In the Sargasso Sea
Page 37
XXXVII
HOW MY CAT STILL FARTHER CHEERED ME
It was in the grey of early morning, while the rain still was falling,that the cat and I had our breakfast; and as soon as the rain was overI was down in the boat, and had off the tarpaulin that covered herstern-sheets, and was busy bringing up my banked fires. One thing thatI had learned how to do during the week that I had been testing myengine was to bank my fires well; and that was a matter of a good dealof importance to me--since every night during my voyage the fireswould have to be kept that way, on the double score of my inability tohold my course in the darkness and of my need for sleep.
Presently I had steam up; and then I went back to the ship for thelast and most important piece of my cargo--my bag of jewels. It waswith a queer feeling, half of doubt and half of exultation, that Ifetched out this little bundle--still done up in the sleeve of theoilskin jacket--and stowed it in one of the lockers in the cabin of myboat. If my voyage went well, then all the rest of my life--so far aswealth makes for happiness--would go well too: for in that rough anddirty little bag was such a treasure--that I had won away from thedead ship holding it--as would make me one of the richest men in theworld. But against this exultant hope stood up a doubt so dark thatthere was no great room in my mind for cheerfulness: for as I stowedaway the jewels in the boat I could not but think of those others whohad stowed them away two hundred years and more before aboard thegalleon; and who had started in their great ship well manned on avoyage in which the risk of disaster was as nothing in comparison withthe risk that I had to face in the voyage that I was undertaking in mylittle boat alone. Yet their venture had ended miserably; and I,trying singly to accomplish what their whole company had failed in,very well might surrender the treasure again, as they had surrenderedit, to the storm-power of the sea.
But thinking these dismal thoughts was no help to me, and so I chokedthem down and went once more aboard the steamer to make sure that Ihad forgotten nothing that I needed by taking a final look around.This being ended without my seeing anything that was necessary to me,I said goodbye to the _Ville de Saint Remy_ and got down into my boatagain; and my cat--who usually sat in the break of the side of thesteamer while I was at work in the boat, though sometimes askingwith a miau to be lifted down into her--of his own accord jumpedaboard ahead of me: and that I took for a good sign.
Certainly, the cat and I made as queer a ship's company as ever wentafloat together; and our little craft--with its cargo that would havebought a whole fleet's lading--was such an argosy as never before hadsailed the seas. Nor did even Columbus, when he struck out across theblack ocean westward, start upon a voyage so blind and so seeminglyhopeless as was ours. The Admiral, at least, had with him such aids tonavigation as his times afforded, and went cruising in open water;failing in his quest, the chance was free to him to put about againand so come once more to his home among living men. But I had not evenhis poor equipment; and as to turning again and so coming back to thepoint whence I started--even supposing that I could manage it--thatending to my voyage would be so miserable that it would be better forme to die by the way.
In none of the vessels through which I had searched had I found asextant; nor would it have been of any use to me, had I found one,unless I had found also a chronometer still keeping time. Charts I didfind; but as I had to know my position to get any good from them, andas I would run straight for any land that I sighted without in theleast caring on what coast I made my landfall, I left them behind. Myonly aid to navigation was a compass, that I got from the binnacle ofa ship lying near the _Ville de Saint Remy_; and aboard the samevessel I found a very good spyglass, and gladly brought it along withme because it would add to my chances--should I reach open water--notonly of sighting a distant ship but of making out how she was standingin time to head her off.
But for all practical purposes the compass was enough for me. I knewthat to the westward lay the American continent, and that between itand where I then was--for it was certain that I was not far south ofthe latitude of the Azores--was that section of the Atlantic which ismore thickly crowded with ships than any other like-sized bit of oceanin the world. My chance of escape, therefore, and my only chance, layin holding to a due west course: hoping first that, being clear of theweed, I might fall in with some passing vessel; and second that Imight make the coast before a storm came on me by which my little boatwould be swamped. And so I opened the throttle of my engine: and asthe screw began to revolve I headed my boat for the cut in the weedwhich I had made when I was testing her--while my tow-rope drew tautand after me came slowly my long raft.
No doubt it was only because the hiss of the escaping steam startledhim; but at the first turn of the engine my cat scampered forward andseated himself in the very bows of the boat--a little blackfigure-head--and thence gazed out steadfastly westward as though hewere the pilot charged with the duty of setting our vessel's course.He had to give place to me in a moment--when I went to the bows tobegin my sawing through the weed--but I was cheered by his plantinghimself that way pointing our course with his nose for me: and again Itook his bit of freakishness for a good sign.