XXX
I COME TO THE WALL OF MY SEA-PRISON
The morning shower that waked me gave me the water that I so longedfor; but it only a little refreshed me, because my chief need wasfood. Being past the first sharp pangs of hunger, I was in no greatbodily pain; but a heavy languor was upon me that dulled me in bothflesh and spirit and disposed me to give up struggling for a while,that I might enjoy what seemed to me just then to be the supremedelight of sitting still. Yet I had sense enough to know that if Isurrendered to this feeling it would be the end of me; and after alittle I found energy enough to throw it off.
I was helped thus to rouse myself by finding, as I looked around mewith dull eyes, that the hulk I had come aboard of in such a hurry inthe twilight certainly had not been wrecked for any great length oftime. She was a good-sized schooner, quite modern in her build; and,although she had weathered everywhere to a pale gray, her timbers werenot rotten and what was left of her cordage still was fairly sound:all of which, as I took it in slowly, gave me hope of finding aboardof her some sort of eatable food.
But while this hope was slow to shape itself in my heavy mind, I wasquick enough to act upon it when once it had taken form. With abriskness that quite astonished me I got on my feet and walked aft tothe cabin--the cabin pantry being the most likely place in which tolook for food put up in tins; and I was farther encouraged by findingthe hatch open and the cabin itself fresh-smelling and clean. And, tomy joy, the food that I hoped to find in the pantry really was there;and such a plenty of it that I could not have eaten it in awhole year.
I had the good sense to go slowly--and that was not easy, for at sightof something that would satisfy it my hunger all of a sudden woke upragingly; but I knew that I stood a good chance of killing myselfafter my long fast unless I held my appetite well in hand, and so Ibegan with a tin of peaches--opening it with a knife that I foundthere--and it seemed to me that those peaches were the most deliciousthing that I had tasted since I was born. After they were down I wenton deck again--to be out of reach of temptation--and staid thereresolutely for an hour; getting at this time, and also keeping myselfa little quiet, by counting six thousand slowly--and it did seem to meas though I never should get to the end! Then I had another of thosedelicious tins; and after a trying half hour of waiting I had a third;and then--being no longer ravenous, and no longer having the feelingof infinite emptiness--I laid down on the deck just outside the cabinscuttle and slept like a tree in winter until well along in theafternoon.
I woke as hungry as a hound, but with a comfortable and natural sortof hunger that I set myself to satisfying with good strong food:eating a tin of meat with a lively relish and without any followingstomach-ache, and drinking the juice of a tin of peaches afterit--there being no water fit to drink on board. My meal began to setme on my feet again; but I still felt so tired and so shaky that Idecided to stay where I was until the next morning--having at last acomforting sense of security that took away my desire to hurry andmade me wholly easy in my mind. And this feeling got stronger as thesun fell away westward and made a crimson bank of mist along thehorizon, against which I saw the funnels of more than a dozensteamers--and so knew that the coast of my continent surely was closeby. What I would do when I got to the steamers was a matter that I didnot bother about. For the moment I was satisfied with the certaintythat I would find aboard of them food in plenty and a comfortableplace to sleep in, and that was enough. And so I did not make anyplans, or even think much; but just ate as much supper as I couldstow away in my carcase, and then settled myself in the schooner'scabin for the night.
In the morning I was so well rested, and felt so fresh again, that Iwas eager to get on; and I was so light-hearted that I fell to singingas I pushed forward briskly, being full of hope once more and of airyfancies that I had only to reach the edge of the wreck-pack in orderto hit upon some easy way of getting off from it out over the opensea. A little thinking would have shown me, of course, that my fancieshad nothing to rest on, and that coming once more to the coast of mycontinent was only to be where I was when my long journey through thatdeath-stricken mass of rottenness began; but the reaction of myspirits was natural enough after the gloom that for so long had heldthem, and so was the castle-building that I took to as I went onwardas to what I would do with my great treasure when at last I had itsafe out in the living world.
Although I did not doubt that food of some sort was to be found onboard of all the vessels which I should cross that day, I guardedagainst losing time in looking for it by carrying along with me acouple of tins of meat--slung on my shoulders in a wrapping ofcanvas--and on one of these, about noon-time, I made a good meal. WhenI had finished it I was sorry enough that I had not brought a tin ofpeaches too, for the meat was pretty well salted and made me asthirsty as a fish very soon after I got it down.
But my thirst was not severe enough to trouble me greatly; and,indeed, I partly forgot it in my steadily growing excitement as Ipressed forward and more and more distinctly saw the funnels of awhole fleet of steamers looming up through the golden mist ahead of melike chimneys in a sun-shot London fog. And so the afternoon went by,and my crooked rough path slipped away behind me so rapidly that by agood hour before sunset I was near enough to the steamers to see notonly their funnels but their hulls.
The look of one of them, and she was one of the nearest, was sofamiliar as I began to make her out clearly that I was sure that I hadgot back again to the _Hurst Castle_; for she was just about the sizeof the _Hurst Castle_, and was lying with her bow down in the waterand her stern high in the air--and the delight of this discovery threwme into such a ferment that I quite forgot how tired I was and fairlyran across the last half dozen vessels that I had to traverse before Icame under her tall side. However, when I got close to her I saw thatshe was not the _Hurst Castle_ after all, but only another unluckyvessel that had broken her nose in collision and so had filled forwardand gone sagging down by the bows.
As it happened, the wreck from which I had to board her was a littlewater-logged brig, close under her quarter, so low-lying that thetilted-up stern of the steamer fairly towered above the brig like athree-story house; and at first it seemed to me that I was about aslikely to climb up a house-front as I was to climb up that high smoothwall of iron. But a part of the brig's foremast still was standing,and from it a yard jutted out to within jumping distance of thesteamer's rail; and while that was not a way that I fancied--nor a waythat ever I should have dared to take, I suppose, had there been anychoice in the matter--up it I had to go. Hot as I was though witheagerness, I was a badly scared man as I slowly got to my feet andsteadied myself for a moment on the end of the yard and then jumpedfor it; and a very thankful man, an instant later, when I struck thesteamer's rail and fell floundering inboard on her deck--though Ibruised myself in my fall pretty badly, and got an unexpected crack onthe back of my head as my bag of jewels flew up and hit me witha bang.
However, no real harm was done; and I was so keen to look about methat in a moment I was on my legs again and went forward, limping alittle, that I might get up on the bridge: for my strongestdesire--stronger even than my longing to go in search, of the waterthat I did not doubt I would find in the steamer's tanks--was to gazeout over the open ocean, across which I had to go in some way if everagain I was to be free.
The sun was close down on the horizon, a red ball of fire glowingthrough the mist, and in the mist above and over the surface of thesea below a red light shone. But as I stood on the bridge looking atthis strange splendor all my hope died away slowly within me and achill settled upon my heart. As far as ever I could see the water wascovered thickly with tangled and matted weed, broken only here andthere by hummocks of wreckage and by a few hulks drifting in slowly totake their places in the ranks of the dead. The almost imperceptibleprogress of these hulks showed how dense was the mass through whichthey were drifting; and showed, too, how utterly impossible it wouldbe for me to force my way in a boat driven by oars or sails to theclear water lyi
ng far, far off. Even a steamer scarcely could havepushed through that tangle; and could not have gone twice her ownlength without hopelessly fouling her screw. And it seemed to me thatI might better have died on one of the old rotten hulks among which Ihad been for so long a time wandering--where hope was not, and where Iwas well in the mood for dying--rather than thus to have got clear ofthem, and have hope come back to me, only to bring up short againstthe wall of my sea-prison and so find myself held fast there for allthe remainder of my days. And I was the more savagely bitter because Ihad no right whatever to be disappointed. What I saw was not new tome, and I had known what I was coming to--though I had kept down mythoughts about it--all along.
In the Sargasso Sea Page 30
