In the Sargasso Sea, Thomas A. Janvier [ebook reader for pc .txt] 📗
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round with me. Is Jack true dead?”
“If you mean the man on deck,” I answered, “he is true dead—as dead
as any man can be with a cut straight through his heart.”
He gave another sigh of relief, as though what I told him was a real
comfort to him; and in a moment he said: “Well, that’s a good job, and
I’m glad of it. He’s killed me, too, I reckon; but I’m glad I got in
on him first an’ fixed him fur his damn starin’ at me. Now he’s dead I
guess he won’t stare at me no more.” He was silent for nearly a
minute, and then he added: “Jest get me a drink, won’t you? I’m all
burnin’ up inside. There’s water in th’ jug out there. An’ put a good
dash of gin in it—there’s gin out there, too.”
I got him some water from the jug on the cabin table, but when he
tasted it and found that it was water only he began to swear at me for
leaving out the gin; and when I added the gin—thinking that he
probably was so used to strong drink as really to need a little to put
some life into him—he took off the whole glassful at a gulp and
asked for more.
I told him to wait for another drink until I should have a look at his
hurts and see what I could do to better them; for, while hanging
seemed to be what he deserved, I had a natural desire to ease the
pain that was racking him—as I could tell by the gasps and groans
which he was giving and by the sharp motions which he made.
“Jest shet your head an’ gimme some more drink,” he said in a surly
way. “Jack’s give me a dose that’ll settle me, an’ lookin’ at me won’t
do no good—‘cause there’s nothin’ to be done. He’s ripped me up, Jack
has, an’ no man can live long that way. All I can do is to die
happy—so it’s a good thing there’s lots of gin. You’ll find a kag of
it over there in th’ fur corner. Me an’ Jack filled it from th’ spirit
room yesterday, afore our fuss begun.”
But I stuck out that I must have a look at his hurts first, and
managed to open the deadlight—which luckily had not been screwed
tight—and so had some light in the room; and in the end, finding that
I would not give him a drink otherwise, he let me have my way. But I
had only to take a glance over him to see that what he said about the
other man having settled him was true enough; for he was cut in a
dozen places savagely, and had one desperate slash—which had laid him
all open about the waist—from which alone he was certain to die in a
very little while.
There was nothing for me to do, and I did not know what was best to
say to him; and while I was casting about in my mind to comfort him a
little, for his horrible hurts could not but stir my pity, he settled
the matter for both of us in his own way—grunting out that he guessed
I’d found he knew what he was talking about, and then asking for
more gin.
This time I gave it to him, and gave it to him strong—being certain
that he was past hurting by it, and hoping that it might deaden his
pain. And presently, when he asked for another drink, I gave him
that too.
The liquor did make him easier, and it raised his spirits so much that
he fell to swearing quite cheerfully at the man Jack who had given him
his death—and seemed to feel a good deal better for freeing his mind
that way. And after a while he began of his own accord to tell me
about the wreck that he had passed through, and about what had come
after it—only stopping now and then to ask for more gin-and-water,
and gulping it down with such satisfaction that I gave him all he
cared to have. Indeed, it was the only thing that I could do to ease
him, and I knew that no matter how much he drank the end shortly would
be the same.
As well as I could make out from his rambling talk, the storm that had
wrecked him had happened about three months earlier: a tremendous
burst of tempest that had sent everything to smash suddenly, and had
washed the captain and first and second officers overboard—they all
being on the bridge together—and three or four of the crew as well.
At the same time the funnel was carried away, and such a deluge of
water got down to the engine-room that the fires were drowned. This
brought the engineers on deck and the coal-passers with them; and the
coal-passers—“a beach-combin’ lot,” he called them—led in breaking
into the spirit-room, and before long pretty much all the men of the
crew were as drunk as lords. What happened after that for a while he
did not know; but when he got sober enough to stagger up on deck he
found the man Jack there—who also had just come up after sleeping off
his drunk below somewhere—and they had the ship to themselves. The
others might have found a boat that would float and tried their luck
that way, or they might have been washed overboard. He didn’t know
what had become of them, and he didn’t care. Then the hulk had taken
to drifting slowly, and at the end of a month or so had settled into
the berth where I found her; and since then the two of them had known
that all chance of their getting back into the world again was gone.
“At first I didn’t mind it much,” he went on, “there bein’ lashins to
eat aboard, an’ more to drink than me an’ Jack ever’d hoped to get a
show at in all our lives. But pretty soon Jack he begun to be
worryin’. He’d get drunk, an’ then he’d set an’ stare at me like a
damn owl—jest a-blinkin’ and a-blinkin’ his damn eyes. You hev no
idee, ontil it’s done to you, how worryin’ it is when a drunken man
jest sets an’ stares at you fur hours together in that fool way. I
give Jack fair warnin’ time and agen when he was sober that I’d hurt
him ef he kep’ on starin’ at me like that; but then he’d get drunk
agen right off, an’ at it he’d go. I s’pose I wouldn’t ‘a’ minded it
in a ornary way an’ ashore, or ef we’d had some other folks around.
But here we was jest alone—oh, it was terr’ble how much we was
alone!—an’ Jack more’n half the time like a damn starin’ owl, till he
a-most druv me wild.”
“An’ Jack said as how I was onbearable too. He said it was me as
stared at him—the damn fool not knowin’ that I was only a-tryin’ to
squench his beastly owlin’ by lookin’ steady at him; an’ he said he’d
settle me ef I kep’ on. An’ so things went like that atween us fur
days an’ days—and all th’ time nothin’ near us but dead ships with
mos’ likely dead men fillin’ ‘em, an’ him an’ me knowin’ we’d soon got
to be dead too. An’ the stinks out of th’ rotten weed, and out of all
th’ rotten ships whenever a bit of wind breezed up soft from th’
s’uthard over th’ hull mess of ‘em, was horrider than you hev any
idee! Gettin’ drunk was all there was lef’ fur us; and even in gettin’
drunk there wasn’t no real Christian comfort, ‘cause of Jack’s damn
owlin’ stares.”
“I guess ef anybody stared steady at you fur better’n three months
you’d want to kill him too. Anyway, that’s how I felt about it; an’ I
told Jack yesterday—soon as he waked up in th’ mornin’, an’ while he
was plumb sober—that ef he didn’t let up on it I’d go fur him sure.
An’ that fool up an’ says it was me done th’ starin’, and I’d got to
stop it or he’d cut out my damn heart—an’ them was his very words.
An’ by noon yesterday he was drunker’n a Dutchman, an’ was starin’
harder’n ever. An’ he kep’ at it all along till sunset, an’ when we
come down into th’ cabin to get supper he still was starin’; and after
supper—when we mought ‘a’ been jest like two brothers a-gettin’ drunk
together on gin-an’-water—he stared wust of all.”
“Nobody could ‘a’ stood it no longer—and up I gets an’ goes fur him,
keepin’ my promise fair an’ square. At fust we jest punched each other
sort o’ friendly with our fists, but after a while Jack give me a clip
that roused my dander and I took my knife to him; an’ then he took his
knife to me. I don’t remember jest all about it, but I know we licked
away at each other all over th’ cabin, an’ then up through th’
companionway, an’ then all over th’ deck—me a-slicin’ into him an’
him a-slicin’ into me all th’ time. And at last he got this rippin’
cut into me, an’ jest then I give him a jab that made him yell like a
stuck pig an’ down he fell. I knowed he’d done fur me, but somehow I
managed to work my way along th’ deck an’ to get down here to my
bunk, where I knowed I’d die easier; an’ then things was all black fur
a while—ontil all of a sudden you comes along, and I sees you
standin’ in the door there, an’ takes you fur Jack’s ghost, an’ gets
scared th’ wust kind. But he’s not doin’ no ghost racket, Jack ain’t.
I’ve settled him an’ his damn owl starin’—and it’s a good job I have.
Gimme some more gin.”
And then, having taken the drink that I gave him, he rolled over a
little—so that he lay as I found him, with his face turned away from
me—and for a good long while he did not speak a word.
XVII RID MYSELF OF TWO DEAD MEN
Only an hour before I had been longing for any sort of a live man to
talk with and so break my loneliness; but having thus found a live
man—who, to be sure, was close to being a dead one—I would have been
almost ready to get rid of him by going back to my mast in the open
sea. Indeed, as I stood there in the shadows beside that dying brute,
and with the other brute lying dead on the deck above me, the feeling
of dull horror that filled me is more than I can put into words.
I think that the underlying strong strain of my wretchedness was an
intense pity for myself. In what the fellow had told me I saw clearly
outlined a good deal of what must be my own fate in that vile
solitude: which I perceived suddenly must be strewn everywhere with
dead men lying unhidden, corrupting openly; since none there were to
hide the dead from sight as we hide them in the living world. And I
realized that until I myself should be a part of that indecent
exhibition of human carcasses—which might not be for a long while,
for I was a strong man and not likely to die soon—I should have to
dwell in the midst of all that corruption; and always with the
knowledge that sooner or later I must take
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