Part 5 (1/2)
THE SECOND WATCH--AN EVIL OMEN--THE WHITE SHARK--A BREAKFAST LOST.
”All in a hot and copper sky, The b.l.o.o.d.y sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the moon.”
During the remainder of the day the wind continued fair, and we held on our course, steering by the sun, and keeping a vigilant look-out in every direction. But the night set in, and we had yet seen no appearance of land, no speck in the distance which could be mistaken for a sail, not even a wandering sea-bird or a school of flying-fish-- nothing to break the dead monotony of the briny waste we were traversing. As I sat at the helm, taking my turn in sailing the boat, and watched the sun go down, and saw the darkness gathering over the sea, a feeling nearly akin to despair took possession of me. In vain I strove to take an encouraging and hopeful view of our circ.u.mstances.
The time within which relief must come, in order to be effectual, was so short, that I could not help feeling that the probabilities were strongly against us. I could not shut my eyes to the fact, that dangers, imminent and real, such as we had read and talked of, without ever half realising or dreaming that they could one day fall to our own lot, now pressed upon us, and threatened us close at hand. I knew that those fearful tales of s.h.i.+pwreck and starvation, were only too true-- that men, lost at sea like ourselves, had pined day after day, without a morsel of food or a drop of water, until they had escaped, in stupor or delirium, all consciousness of suffering. And worse even than this--too horrible to be thought or spoken of--I knew something of the dreadful and disgusting expedients to prolong life, which have sometimes been resorted to by famis.h.i.+ng wretches. I had read how the pangs of hunger, and the still fiercer torments of thirst, had seemed to work a dire change even in kind and generous natures, making men wolfish, so that they slew and fed upon each other. Now, all that was most revolting and inhuman, in what I had heard or read of such things, rose vividly before me, and I shuddered at the growing probability that experiences like these might be reserved for us. ”Why not for us,” I thought, ”as well as for the many others, the records of whose terrible fate I have perused with scarcely more emotion than would be excited by a tale of imaginary suffering; and the still greater number whose story has never been recorded? We have already been conducted many steps on this fearful path, and no laws of nature will be stayed, no ordinary rules of G.o.d's dealing violated, on our behalf. No inevitable necessity requires the complexion of our future, to correspond and harmonise with that of our past lives. This feeling, which seems to a.s.sure me that such things cannot happen to us, is but one of the cheats and illusions of a shrinking and self-pitying spirit. All the memories that cl.u.s.ter about a happy childhood, all the sweet a.s.sociations of home and kindred, afford no guarantee against the new and bitter experiences which seem about to open up upon us.”
Such were the thoughts that began to disquiet my own mind. As to my companions, Morton seemed less anxious and excited than any of the others. During the evening he speculated in a cool matter-of-fact manner, upon our chances of reaching an island, or meeting a s.h.i.+p, before being reduced to the last extremity. He spoke of the number of traders that frequent the islands, for tortoise-sh.e.l.l, mother-of-pearl, sandal-wood, beche de mer, etcetera; the whalers that come in pursuit of the cachelot, or sperm-whale; the vessels that resort there for fruit, or supplies of wood and water; the vast number of islands scattered through these seas; from all which he finally concluded, that the chances were largely in our favour. If, however, we should fail of immediate relief in this shape, he thought it probable that we should have opportunities of catching fish, or sea-birds, and so prolonging life for many days. He talked the whole matter over in such a calm, sober, unexcited manner, furnis.h.i.+ng facts and reasons for every opinion, that I felt some confidence in his conclusions.
Browne, though quite composed and self-possessed, had, from the moment when he discovered that we were out of sight of land, taken the most serious view of our situation. He seemed to have made up his mind for the worst, and was abstracted, and indisposed to converse. I knew that the anxiety which Arthur evinced, was not mainly on his own account. It did not withdraw his attention from what was pa.s.sing, or diminish his interest in it. Far from being gloomy or abstracted, he was active and watchful, and spoke with heartiness and cheerfulness. His mental disquietude only appeared, in a certain softness and tremor of his voice, especially when speaking to Johnny, who, as the night drew on, asked him over and over again, at short intervals, ”Don't you think, Arthur, that we shall certainly find land to-morrow?” This was truly distressing.
As to Max, his feelings rose and fell capriciously, and without any apparent cause; he was sanguine or depressed, not from a consideration of all our circ.u.mstances, and a favourable or unfavourable conclusion drawn therefrom; but according as this view or that, for the moment, impressed his mind. He rendered no reasons for his hopes or his fears.
At one moment, you would judge from his manner and conversation that we were indeed out upon some ”holy day excursion,” with no serious danger impending over us; the next, without any thing to account for the change, he would appear miserably depressed and wretched.
Soon after sunset the moon rose--pale and dim at first, but s.h.i.+ning out with a clearer and brighter radiance, as the darkness increased. The wind held steadily from the same quarter, and it was determined to continue through the night, the arrangement for taking charge of the sailing of the boat, in turn. Browne and Max insisted on sharing between themselves the watch for the entire night, saying that they had taken no part in that of the one previous, and that it would be useless to divide the twelve hours of darkness into more than two watches. This was finally agreed upon, the wind being so moderate that the same person could steer the yawl and manage the sail without difficulty.
Before lying down, I requested Max, who took the first turn, to awake me at the same time with Browne, a part of whose watch I intended to share.
I fell asleep, looking up at the moon, and the light clouds sailing across the sky, and listening to the motion of the water beneath the boat. At first I slumbered lightly, without losing a sort of dreamy consciousness, so that I heard Max humming over to himself fragments of tunes, and odd verses of old songs, and even knew when he s.h.i.+fted his position in the stern, from one side to the other. At length I must have fallen into a deep sleep: I do not know how long it had lasted, (it seemed to me but a short time), when I was aroused by an exclamation, from Max, as I at first supposed; but on sitting up I saw that Browne was at the helm, while Max was sleeping at my side. On perceiving that I was awake, Browne, from whom the exclamation had proceeded, pointed to something in the water, just astern. Following the direction of his finger with my eye, I saw, just beneath the surface, a large ghastly-looking white shark, gliding stealthily along, and apparently following the boat. Browne said that he had first noticed it about half an hour before, since which time it had steadily followed us, occasionally making a leisurely circuit round the boat, and then dropping astern again. A moment ago, having fallen into a doze at the helm, and awaking with a start, he found himself leaning over the gunwale, and the shark just at his elbow. This had startled him, and caused the sudden exclamation by which I had been aroused. I shuddered at his narrow escape, and I acknowledge that the sight of this hideous and formidable creature, stealing along in our wake, and manifesting an intention to keep us company, caused me some uneasy sensations. He swam with his dorsal fin almost at the surface, and his broad nose scarcely three feet from the rudder. His colour rendered him distinctly visible.
”What a spectre of a fish it is,” said Browne, ”with his pallid, corpse-like skin, and noiseless motion; he has no resemblance to any of the rest of his kind, that I have ever seen. You know what the sailors would say, if they should see him d.o.g.g.i.ng us in this way; Old Crosstrees, or Spot, would shake their heads ominously, and set us down as a doomed company.”
”Aside from any such superst.i.tious notions, he is an unpleasant and dangerous neighbour, and we must be circ.u.mspect while he is prowling about.”
”It certainly won't do to doze at the helm,” resumed Browne; ”I consider that I have just now had a really narrow escape. I was leaning quite over the gunwale; a lurch of the boat would have thrown me overboard, and then there would have been no chance for me.”
There would not, in fact, have been the shadow of a chance.
”Even as it was,” resumed he, ”if this hideous-looking monster had been as active and vigilant as some of his tribe, it would have fared badly with me. I have heard of their seizing persons standing on the sh.o.r.e, where the water was deep enough to let them swim close in; and Spot tells of a messmate of his, on one of his voyages in a whaler, who was carried off, while standing entirely out of water, on the carca.s.s of a whale, which he was a.s.sisting in cutting up, as it lay alongside the s.h.i.+p. The shark threw himself upon the carca.s.s, five or six yards from where the man was busy;--worked himself slowly along the slippery surface, until within reach of his victim; knocked him off into the water, and then sliding off himself, seized and devoured him.”
Picking my way carefully among the sleepers, who covered the bottom of the yawl, I sat down beside Browne in the stern, intending to share the remainder of his watch. It was now long past midnight; fragments of light clouds were scattered over the sky, frequently obscuring the moon; and the few stars that were visible, twinkled faintly with a cold and distant light. The Southern Cross, by far the most brilliant constellation of that hemisphere, was conspicuous among the cl.u.s.ters of feebler luminaries. Well has it been called ”the glory of the southern skies.” Near the zenith, and second only to the Cross in brilliancy, appeared the Northern Crown, consisting of seven large stars, so disposed as to form the outline of two-thirds of an oval. Of the familiar constellations of the northern hemisphere, scarcely one was visible, except Orion, and the Pleiades.
At length the moon descended behind a bank of silvery clouds, piled up along the horizon. The partial obscurity that ensued, only added to the grandeur of the midnight scene, as we sat gazing silently abroad upon the confused ma.s.s of swelling waters, stretching away into the gloom.
But if the scene was grand, it was also desolate; we two were perhaps the only human beings, for many hundreds of miles, who looked forth upon it. Our companions were wrapped in unconsciousness, and their deep and regular breathing attested the soundness of their slumbers. As the light failed more and more, and the shadows deepened, the sea began to a.s.sume a beautiful and striking appearance, gleaming in places with a bluish lambent light, and exhibiting, where the water was most agitated, large luminous patches. Thin waves of flame curled over our bow, and whenever a sea broke upon it, it seemed as though the boat was plunging through surges of fire. A long brilliant line, thickly strewn on each side, with little globules of the colour of burning coals, marked our wake.
But the shark, which still followed close behind our keel, presented by far the most singular and striking spectacle. He seemed to be surrounded by a luminous medium; and his nose, his dorsal and side fins, and his tail, each had attached to them slender jets of phosphoric fire.
Towards morning this brilliant appearance began to fade, and soon vanished altogether. By this time I found it difficult to keep my eyes open longer, and leaving Browne to finish his watch alone, I resumed my place on the ceiling planks, and in spite of the hardness of my bed, which caused every bone in my body to ache, soon slept soundly. When I again awoke, it was long after sunrise, and we were lying completely becalmed. A school of large fish were pursuing their gambols at a short distance, and Browne was rowing cautiously toward them, while Arthur and Morton stood prepared to attack them with their cutla.s.ses as soon as we should get within striking distance. We had got almost among them, and were just beginning to congratulate ourselves upon their apparent indifference to our approach, when they all at once scattered in every direction, with manifest signs of terror. The cause of this sudden movement was not long concealed; a brace of sharks rose in their very midst; one was visible but for a moment as he rolled over to seize his prey; the other, less successful in securing a victim, shot past us, like an arrow, in pursuit of a large division of the fugitives. Soon after, both of them were seen playing around the boat. They belonged to the species known as the tiger shark, and bore no resemblance to our ghastly visitor of the preceding evening. By the consternation which their sudden appearance had produced among the lesser fishes, they had in all probability robbed us of our breakfast. Morton, with his characteristic enterprise, suggested an attack upon one of them by way of reprisals; but before any measures for that purpose could be taken, they disappeared, leaving us with no other resource than to await our fate with such patience and resignation as we could command. The wind having entirely failed, there was nothing that we could do to change our situation--absolutely nothing. This forced inaction, with no occupation for mind or body, no object of effort, contributed to enhance whatever was painful in our condition, by leaving us to brood over it. The dead calm which had fallen upon the sea, seemed all that was necessary to complete our misery. We were all stiff and sore, from the exceedingly uncomfortable sleeping accommodations of the last two nights; but this was a comparatively trifling evil. Johnny had a severe cold, his eyes were inflamed and bloodshot, and he exhibited also strong symptoms of fever. Nevertheless, silent and uncomplaining, he came and sat down quietly by the side of Arthur in the stern.
As the day advanced, the heat became dreadful. We had not suffered much from it the day before, on account of the fresh breeze which had prevailed; but now, not a breath of air was stirring, and the gla.s.sy sea reflected back upon us the scorching rays of the sun, with increased intensity. Towards noon, it exceeded any thing I had ever experienced.
The whole arch of the heavens glowed with a hot and coppery glare. It seemed as though instead of one sun, there were ten thousand, covering all the sky, and blending their rays into a broad canopy of fire. The air was like that of an oven: the water had no coolness, no refres.h.i.+ng quality; it was tepid and stagnant: no living thing was to be seen near the surface, for life could not be sustained there; and the fishes, great and small, kept themselves in the cooler depths, far below.
Almost stifled by the heat, we began to experience the first real and extreme suffering that most of us had ever known. At Arthur's suggestion, we disengaged the now useless sail from the mast, and contrived a kind of awning, by fastening two of the oars upright in the boat, with the mast extending between them, throwing the sail over the latter, and securing the ends to the gunwales. This, although it could not protect us from the sultry and suffocating air, warded off the blistering beams of the sun, and during the greater part of the day, we lay crouched beneath it, a miserable company; one or another of us crawling out occasionally, to take a survey. Towards the close of the afternoon, my sufferings from thirst grew absolutely intolerable, and amounted to torment. My blood became fevered; my brain seemed on fire; my shrunk and shrivelled tongue, was like a dry stick in my mouth. The countenances of my companions, their bloodshot eyes, and cracked and swollen lips, shewed what they were undergoing. Johnny lay in the bottom of the boat with his eyes shut enduring all, with as much fort.i.tude as the rest of us, except that now and then a half suppressed moan escaped him.
It was quite clear that relief, in order to be of any avail, must be speedy.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
A CHANGE.