In the Sargasso Sea, Thomas A. Janvier [ebook reader for pc .txt] 📗

by sleep and steadied by that confident courage which most men

feel—no matter how tight a fix they may be in—when they have the

backing of the sun.

 

My first thought was to get on deck and have a look about me; the

feeling being strong in my mind that on one or another of the near-by

wrecks I should find the man who had uttered that thrilling cry, and

would find him in some trouble that I might be able to help him out

of. But my second thought, and it was the wiser, was to eat first of

all a good breakfast and so get strength in me that would make me

ready to face whatever might come along—for a vague dread hung by me

that I was in the way of danger, and whatever it might be I knew that

I could the better stand up against it after a hearty meal. Therefore

I got out another tin of meat and ate the whole of it, and a hunk of

stale bread along with it, and washed down my breakfast with a bottle

of beer—longing greatly for a cup of coffee in place of the beer, but

being in too much of a hurry to stop for that while I made a fire.

 

As the food got inside of me—though in that smoky and smelly place

eating it was not much of a pleasure—my thoughts took a more cheerful

turn. The hope of meeting a live man to talk to and to help me out of

my utter loneliness rose strong in my mind; and I felt that no matter

who or what he might be—even a man in desperate sickness and pain,

whom I must nurse and care for—finding him in that solitude would

make my own case less sad. And so, when I went on deck, my longing

hope for companionship was the strongest feeling in my heart.

 

With my first glance around I saw that during the night my hulk had

made more progress than I had counted on; having moved the faster, I

suppose, as it felt more strongly the pull of the mass of floatage

near by. Be this as it may, I found myself so close alongside the big

cargo-boat that a good jump would carry me aboard of her; and I was so

eager to begin my investigations that I took the jump without a single

moment of delay. And being come to her deck, the first thing that I

saw there was a dead man lying in the middle of it with a pool of

still fresh blood staining the planks by his side.

 

I never had seen anything like that, and as I looked at the dead

man—he was a big strong coarse fellow, dressed in a pair of dirty

sail-cloth trousers and in a dirty checked shirt—I went so queasy and

giddy that I had to step back a little and lean for a while against

the steamer’s rail. It was clear enough that he had died fighting. His

face had a bad cut on it and there was another on his neck, and his

hands were cut cruelly, as though he had caught again and again at a

sharp knife in trying to keep it away from him; but the stab that had

finished him was in his breast, showing ghastly as he lay on his back

with his shirt open—and no doubt it was as the knife went into him

there that he had uttered the cry of mortal agony which had come to me

through the darkness, with so thrilling a note in it, while I was

sitting in bright comfort drowsily smoking my cigar. And then, as I

remembered my drowsiness, for a moment I seemed to get back into

it—and I had a half hope that perhaps what I was looking at was only

a part of a horrible dream.

 

Had there been any sign of a living man about, of the murderer as well

as the murdered, I should have been less broken by what I saw; for

then I should have had something practical to attend to—either in

bringing the other man to book on the poor dead fellow’s account, or

in fighting him on my own. But the nearest thing to life in sight, on

that storm-swept hulk under the low-hanging golden haze, was the rough

body out of which life had but just gone forever; and the bloody

stains everywhere on the deck showing that he and another must have

been fighting pretty much all over it before they got to an end. And

the horror of it all was the stronger because of the awful and

hopeless loneliness: with the dead-still weed-covered ocean

stretching away to the horizon on the one hand, and on the other only

dead ships tangled and crushed together going off in a desolate

wilderness that grew fainter—but for its faintness all the more

despairing—until it was lost in the dun-gold murky thickness of

the haze.

 

As I got steadier, in a little while, I realized that I must hunt up

the other man, the one who had done the killing, and have things out

with him. Pretty certainly, his disposition would be to try to kill

me; and if I were to have a fight on hand as soon as I fell in with

him it was plain that my chances would be all the better for downing

him could I take him by surprise. I would have given a good deal just

then for a knife, and a good deal more for a pistol; but the best that

I could do to arm myself was to take an iron belaying-pin from the

rail, and with this in my hand I walked aft to the companionway

—feeling sure that my best chance of coming upon my man

unexpectedly was to find him asleep in the cabin below. And then,

suddenly, the very uncomfortable thought came to me that there might

be more than one man down there—with the likelihood that if I roused

them they all would set upon me together and finish me quickly; and

this brought me to a halt just within the companionway, in the

shadowy place at the head of the cabin stair.

 

I stood there for a minute or two listening closely, but I heard no

sound whatever from below; and presently the dead silence made me feel

rather ashamed of myself for being so easily scared. And then I

noticed, my eyes having become accustomed to the shadow, that there

was a splash of blood on the top step and more blood on the steps

lower down—as though a man badly hurt, and without any one to help

him, had gone down the stair slowly and had rested on almost every

step and bled for a while before he could go on; and seeing this made

it seem likely to me that I would have but a single man to deal with,

and he in such a state that I need not fear him much. But for all that

I kept a tight grip on my belaying-pin, and held it in such a way that

I could use it easily, as I put my foot on the first of the bloody

steps and so went on down.

 

The cabin, when I got to it, was but a small one—the boat not being

built to carry passengers—and so dusky that I could not make it out

well; for the skylight was covered with a tarpaulin—put there, I

suppose, to protect it when the gale came on that the steamer was

wrecked in—and all the light there was came in from one corner where

the covering had fetched away. It gave me a sort of shivering feeling

when I looked into that dusky place, where I saw nothing clearly and

where there was at least a chance that in another moment I might be

fighting for my life. I stood in the doorway, gripping my

belaying-pin, until I began to see more clearly—making out that a

small fixed table, with a water-jug and some bottles and glasses on

it, filled a half of the cabin, and that three stateroom doors—one

of which stood open—were ranged on each of its sides. And then, just

as I was about to enter, I fairly jumped as there came to me softly

through the silence a low sad sound that was between a groan and a

sigh. But in an instant my reason told me that this was not the sort

of sound to come from a man whom I need be afraid of; and as it came

plainly enough from the stateroom of which the door stood open I

stepped briskly over there and looked inside.

XV

I HAVE SOME TALK WITH A MURDERER

 

At first—the deadlight being fast over the port, and the stateroom

in darkness save for the little light which came in from the dusky

cabin, and my own person in the doorway making it darker still—I was

sure of nothing there. But presently I made out a biggish heap of some

sort in the lower berth, and then that the heap was a man lying with

his back toward me and his face turned to the ship’s side.

 

The noise of my footsteps must have roused him, either from sleep or

from the stupor that his hurts had put him in: for while I stood

looking at him his body moved a little, and then his head turned

slowly and in the shadows I caught the glint of his open eyes. What

little light there was being behind me, all that he could see—and

that but in black outline—was the figure of a tall man looming in the

doorway; but instantly at sight of me he let off a yell as sharp as

though I had run a knife into him, and then he covered his head all up

with the bedclothes and lay kicking and shaking as though he were in

deadly fear. I myself was so upset by his outburst, and by the

half-horror that came to me at sight of his spasms of terror, that I

stood for a moment or so silent; but in one way satisfied, since it

was evident that this poor scared wretch could not possibly do me

harm. Just as I was about to speak to him, hoping to soothe him a

little, he pushed the bedclothes down from over his eyes and took

another look at me—and straightway yelled again, and then cried out

at me: “Go away, damn you! Go away, damn you! You’re dead! You’re

dead, I tell you! Do you want me to kill you all over again, when I’ve

done it once as well as I know how?” And with that he fell to kicking

again, and to shouting out curses, and to letting off the most

dreadful shrieks and cries—until suddenly a gasping choking checked

him, and he lay silent and still.

 

Then the notion came to me that he took me for the dead man up on

deck; I being about the dead fellow’s size and build, and therefore

looking very like him as I stood there with the light behind me and

the shadows too deep for him to make out my face. And so, to ease his

mind and get him quiet—and this was quite as much for my own sake as

for his, for his wild fear was strangely horrible to witness—I spoke

to him, asking him if he were badly hurt and if I could help him; and

at the sound of my voice he gave a long sigh, as though of great

relief, and in a moment said: “Who the devil are you, anyway? I

thought you was Jack—come back after my killin’ him to