Part 24 (2/2)
”Bale, men, bale the boat,” I cried, ”bale her, or we shall sink.”
”'They turned their awful cadaverous faces towards me, they opened their mouths as if to speak, but a sound 'twixt a moan and a gurgle was all that came from their throats; then they lifted their hands and tapped the backs of their fingers against the gunwale of the boat, and they rattled as if they had been made of wood, so sorely were they frozen.
”'Many, many times during that long and dreadful day did those two poor fellows turn towards me, and they kept signing, signing to me for the help they were pleading for in vain, and ever from their throats came that awful gurgling moan. Oh! men, I think I see and hear them now.
”'Night fell at last, night and pitchy darkness, and next morning I was alone on the sea. Alone with the dead!
”'And all that day I sat there, as if in the power of some strange nightmare. The use of every limb I retained as well as that of head and body, but still I did not or could not move, but I kept praying, praying not for the cold and icy wind to fall, not for the clouds and fog to roll away, or the sea to go down, but praying for death, a share of the death I saw around me.
”'Towards the afternoon I think I must have slept or fallen into a kind of a trance. The wind had quite gone down when I again recovered a sort of consciousness. There was no more broken water, but a heavy tumbling swell on the eastward when I looked. These huge heaving smooth waves seemed to take on the appearance of monsters of the deep, raising their awful heads and backs, grim and grey and cold, above the sea; but westward they were moving ma.s.ses crimson and black. The sky was a wonderful sight. From the sun's upper limit to the zenith it was hung with curtains of blue-grey clouds, one behind the other, as it were, the edges all zig-zagged and fringed with red. All round the sun itself was a coppery haze. To the north the sky was clear and of a bright lemon yellow; to the east it was clear also, and _green_.
”'I sat gazing at clouds, and sky till they faded into the gloom of night; they got thinner and thinner then, and stars shone through them, and soon they vanished entirely, and the stars had it all their own way.
”'I felt no hunger, no thirst, no pain, no pleasure; my condition was one of pure apathy; my very soul appeared dead within me.
”'Soon a bright light shone out of the north with tints of carmine, pale yellow, and green; it was the aurora, and long fringes of pale phosph.o.r.escent light descended from the sky overhead. I could have touched them with my hand had they been tangible. They were independent of the far-off aurora. They a.s.sumed the forms of gigantic fern leaves and danced dazzlingly before my eyes, and I could almost imagine they emitted a hissing, crackling sound.
”'Then my brain began to reel, and I fell forward in the boat among my dead companions.
”'A shock awoke me at last. Cold and s.h.i.+vering now, I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Morning was breaking gloomy and grey over the sea, and some gulls were wheeling and screaming about in the air.
”'Once again the shock, and the boat trembled from stem to stern, and some birds rose up out of the bows and floated slowly away. They had been gorging on the dead.
”'The shocks to the boat were easily accounted for: the sea was alive with monster sharks.
”'O G.o.d! men, it was a fearful sight. There was something appalling and horrible in the very way they _gambolled_ around the boat. Their eyes told me one thing: they had come for the dead--and the living.
”'I cannot tell you whether I really did lift the bodies of my late companions and throw them overboard. I would even now fain believe this was but a dream. If so, it was terribly real, the fighting, wrangling sharks in the sea, the birds wheeling and screaming above.
”'My boat was picked up that day by some Icelandic fisherman; there was no one in it but myself, men, white in hair, white in beard, as you now behold me.'”
So ended the spectioneer's story, and so ended that Christmas dinner in the Doldrums, but both Kenneth and Archie long, long after this used to speak about it amid other scenes and in other climes, and both agreed it was one of the pleasantest afternoons ever they had spent in life.
The two friends made many a voyage together in the _Brilliant_, and together came through no little adventure, and saw many a strange sight in many a strange sea. They came to love the vessel at last, for real sailors do love their s.h.i.+ps. They loved her and called her the saucy _Brilliant_, and the dear old s.h.i.+p, and quite a host of other pet names.
”But alas! and alas?” said Kenneth to Archie one day, while they stood together on the quarter-deck, ”we are not making our fortunes. We will never get rich at sea. And by-and-bye, you know, we'll be getting fearfully old.”
”Yes,” said Archie, ”I'm feeling old already. We are both of us over twenty.”
”Sad thought! yes?” added Kenneth. ”So I propose we leave the dear old stupid craft at the end of this voyage, Archie.”
And so they did, reader. And thus our tale runs on, but the scenes must change.
End of Book Two.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
ON THE UNKNOWN RIVER.
”Most glorious night, Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and fair delight.”
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