The Crater, James Fenimore Cooper [good book club books TXT] 📗

of ours can describe the grateful sense of coolness, in spite of the boiling blood in his veins, that Mark Woolston experienced when he stepped beneath the shade of the poop-deck of the Rancocus. The young man knew that he was about to be seriously ill and his life might depend on the use he made of the next hour, or half-hour, even. He threw himself on a settee, to get a little rest, and while there he endeavoured to reflect on his situation, and to remember what he ought to do. The medicine-chest always stood in the cabin, and he had used its contents too often among the crew, not to have some knowledge of their general nature and uses. Potions were kept prepared in that depository, and he staggered to the table, opened the chest, took a ready-mixed dose of the sort he believed best for him, poured water on it from the filterer, and swallowed it. Our mate ever afterwards believed that draught saved his life. It soon made him deadly sick, and produced an action in his whole system. For an hour he was under its influence, when he was enabled to get into his berth, exhausted and literally unable any longer to stand. How long he remained in that berth, or near it rather--for he was conscious of having crawled from it in quest of water, and for other purposes, on several occasions--but, how long he was confined to his cabin, Mark Woolston never knew. The period was certainly to be measured by days, and he sometimes fancied by weeks. The first probably was the truth, though it might have been a fortnight. Most of that time his head was light with fever, though there were intervals when reason was, at least partially, restored to him, and he became painfully conscious of the horrors of his situation. Of food and water he had a sufficiency, the filterer and a bread-bag being quite near him, and he helped himself often from the first, in particular; a single mouthful of the ship's biscuit commonly proving more than he could swallow, even after it was softened in the water. At length he found himself indisposed to rise at all, and he certainly remained eight-and-forty hours in his berth, without quitting it, and almost without sleeping, though most of the time in a sort of doze.

At length the fever abated in its violence, though it began to assume, what for a man in Mark Woolston's situation was perhaps more dangerous, a character of a low type, lingering in his system and killing him by inches. Mark was aware of his condition, and though: of the means of relief. The ship had some good Philadelphia porter in her, and a bottle of it stood on a shelf over his berth. This object caught his eye, and he actually longed for a draught of that porter. He had sufficient strength to raise himself high enough to reach it, but it far exceeded his powers to draw the cork, even had the ordinary means been at hand, which they were not. There was a hammer on the shelf, however, and with that instrument he did succeed in making a hole in the side of the bottle, and in filling a tumbler. This liquor he swallowed at a single draught. It tasted deliciously to him, and he took a second tumbler full, when he lay down, uncertain as to the consequences. That his head was affected by these two glasses of porter, Mark himself was soon aware, and shortly after drowsiness followed. After lying in an uneasy slumber for half an hour, his whole person was covered with a gentle perspiration, in which condition, after drawing the sheet around him, the sick man fell asleep.

Our patient never knew how long he slept, on this all-important occasion. The period certainly included part of two days and one entire night; but, afterwards, when Mark endeavoured to correct his calendar, and to regain something, like a record of the time, he was inclined to think he must have lain there two nights with the intervening day. When he awoke, Mark was immediately sensible that he was free from disease. He was not immediately sensible, nevertheless, how extremely feeble disease had left him. At first, he fancied he had only to rise, take nourishment, and go about his ordinary pursuits. But the sight of his emaciated limbs, and the first effort he made to get up, convinced him that he had a long state of probation to go through, before he became the man he had been a week or two before. It was well, perhaps, that his head was so clear, and his judgment so unobscured at this, his first return to consciousness.

Mark deemed it a good symptom that he felt disposed to eat. How many days he had been altogether without nourishment he could not say, but they must have been several; nor had he received more than could be obtained from a single ship's biscuit since his attack. All this came to his mind, with a distinct recollection that he must be his own physician and nurse. For a few minutes he lay still, during which he addressed himself to God, with thanks for having spared his life until reason was restored. Then he bethought him, well as his feeble state would allow, of the course he ought to pursue. On a table in the cabin, and in sight of his berth, through the state-room door, was a liquor-case, containing wines, brandy, and gin. Our sick man thought all might yet go well, could he get a few spoonsfull of an excellent port wine which that case, contained, and which had been provided expressly for cases of sickness. To do this, however, it was necessary to obtain the key, to open the case, and to pour out the liquor; three things, of which he distrusted his powers to perform that which was the least difficult.

The key of the liquor-case was in the draw of an open secretary, which, fortunately, stood between him and the table. Another effort was made to rise, which so far succeeded as to enable the invalid to sit up in his bed. The cool breeze which aired the cabin revived him a little, and he was able to stretch out a hand and turn the cock of the filterer, which he had himself drawn near his berth, while under the excitement of fever, in order to obtain easy access to water. Accidentally this filterer stood in a draught, and the quart or two of water that had not yet evaporated was cool and palatable; that is, cool for a ship and such a climate. One swallow of the water was all Mark ventured on, but it revived him more than he could believe possible. Near the glass into which he had drawn the water, lay a small piece of pilot bread, and this he dropped into the tumbler. Then he ventured to try his feet, when he found a dizziness come over him, that compelled him to fall back on his berth. Recovering from this in a minute or two, a second attempt succeeded better, and the poor fellow, by supporting himself against the bulkheads, and by leaning on chairs, was enabled to reach the desk. The key was easily obtained, and the table was next reached. Here Mark sunk into a chair, as much exhausted as he would have been, previously to his illness, by a desperate effort to defend life.

The invalid was in his shirt, and the cool sea-breeze had the effect of an air-bath on him. It revived him in a little while, when he applied the key, opened the case, got out the bottle by using both hands, though it was nearly empty, and poured out a wine-glass of the liquor. With these little exertions he was so much exhausted as almost to faint. Nothing saved him, probably, but a sip of the wine which he took from the glass as it stood on the table. It has been much the fashion, of late years, to decry wine, and this because it is a gift of Providence that has been greatly abused. In Mark Woolston's instance it proved, what it was designed to be, a blessing instead of a curse. That single sip of wine produced an effect on him like that of magic. It enabled him soon to obtain his tumbler of water, into which he poured the remainder of the liquor. With the tumbler in his hand, the invalid next essayed to cross the cabin, and to reach the berth in the other state-room. He was two or three minutes in making this passage, sustained by a chair, into which he sunk not less than three times, and revived by a few more sips of the wine and water. In this state-room was a bed with clean cool linen, that had been prepared for Bob, but which that worthy fellow had pertinaciously refused to use, out of respect to his officer. On these sheets Mark now sank, almost exhausted. He had made a happy exchange, however, the freshness and sweetness of the new bed, of itself, acting as delicious restoratives.

After resting a few minutes, the solitary invalid formed a new plan of proceeding. He knew the importance of not over-exerting himself, but he also knew the importance of cleanliness and of a renovation of his strength. By this time the biscuit had got to be softened in the wine and water, and he took a piece, and after masticating it well, swallowed it. This was positively the first food the sick and desolate young man had received in a week. Fully aware of this, he abstained from taking a second mouthful, though sorely pressed to it by hunger. So strong was the temptation, and so sweet did that morse taste, that Mark felt he might not refrain unless he had something to occupy his mind for a few minutes. Taking a small swallow of the wine and water, he again got on his feet, and staggered to the drawer in which poor Captain Crutchely had kept his linen. Here he got a shirt, and tottered on as far as the quarter-deck. Beneath the awning Mark had kept the section of a hogshead, as a bathing-tub, and for the purpose of catching the rain-water that ran from the awning, Kitty often visiting the ship and drinking from this reservoir.

The invalid found the tub full of fresh and sweet water, and throwing aside the shirt in which he had lain so long, he rather fell than seated himself in the water. After remaining a sufficient, time to recover his breath, Mark washed his head, and long matted beard, and all parts of his frame, as well as his strength would allow. He must have remained in the water several minutes, when he managed to tear himself from it, as fearful of excess from this indulgence as from eating. The invalid now felt like a new man! It is scarcely possible to express the change that came over his feelings, when he found himself purified from the effects of so long a confinement in a feverish bed, without change, or nursing of any sort. After drying himself as well as he could with a towel, though the breeze and the climate did that office for him pretty effectually, Mark put on the clean, fresh shirt, and tottered back to his own berth, where he fell on the mattress, nearly exhausted. It was half-an-hour before he moved again, though all that time experiencing the benefits of the nourishment taken, and the purification undergone. The bath, moreover, had acted as a tonic, giving a stimulus to the whole system. At the end^of the half hour, the young man took another mouthful of the biscuit, half