Part 16 (1/2)

It was sent in mercy, for I do not think I could otherwise have endured my sufferings. When I awoke to the present matters had not improved, so I endeavoured, and successfully, to go to sleep again. This occurred several times. At last, in spite of my painful feelings, I found that I had become very hungry, and to my surprise my clothes, which I had hung up against the bulkhead on some nails stuck in the upper part, were very nearly dry. I put them on, unwilling to be without garments should I be discovered. I had no rats in store, so intended to make my meal off biscuits and olives. I put my hand down to where I had stowed them, when what was my dismay not to be able to find either the cask of biscuits or the jars of olives and pickles. I felt about in all directions, hoping that I had made a mistake as to their position. I was at length convinced that they had gone.

I then recollected that the chief volume of water out of the b.u.t.t must have washed them away. Still they could not be far off. I lay down on the kelson and felt about with my hand on every side. My search for a moment was in vain. At last I picked up an olive, and then another. My fear was that the jar was broken. What if the pickles and biscuits had shared the same fate? That this was the case was too probable, and if so my stock of provisions, would be spoiled, if not lost altogether.

After further search I came upon the jar broken in two. It was especially strong, so that the bottle of pickles would have had no chance of escaping. I had fortunately my handkerchief, and I managed to pick up several olives, which I put into it. Creeping along I came at last upon the pickle-bottle, and nearly cut my hand in feeling for it.

A few pickles were near it. I drew them out of the water which had escaped from the b.u.t.t. Their flavour I guessed would be gone and all the vinegar which was so cooling and refres.h.i.+ng; but almost spoiled as they were, I was glad to recover them. I found, however, scarcely a fourth of the olives and pickles. The loss of the biscuits was the most serious. They, if long in the water, would be mashed up into a pulp, and perhaps dispersed throughout the bottom of the s.h.i.+p. The sooner I could recover whatever remained the better. I ate three or four olives and a piece of pickle to stay the gnawings of hunger, and went on with my search.

The s.h.i.+p, it must be remembered, was all this time rolling to and fro.

I searched and searched, my hopes of recovering the biscuits in a form fit to be eaten growing fainter and fainter; still I knew that the keg, either entire or broken, must be somewhere within my prison-house, for so I must call it. I stopped at last to consider in what direction it could have been thrown. Perhaps being lighter and of larger bulk than the other things, it might have been jerked farther off, and rolling away got jammed in the casks or cases. My search proved to me that it could not be close beneath the kelson; I therefore felt backwards and forwards everywhere I could get my hand. I tried to recollect whether I had, when last taking a biscuit out, fixed on the head tightly or not.

Having smashed it in, in order to broach the cask, it was not very easy to do so, and I had an unpleasant feeling that I had put on the top only sufficient to prevent the rats jumping down into the inside. If so, the chance of the biscuits having escaped was small indeed.

At length I touched the cask, which had been thrown from one end of the hold to the other. It was on its side. With trembling eagerness I put in my hand. Alas! Only a few whole biscuits and a few broken ones remained. These I transferred to my pocket-handkerchief with the olives and pickles, for fear of losing them. The remainder must be somewhere on the way. I tried back in a direct line, but could not find even a mashed biscuit. I then recollected that the cask had probably been jerked from side to side before it had found its last resting-place. It was a wonder that any of its contents remained in it.

Without loss of time, I enlarged the field of my search, and picked up several large pulpy ma.s.ses which had once been biscuit. They were too precious to be thrown away. I put them into the bottom of the cask. I got back also several bits, which, though wet, had not lost their consistency. I was grateful for them; for though they would not keep, they would a.s.sist me to prolong existence for some few days. I ate some of the pulp, and a couple of olives to enable me to digest it. The other pieces of biscuit and the olives and pickles had been, I suppose, washed away out of my reach, for I felt about in every direction, but could lay my hands on nothing more. It may be supposed that the exertions I had made were not very fatiguing, but it must be remembered that the s.h.i.+p was tossing about all this time, and that I had to hold on with one hand while I felt with the other, to prevent myself from being jerked about and battered and bruised. As it was, I slipped and tumbled several times, and hurt myself not a little. I therefore crawled back to my couch, and rolled myself up in the sail, to go to sleep. I had not for some time been annoyed by the rats, who I suspect sat quaking and trembling in their nests as much alarmed as I was, and possibly more so, and I was amused at thinking that they must have heartily regretted having come to sea, and wished themselves safe back on sh.o.r.e in the houses or barns from which they had emigrated. I hoped, however, that when the storm was over they would come forth again, and give me the opportunity of catching them. I expected that it would quickly cease, but in this I was disappointed. There came a lull, and the s.h.i.+p did not toss about as much as before. I was contemplating getting up and making an excursion among the cargo, supposing that I might do so without much risk, when I was again thrown off my couch by a sudden lurch; and from the sounds I heard, and the violent pitching and rolling, I had good reason to suppose that the hurricane was once more raging with redoubled force. With the greatest difficulty I crawled back to my couch, and drawing the canvas round me, tried to retain my position. Every minute I imagined that one or the other water-b.u.t.ts would give way, and that I should be either crushed by its falling on me, or half-drowned by its contents. Then I thought what would be my fate should the fearful buffeting the s.h.i.+p was receiving cause her to start a plank. The water would rush in, and before I could possibly make my escape to a higher level I should be drowned, even should the s.h.i.+p herself keep above water, and that I thought was not very likely.

I had read enough about s.h.i.+pwrecks and disasters at sea to be aware that such a circ.u.mstance sometimes occurs. The end of a plank called a b.u.t.t occasionally starts away from the timber to which it has been secured, and the water pressing its way in, opens the plank more and more, till the sea comes in like a mill-sluice; and unless the damage is at once discovered, and a thrummed sail is got over the spot, there is little chance of a s.h.i.+p escaping from foundering. When a b.u.t.t starts from the fore end, and she is going rapidly through the water, her destruction is almost certain, as a plank is rapidly ripped off, and no means the crew possess can prevent it. Though I had heard cras.h.i.+ng noises which had made me fear that the masts had been carried overboard, yet I judged from the movement of the s.h.i.+p that they were standing. She was seldom on an even keel, but when she heeled over it was always on one side. As yet all the strain to which she had been subjected had produced no leaks, as far as I could judge from the small quant.i.ty of water in the hold, and that was chiefly what had come out of the b.u.t.t. Had I not put the remnants of the olives and biscuits in my pockets I should have starved. When hunger pressed, I took a small portion, sufficient to stop its gnawings. I suffered chiefly from thirst, as I was afraid of getting up to go to the water-b.u.t.t, lest I should be thrown over to the opposite side after I had drawn out the spile, before I could catch any water as it spouted out, and that much of it would be lost. I felt the necessity of economising my store, for I so mainly depended on it for existence, as it enabled me to subsist on a much smaller quant.i.ty of food than I could have done without it. At length I could bear my tortures no longer, but getting up, cautiously crawled towards the b.u.t.t, stopping to hold on directly I felt the s.h.i.+p beginning to give a lurch.

I must again observe, that close down to the keel as I was, I felt this much less severely than I should have done at a higher level. I went on, until I believed that I was close to the b.u.t.t, then waiting for another lurch. Directly it had taken place, I drew myself carefully up, and searched about for the spile. I found it, and drew it out, and let the water spout out into my mouth. How I enjoyed the draught. It restored my strength and sadly flagging spirits. I stopped to breathe, and then again applied my mouth to the hole. I should have been wiser had I refrained, for before I could drive in the spile I was hove right away to the opposite side of the hold, almost into the opening of the water-b.u.t.t which had burst. I could hear the water rus.h.i.+ng out, and it was some time before I could recover myself sufficiently to crawl back to try and stop it. I was almost wet through before I could accomplish this, though I had to mourn the loss of no small quant.i.ty of the precious fluid. My purpose accomplished, I made my way back to my couch. Hours pa.s.sed by. Sometimes I would fancy that the storm was never to end. In my disordered imagination, I pictured to myself the s.h.i.+p, officers, and crew under some dreadful doom, destined to be tossed about on the wide Atlantic for months and years, then perhaps to be dismasted and lie floating motionless in the middle of the Sarga.s.so Sea, of which I had read, where the weeds collect, driven by the current thrown off by the gulf-stream, till they attain sufficient thickness for aquatic birds to walk over them.

I remembered the description that Mr b.u.t.terfield had given me of the captain of the ”Emu.” I thought, perhaps, that he had committed some dreadful crime, and was being thus punished for it. The only one of the crew whom I remembered, Gregory Growles, was certainly a bad specimen of humanity. Perhaps, though pretending to be honest traders, they were pirates; and even when I had obtained my liberty they would not scruple to make me walk the plank, should my presence be inconvenient. I cannot, however, describe the hundred-and-one gloomy ideas which I conjured up. How far they were from the truth time only was to show.

The s.h.i.+p continued her eccentric proceedings with more or less violence.

The tempest roared above my head. Cras.h.i.+ng sounds still rose from the cargo which had s.h.i.+fted, and which it appeared to me must ere long be smashed to atoms. The worst of the matter was, that I had no one to blame but myself. Had I been seized and shut up in the hold by a savage captain, I should have felt myself like a martyr, and been able to lay my sufferings on others. When I was able to reflect more calmly on my situation, I remembered that the storm must inevitably some day or other come to an end. I had read of storms lasting a week, or even a fortnight, and sometimes longer, but if I could hold out to its termination, as by means of the biscuits and olives I might do, I hoped that I should at last effect my liberation. I must not, however, take up more time by further describing the incidents of this memorable portion of my existence.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Still in the hold--Dreamland again--Chicken-pie--Return of the rats--I improve my plans for catching them--Two rats at one meal--My state of mind--”Mercy! Mercy!”--While there's life there's hope--I recommence my exertions to get out of the hold with some success--Purer air--My weakness returns--I recover my strength--Still no outlet--I perform my ablutions--My desire to live at all hazards returns--”Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise”--The yarn of Toney Lawson--The evil effects of getting drunk--The ”Viper”--Toney obliged to give in-- Toney's thoughts of escape--The fate of the ”Viper” determines the question--Toney's wonderful escape.

Perhaps one of the most painful circ.u.mstances connected with my imprisonment was the impossibility of calculating how the time went by.

I remember that I suddenly awoke after dreaming that I was at a jolly picnic with old friends near Roger Riddle's cottage. That the cloth was spread with pies and tarts, a cold sirloin of beef, a dish of fowls, and a tempting ham, and that we were eating and drinking, and laughing and singing, in the merriest way possible. I had just had the breast and wing of a chicken and a slice of ham placed on my plate, and was running over to get the mustard-pot, when to my surprise it became covered with feathers, and off it flew. I was jumping up to catch hold of it, not wis.h.i.+ng thus to lose my dinner, but instead found myself in total darkness, and gradually came to the disagreeable consciousness that I was in the hold of the ”Emu,” and that I had only a few small biscuits and three olives remaining of my stock of provisions, independent of the pickles in the corner of my handkerchief.

The s.h.i.+p, however, was perfectly quiet. The gale must have ceased some time before, to allow the sea to go down. By putting my ears to the planks I could catch the sound of a gentle ripple as she glided along, but no other noise was to be heard. The bulkheads had ceased to creak, the masts to complain, the cargo to crash, and all was perfectly quiet overhead.

My hunger showed me that I must have been a long time asleep, and I could not resist the temptation of eating the remainder of my biscuits and olives. I had thus only the pickles to exist on, unless I could catch some rats with which to eat them. I took a draught of water, and then sat down to consider the plans I had before thought of to trap my game.

One occurred to me as the most feasible. Though I could not see I could feel, and my idea was to form a bag with a piece of the canvas, and give it a small mouth so contrived that I could close it suddenly with a string. Among the articles in my pocket was a stock of string of various thicknesses; I found on measuring it that I had not only sufficient to make the bag, but enough to gather in the mouth with an additional piece to hold in my hand. My gimlet would serve as an awl or sailmaker's needle, though not an efficient subst.i.tute. I had been so long accustomed to the darkness that I fancied I could pa.s.s the string through the holes I had made without difficulty. My hunger was an incentive to perseverance.

With my knife I first of all cut a piece off my canvas of sufficient size for my purpose. I am sure that I could not have done it so well at any time before, had I attempted to perform the operation in the dark.

I then turned in the edges, and pa.s.sing the string through the holes I had made, united the two sides. Sometimes I could not get the string through without another boring, at others I succeeded at the first attempt, tying the string at each st.i.tch. It was a slow operation, but the result was beyond my most sanguine expectations.

I had a long, thickish piece of hard twine, which I devoted to the mouth of the bag. I had to make the holes for these with great regularity, so as not to leave an opening large enough for a rat to jump out at. I worked on without stopping till my task was accomplished, as I was anxious to ascertain whether it would answer the object I had in view.

While I was working I heard the rats running about, and two or three knocked their noses against my feet, showing that they had again come out of their holes, and were either hunting for food or gambolling for their pleasure.

I had, however, retained a small piece of biscuit in my pocket, which, although I longed to eat it up, I had sufficient resolution to devote as a bait to the rats.

Placing myself near the shattered b.u.t.t, which seemed to be the spot most numerously frequented by them, I put down the bag with my foot at one end of it, holding the string in my hands, and leaving only a very small opening, which I could close of a sudden.

I waited eagerly. Rats ran about near my feet, leapt over the bag, and skipped and frolicked, uttering squeaks of delight. Still none came actually into the bag. At last one more curious than his fellows poked his nose into the opening. I felt him running along inside, having discovered a biscuit within. With a sudden jerk I quickly closed the mouth of the bag. I felt about with my fingers, and soon came upon Master Rat inside. As I didn't wish to give him the opportunity of biting me, I grasped him tightly by the neck, and squeezed out his life.

After drawing him out, I again put down the bag to tempt some more of his kindred, while I held him up by the tail. In a few minutes I felt others approaching, curious to explore the interior of the bag. I again gave a sudden jerk, and found that I had caught no less than three, who, as they felt themselves drawn up, began fighting and biting at each other, and would, I believe, had I not speedily put them out of existence, have been like the Kilkenny cats, and left only their tails behind them.