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

crew she would not have been abandoned

at all. She had been in collision, and her bow-compartment was full of

water; but the water had not got aft of her foremast, and except that

she was down by the head a little she was not much the worse for her

bang. That her captain had tried to carry on after the accident was

shown by the sail that had been set in place very snugly over her

smashed bows; and I greatly wondered why he had given up the fight,

until I found—getting a look at her stern from one of the wrecks

lying near her—that her screw was gone. This second accident

evidently had been too much for her people and they had taken to the

boats and left her. But I think that an English or an American crew

would have stood by her, and would have succeeded in getting her

towed into port—or even would have brought her in under her own

sails. She was called the Ville de Saint Remy, and was a fine boat

of about five thousand tons.

 

All that I had hoped to find aboard of her in the way of comforts and

luxuries was there, and more too. Indeed, if a good bed, and the best

of food, and excellent wines and tobacco, had been all that I wanted I

very well might have settled myself on the Ville de Saint Remy for

the balance of my days. But I almost resented the luck which had

brought me all these things—for which I had been longing so keenly

but a few hours before—because I did not find with them what I

desired still more earnestly: the means that would enable me to get

away seaward and leave them all behind. What such means would be, it

is only fair to add, I could not imagine; at least, I could not

imagine anything at all reasonable—for the only thing I could think

of that would carry me out across that weed-covered ocean to open

water was a balloon.

 

And so, although I fed daintily and drank of the best, and had good

tobacco to cheer me after my meals, my first day aboard the _Ville de

Saint Remy_ was as sad a one as any that I had passed since I had come

into my sea-prison; for while the daylight lasted, and I wandered

about her decks looking always at the barrier of weed which held me

there, I had clearly before me the impossibility of ever getting

away. Only when darkness came, hiding my prison walls from me, did I

become a little more cheerful—as the very human disposition to make

light of difficulties when they no longer are visible began to assert

itself in my mind.

 

Down in the comfortable cabin, well lighted and airy, I had a capital

dinner—and a bottle of sound Bordeaux with it that no doubt added a

good deal to my sanguine cheerfulness; and to end with I made myself

some delicious coffee—over a spirit-lamp that I found in the

pantry—and had with it a glass of Benedictine and a very choice

cigar. And all of these luxurious refreshments of the flesh—which set

me to smiling a little as I thought of the contrast that they made to

my surroundings—so comforted my spirit that my gloomy thoughts left

me, and I began to plan airily how I would start off in a boat well

loaded with provisions and somehow or another push my way through the

weed. I even got along to details: deciding that it would be quite an

easy matter to open a way through the tangle over the bows of my boat

with an oar—or with an axe, if need be—and then press forward by

poling against the weed on each side; which seemed so feasible a

method that I concluded I could accomplish readily at least a mile a

day. And so, with these fine fancies dancing in my brain, I settled

myself into a delightful bed; and as I drowsed off deliciously I had

the comforting conviction that in a little while longer all my

difficulties would be conquered and all my troubles at an end.

 

With the return of daylight, giving me an outlook over the

weed-covered water again, most of my hopefulness left me along with

most of my faith in my airily-made plan; but even in this colder mood

it did seem to me that there was at least a chance of my pulling

through—and my slim courage was strengthened by the feeling within me

that unless I threw myself with all my energy into work of some sort I

presently would find myself going melancholy mad. And so, but only

half-heartedly, I mustered up resolution to make a trial of my poor

project for getting away.

 

On board the Ville de Saint Remy there was nothing to be done. The

corner-stone of my undertaking was finding a boat and launching it,

and the Frenchmen—in their panic-stricken scamper from a danger that

was mainly in their own lively imaginations—had carried all their

boats away. It was necessary, therefore, that I should go on a cruise

among the other wrecks lying around me in search of a boat still in a

condition to swim; but I was very careful this time—profiting by my

rough experience—to make sure before I started of my safe return.

Fortunately the stern of the steamer was so high out of the water

that it rose conspicuously above the wrecks lying thereabouts; but to

make her still more conspicuous I roused out a couple of French flags

and an American flag from her signal-chest and set them at her three

mastheads—giving to our own colors the place of honor on the

mainmast—and so made her quite unmistakable from as far off as I

could see her through the haze. And as a still farther precaution

against losing myself I hunted up a hatchet to take along with me to

blaze my way. All of which matters being attended to, I made a rope

fast to the rail—knotting it at intervals, so that I could climb it

again easily—and so slipped down the steamer’s side.

 

My business was only with the wrecks lying along the extreme outer

edge of the pack—from which alone it would be possible for me to

launch a boat in the event of my finding one—but in order to get from

one to the other of them I had to make so many long detours that my

progress was very slow. Indeed, by the time that noon came, and I

stopped to eat my dinner—which I had brought along with me, that I

need not have to hunt for it—I had made less than half a mile in a

straight line. And in none of the vessels that I had crossed—except

on one lying so far in the pack as to be of no use to me—had I found

a single boat that would swim. Nor had I any better luck when I went

on with my search again in the afternoon. As it had been in the case

of the Hurst Castle so it had been, I suppose, in the case of all

the wrecks which I examined that day: either their boats had been

staved-in or washed overboard by tempest, or else had served to carry

away their crews. But what had become of them, so far as I was

concerned, made no difference—the essential matter was that they were

gone. And so, toward evening, I turned backward from my fruitless

journey and headed for the Ville de Saint Remy again—for I had

found no other ship so comfortable in the course of my explorations—and

got safe aboard of her just as the sun was going down.

 

That night I had not much comfort in the good dinner that I set out

for myself—though I was glad enough to get it, being both hungry and

tired—and I only half plucked up my spirits over my coffee and cigar.

But still, as the needs of my body were gratified, my mind got so far

soothed and refreshed that I held to my purpose—which had been pretty

much given over when I came back tired and hungry after my vain

search—and I went to bed resolute to begin again my explorations on

the following day.

 

But when the morning came and I set off—though I had a good breakfast

inside of me, and such a store of food by me as fairly would have set

me dancing with delight only a week before—I was in low spirits and

went at my work rather because I was resolved to push through with it

than because I had any strong hope that it would give me what

I desired.

 

This time—having already examined the wrecks for near a mile

northward along the edge of the pack—I set my course for the south;

and again, until late in the afternoon, I worked my way from ship to

ship—with long detours inland from time to time in order to get

around some break in the coast-line—and on all of them the result was

the same: not a boat did I find anywhere that was not so riven and

shattered as to be beyond all hope of repair. And at nightfall I came

back once more to the Ville de Saint Remy wearied out in body and

utterly dispirited in mind.

 

Even after I had eaten my dinner and was smoking at my ease in the

cheerfully lighted cabin, sitting restfully in a big arm-chair and

with every sort of material comfort at hand, I could not whip myself

up to hoping again. It was true that I had not exhausted the

possibilities of finding the boat that I desired so eagerly, for my

search along the coast-line had extended for only about a mile each

way; but in my down-hearted state it seemed to me that my search had

gone far enough to settle definitely that what I wanted was not to be

found. And this brought down on me heavily the conviction that my

prison—though it was the biggest, I suppose, that ever a man was shut

up in—must hold me fast always: and with that feeling in it there no

longer was room for hope also in my heart.

XXXII

I FALL IN WITH A FELLOW-PRISONER

 

When I had finished my breakfast the next morning I faced the worst

thing which I had been forced to face since I had been cast prisoner

into the Sargasso Sea: a whole day of idleness without hope. Until

then there had not been an hour—save when I was asleep—that I had

not been doing something which in some way I had hoped would better my

condition temporarily, or would tend toward my deliverance. But that

morning I was without such spurs to effort and there was absolutely

nothing for me to do. My condition could not be improved by making my

home on another vessel; it was doubtful, indeed, if in all the

wreck-pack I could find a home so comfortable and so abundantly

stocked with the best provisions as I had found aboard of the _Ville

de Saint Remy_. As for working farther for my deliverance, I had set

that behind me after my experience during the two preceding days. And

so I brought a steamer-chair out on the deck and sat in it smoking,

idle and hopeless, gazing straight out before me with a dull

steadfastness over the very gently undulating surface of the

weed-covered sea.

 

After a while, tiring of sitting still, I began to pace the deck

slowly; and I was so heavy with my sorrow that I could not think

clearly, but had only in my mind a confused feeling that I was