when it cameaboard--and because of its excellent condition was all the moretantalizing. This was a case of plug tobacco--a bit of which shreddedand filled into one of the pipes that I found with it, could I havegot it lighted, would have made me for the moment almost a happy man.But as I could think of no way of lighting it I was worse off than ifI had not found it at all.
Having made my tour of inspection and taken a general inventory of mynew possessions, I came on deck again and seated myself on the roof ofthe cabin that I might do some quiet thinking about what should be mynext move; for I realized that only by a stroke of rare good fortunehad I come upon this supply of food far away from, the coast of mycontinent, and that should I leave it and keep on the course northwardthat I had set for myself I very likely might starve before anothersuch store fell in my way. And yet, on the other hand, to stay onwhere I was merely because I was able to keep alive there--with nooutlook of hope to stay me--was but making a bid for that madnesswhich comes of despair.
As to carrying any great quantity of food on with me, it was a sheerimpossibility. The tins of beans weighed each of them more than fivepounds, and a score of them would make as much of a load as I wellcould carry on level ground--and far more of a load than I couldmanage in the scramble that was before me if I decided to go on.Indeed, I had found my two bottles of water a serious inconvenience;and yet I would have them to carry also, and the big compass too. Asto water, however, since the shower of the morning. I felt lessanxiety: and the event proved that my confidence in the rainfall wasjustified--for the showers came regularly a little after dawn, andonly once or twice after that first sharp experience did I feel morethan passing pain from thirst.
I sat there on the roof of the cabin for a good part of the morningcogitating the matter; and in the end I could think of no betterplan than one which promised certainly a world of hard labor, and onlypromised uncertainly to serve my turn. This was to stick to my projectof going steadily northward--carrying with me as much food as I couldstagger under--until I came again to the outer edge of thewreck--pack; but to safeguard my return to the barque, should my foodgive out before my journey was accomplished, by blazing my path: thatis to say, by making a mark on each wreck that I crossed so that Icould retrace my steps easily and without fear of losing my way. WhatI would gain in the end I did not try very clearly to tellmyself--having only a vague feeling that in getting again to the coastof my great dead continent I would be that much the nearer to theliving world once more; and having a clearer feeling that only bysticking at some sort of hard work that had a little hopefulness in itcould I save myself from
going mad. And I cannot but think now,looking back at it, that a touch of madness already was upon me; forno man ever set himself to a crazier undertaking than that to which Iset myself then.