Part 5 (2/2)

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-pa.s.sers with them; and the coal-pa.s.sers--”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 s.h.i.+p 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' las.h.i.+ns 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 d.a.m.n owl--jest a-blinkin' and a-blinkin' his d.a.m.n 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' ash.o.r.e, 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 d.a.m.n starin' owl, till he a-most druv me wild.”

”An' Jack said as how I was...o...b..arable too. _He_ said it was me as stared at him--the d.a.m.n 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 d.a.m.n 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 d.a.m.n 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.”

”n.o.body 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'

companion-way, 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 d.a.m.n 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.

XVI

I 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 carca.s.ses--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 my place in it, and lie with all those unhidden others wasting away slowly in the open light of day. I got so sick as these horrid thoughts pressed upon me that I turned to the table and poured out for myself a stiff drink of gin-and-water--being careful first to rinse the gla.s.s well--and I was glad that I thought of it, for it did me good.

My movement about the cabin roused up the dying fellow and he hailed me to give him some more gin. His voice was so thick that I knew that the drink already had fuddled him; and after he had swiped off what I gave him he began to talk again. But the liquor had taken such hold upon him that he called me ”Jack,” not recognizing me, and evidently fancying that I was his mate--the man whom he had killed.

At first he rambled on about the storm that had wrecked them; and then about their chance of falling in with a pa.s.sing vessel; and then about some woman named Hannah who would be worrying about him because he did not come home. As well as I could make out he went over in this fas.h.i.+on most of what had happened--and it was little enough, in one way--from the time that the two found themselves alone upon the hulk until they began to get among the weed, and realized pretty well what that meant for them.

”It ain't no use now, Jack,” he rambled on. ”It ain't no use now thinkin' about gettin' home, an' Hannah may as well stop lookin' fur me. This is th' Dead Man's Sea we're gettin' into; an' I knows it well, an' you knows it well, both on us havin' heerd it talked about by sailor-men ever sence we come afloat as boys. Down in th' middle of it is all th' old dead wrecks that ever was sence s.h.i.+ps begun sailin'; and all th' old dead sailor-men is there too. It's a orful place, Jack, that me an' you's goin' to--more d.a.m.n orful, I reckon, than we can hev any idee. Gin's all thet's lef' to us, and it's good luck we hev such swas.h.i.+ns of it aboard. Here's at you, Jack an' gimme some more out o' the kag, you d.a.m.n starin' owl.”

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