Part 18 (1/2)

I looked carefully for it, not so much on account of its value; but that its disappearance from the shelf was something rather strange--stranger still that I could nowhere lay my hand upon it.

_Had I eaten it_?

I began to fancy that I had done so. Perhaps, during a period of absent-mindedness, I might have swallowed it up, without ever thinking of what I was doing. Certainly, I had no remembrance of having tasted food since I ate its counterpart--the other half; and if I had eaten it also, it must have done me very little good. I had neither enjoyed the meal, nor yet did my stomach appear to have received much benefit from it, since I was just as hungry as if I had not tasted food that day.

I recollected perfectly having placed it alongside the knife and cup; and how could it part from the place, unless it had been taken away by my own hand? I could not have thrown it accidentally from the little shelf, for I did not remember making a movement in that direction. But even so, it would still have been somewhere about me? It could not get underneath the b.u.t.t, for the crevice there was closed up, regularly caulked with pieces of the cloth. I had done this for the purpose of making a level surface to rest upon.

Certainly the half biscuit was not to be found. It was gone--whether down my throat or in some other way, I could not decide--but if the former, I thought to myself, what a pity I had eaten it without knowing what I was about, for certainly my absence of mind had deprived me of all enjoyment of the meal.

I wavered for a long while, as to whether I should take another biscuit out of the box, or go to bed supperless. But the dread of the future decided me to abstain; and, summoning all my resolution, I drank off the cold water, placed my cup upon the shelf, and laid myself down for the night.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

AN UGLY INTRUDER.

For a long while I did not sleep, but lay thinking over the mysterious disappearance of the half biscuit. I say _mysterious_, for I was more than half convinced that I had _not_ eaten it, but that it had gone in some other way; though how, I could not even guess, since I was perfectly alone, the only living thing, as I supposed, in that vessel's hold which could have touched it. Ah! now I thought of my dream--of the crab! Perhaps, after all, there might have been a crab?--and though it was but a dream that I was drowned, yet the rest might be true enough, and a crab might actually have crawled over me? It might have eaten the biscuit?

It would not be its natural food, I knew; but shut up in a s.h.i.+p's hold, where it could have no choice, it would be likely enough to eat such a thing rather than suffer starvation. There might be a crab after all?

Partly by such a train of reflections, and partly by the hungry craving of my stomach, I was kept awake for hours. At length I found myself going off, not into a regular sleep, but a half sleep or doze, from which every two or three minutes I awoke again.

In one of these intervals, during which I lay awake, I fancied that I heard a noise, different from the sounds that habitually fell upon my ear. The s.h.i.+p was running smoothly, and I could distinguish this unusual sound above the soft sighing of the waves. This last was now so slight, that the ticking of my watch appeared louder and more distinct than I had ever observed it.

The sound which had attracted my attention, and which was something new to me, appeared like a gentle scratching. It came from the corner where my buskins lay empty and idle. _Something was scratching at my buskins_!

”The crab, to a certainty!” I said to myself. The thought at once drove away all ideas of sleep; and I placed myself in an att.i.tude to listen, and, if possible, lay my hands on the thievish intruder; for I now felt certain that, crab or no crab, whatever creature was making the scratching noise was the same that had stolen my supper.

Once more I heard the sc.r.a.ping and scratching noise. Certainly it proceeded from my buskins?

Slowly and silently I raised myself into a half-upright position, so that I could reach the buskins with a single effort, and in this att.i.tude I again listened for a repet.i.tion of the sound.

But though I remained patient for a considerable time, I did not hear it again; and I then pa.s.sed my hands over the buskins, and around the place where they were lying, but felt nothing there. They appeared to be just as they had been left, and nothing amiss. I also groped over all the floor of my cell, but with like result. Nothing was there that ought not to have been.

I was not a little perplexed, and lay for a good while awake and listening, without hearing anything more of the mysterious noise. Sleep once more began to steal upon me, and I dropped off into a series of dozing fits as before.

Once again the sc.r.a.ping and scratching noise falling upon my ear disturbed me, and caused me to lie listening. Most surely it came from the buskins; but when I moved to get within reach of them, the noise instantly ceased, as if I had frightened the creature that was making it; and, just as before, I groped everywhere and found nothing!

”Ha!” muttered I to myself, ”I now know what has been causing all this disturbance: no crab at all--for a crab could not possibly crawl so quickly out of the way. The intruder is a mouse. Nothing more nor less. Strange I did not think of this before! I might have guessed that it was a mouse, and not have made myself so uneasy about it. It could only be a mouse; and, but for my dream, I should, perhaps, never have thought of its being a crab.”

With this reflection I lay down again, intending to go to sleep at once, and not trouble myself any more about the mouse or its movements.

But I had scarcely settled my cheek upon the pillow, when the scratching began afresh, and it now occurred to me that the mouse was gnawing at my buskins, and probably doing them a serious damage. Although they were of no service to me just then, I could not permit them to be eaten up in this way; and, raising myself once more, I made a dash to catch the mouse.

In this I was unsuccessful. I did not even touch the animal; but I thought I heard it scampering through the crevice that led out between the brandy-cask and the timbers of the s.h.i.+p.

On handling the buskins, I discovered to my chagrin that half of the upper leather of one of them was eaten away! The mouse must have been busy to have made so much ruin in so short a time, for it was but a few hours before that I had had the buskins in my hands, and I had then noticed nothing wrong with them. Perhaps several mice had been at work?

This was likely enough.