In the Sargasso Sea Part 2

"I told you so," the mate broke in with his rumble; and I saw that he was whipping a light lashing on the wheel in a way that would hold it steady in case he wanted to let go.

"Better think a minute," said Captain Luke, speaking coolly enough, but still with an angry undertone in his voice. "I've made you a good offer, and I'm ready to stand by it. But if you won't take what I've offered you you'll take something else that you won't like, my fresh young man. In a friendly way, and for your information, I've told you a lot of things that I can't trust to the keeping of any living man who won't chip in with us and take our chances--the bad ones with the good ones--just as they happen to come along. You know too much, now, for me to part company from you while you have a wagging tongue in your head--and so my offer's still open to you. Only there's this about it: if you won't take it, overboard you go."

I had a little gleam of sense at that; for I knew that he spoke in dead earnest, and that the mate stood ready to back him, and that against the two of them I had not much show. And so I tried to play for time, saying: "Well, let me think it over a bit longer. You said there was no hurry and that I might have a week to consider in. I've had only three days, so far. Do you call that square?"

"Squareness be d.a.m.ned," rumbled the mate, and he gave a look aloft and another to windward--the breeze just then had fallen to a mere whisper--and took his hands off the wheel and stepped away from it so that he and the captain were close in front of me, side by side. I stood off from them a little, and got my back against the cabin--that I might be safe against an attack from behind--and I was so furiously angry that I forgot to be scared.

"Three days is as good as three years," Captain Luke jerked out. "What I want is an answer right now. Will you join the brig--yes or no?"

Somehow I remembered just then seeing our pig killed, when I was a boy--how he ran around the lot with the men after him, and got into a corner and tried to fight them, and was caught in spite of his poor little show of fighting, and was rolled over on his back and had his throat stuck. He was a nice pig, and I had felt sorry for him: thinking that he didn't deserve such treatment, his life having been a respectable one, and he never having done anybody any harm. It all came back to me in a flash, as I settled myself well against the cabin and answered: "No, I won't join you--and you and your brig may go to h.e.l.l!"

All I remember after that was their rush together upon me, and my hitting out two or three times--getting in one smasher on the mate's jaw that was a comfort to me--and then something hard cracking me on the head, and so stunning me that I knew nothing at all of what happened until I found myself coming up to the surface of the sea, sputtering salt-water and partly tangled in a bunch of gulf-weed, and saw the brig heeling over and sliding fast away from me before a sudden strong draught of wind.

VI

I TIE UP MY BROKEN HEAD, AND TRY TO ATTRACT ATTENTION

My head was tingling with pain, and so buzzy that I had no sense worth speaking of, but just kept myself afloat in an instinctive sort of way by paddling a little with my hands. And I could not see well for what I thought was water in my eyes--until I found that it was blood running down over my forehead from a gash in my scalp that went from the top of my right ear pretty nearly to my crown. Had the blow that made it struck fair it certainly would have finished me; but from the way that the scalp was cut loose the blow must have glanced.

The chill of the water freshened me and brought my senses back a little: for which I was not especially thankful at first, being in such pain and misery that to drown without knowing much about it seemed quite the best thing that I could hope for just then. Indeed, when I began to think again, though not very clearly, I had half a mind to drop my arms to my sides and so go under and have done with it--so despairing was I as I bobbed about on the swell among the patches of gulf-weed which littered the dark ocean, with the brig drawing away from me rapidly, and no chance of a rescue from her even had she been near at hand.

Whether I had or had not hurried the matter, under I certainly should have gone shortly--for the crack on my head and the loss of blood from it had taken most of my strength out of me, and even with my full strength I could not have kept afloat long--had not a break in the clouds let through a dash of moonlight that gave me another chance. It was only for a moment or two that the moonlight lasted, yet long enough for me to make out within a hundred feet of me a biggish piece of wreckage--which but for that flash I should not have noticed, or in the dimness would have taken only for a bunch of weed.

Near though it was, getting to it was almost more than I could manage; and when at last I did reach it I was so nearly used up that I barely had strength to throw my arms about it and one leg over it, and so hang fast for a good many minutes in a half-swoon of weakness and pain.

But the feel of something solid under me, and the certainty that for a little while at least I was safe from drowning, helped me to pull myself together; and before long some of my strength came back, and a little of my spirit with it, and I went about settling myself more securely on my poor sort of a raft. What I had hit upon, I found, was a good part of a ship's mast; with the yards still holding fast by it and steadying it, and all so clean-looking that it evidently had not been in the water long. The main-top, I saw, would give me a back to lean against and also a little shelter; and in that nook I would be still more secure because the futtock-shrouds made a sort of cage about it and gave me something to catch fast to should the swell of the sea roll me off. So I worked along the mast from where I first had caught hold of it until I got myself stowed away under the main-top: where I had my body fairly out of water, and a chance to rest easily by leaning against the upstanding woodwork, and a good grip with my legs to keep me firm. And it is true, though it don't sound so, that I was almost happy at finding myself so snug and safe there--as it seemed after having nothing under me but the sea.

And then I set myself--my head hurting me cruelly, and the flow of blood still bothering me--to see what I could do in the way of binding up my wound; and made a pretty good job of it, having a big silk handkerchief in my pocket that I folded into a smooth bandage and pa.s.sed over my crown and under my chin--after first dowsing my head in the cold sea water, which set the cut to smarting like fury but helped to keep the blood from flowing after the bandage was made fast. At first, while I was paddling in the water and splashing my way along the mast and while the bandage was flapping about my ears, I had no chance to hear any noises save those little ones close to me which I was making myself. But when I had finished my rough surgery, and leaned back against the top to rest after it--and my heart was beginning to sink with the thought of how utterly desperate my case was, afloat there on the open ocean with a gale coming on--I heard in the deep silence a faint rythmic sound that I recognized instantly as the pulsing of a steamer's engine and the steady churning of her screw. This mere whisper in the darkness was a very little thing to hang a hope upon; but hope did return to me with the conviction that the sound came from the steamer of which I had seen the lights just before I was pitched overboard, and that I had a chance of her pa.s.sing near enough to me to hear my hail.

I peered eagerly over the waters, trying to make out her lights again and so settle how she was heading; but I could see no lights, though with each pa.s.sing minute the beating of the screw sounded louder to my straining ears. From that I concluded that she must be coming up behind me and was hid by the top from me; and so, slowly and painfully, I managed to get on my hands and knees on the mast, and then to raise myself until I stood erect and could see over the edge of the top as it rose like a little wall upright--and gave a weak shout of joy as I saw what I was looking for, the three bright points against the blackness, not more than a mile away. And I was all the more hopeful because her red and green lights showed full on each side of the white light on her foremast, and by that I knew that she was heading for me as straight as she could steer.

I gave another little shout--but fainter than the first, for my struggle to get to my feet, and then to hold myself erect as the swell rolled the mast about, made me weak and a little giddy; and I wanted to keep on shouting--but had the sense not to, that I might save my strength for the yells that I should have to give when the steamer got near enough to me for her people to hear my cries. So I stood silent--swaying with the roll of the mast, and with my head throbbing horribly because of my excitement and the strain of holding on there--while I watched her bearing down on me; and making her out so plainly as she got closer that it never occurred to me that I and my bit of mast would not be just as plain to her people as her great bulk was to me.

I don't suppose that she was within a quarter of a mile of me when I began my yelling; but I was too much worked up to wait longer, and the result of my hurry was to make my voice very hoa.r.s.e and feeble by the time that she really was within hail. She came dashing along so straight for me that I suddenly got into a tremor of fear that she would run me down; and, indeed, she only cleared me by fifty feet or so--her huge black hull, dotted with the bright lights of her cabin ports, sliding past me so close that she seemed to tower right up over me--and I was near to being swamped, so violently was my mast tossed about by the rush and suck of the water from her big screw. And while she hung over me, and until she was gone past me and clear out of all hearing, I yelled and yelled!

At first I could not believe, so sure had I been of my rescue, that she had left me; and it was not until she was a good half mile away from me, with only the sound of her screw ripping the water, and a faint gleam of light from her after ports showing through the darkness, that I realized that she was gone--and then I grew so sick and dizzy that it is a wonder I did not lose my hold altogether and fall off into the sea. Somehow or another I managed to swing myself down and to seat myself upon the mast again, with my head fairly splitting and with my heart altogether gone: and so rested there, shutting my eyes to hide the sight of my hope vanishing, and as desolate as any man ever was.

Presently, in a dull way, I noticed that I no longer heard the swash of her screw, and rather wondered at her getting out of hearing so quickly; but for fear of still seeing her lights, and so having more pain from her, I still kept my eyes tight closed. And then, all of a sudden, I heard quite close by me a hail--and opened my eyes in a hurry to see a light not a hundred feet away from me, and to make out below it the loom of a boat moving slowly over the weed-strewn sea.

The shout that I gave saved me, but before it saved me I came near to being done for. Such a rush of blood went up into my broken head with the sudden burst of joy upon me that a dead faint came upon me and I fell off into the water; and that I was floating when the boat got to me was due to the mere chance that as I dropped away from the mast one of my arms slipped into the tangle of the futtock-shrouds. But I knew nothing about that, nor about anything else that happened, until we were half-way back to the steamer and I came to my senses a little; and very little for a good while longer--except that I was swung up a ship's side and there was a good deal of talking going on around me; and then that my clothes were taken off and I was lifted into a soft delightful berth; and then that somebody with gentle hands was binding up my broken crown.

When this job was finished--which hurt me a good deal, but did not rouse me much--I just fell back upon the soft pillow and went to sleep: with a blessed sense of rest and safety, as I felt the roll of a whole ship under me again after the short jerk of my mast, and knew that I was not back on the brig but aboard an honest steamer by hearing and by feeling the strong steady pulsing of her screw.

VII

I ENCOUNTER A GOOD DOCTOR AND A VIOLENT GALE

I was roused from my sleep by the sharp motion of the vessel; but did not get very wide awake, for I felt donsie and there was a dull ringing in my head along with a great dull pain. I had sense enough, though, to perceive that the storm had come, about which Captain Luke and the barometer had been at odds; and to shake a little with a creepy terror as I thought of the short work it would have made with me had I waited for it on my mast. But I was too much hurt to feel anything very keenly, and so heavy that even with the quick short roll of the ship to rouse me I kept pretty much in a doze.

After a while the door of my state-room was opened a little and a man peeped in; and when he saw my open eyes looking at him he came in altogether, giving me a nod and a smile. He was a tall fellow in a blue uniform, with a face that I liked the looks of; and when he spoke to me I liked the sound of his voice.

"You must be after being own cousin to all the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and the dog too, my big young man," he said, holding fast to the upper berth to steady himself. "You've put in ten solid hours, so far, and you don't seem to be over wide awake yet. Faith, I'd be after backing you to sleep standing, like Father O'Rafferty's old dun cow!"

I did not feel up to answering him, but I managed to grin a little, and he went on: "I'm for thinking that I'd better let that broken head of yours alone till this fool of a ship is sitting still again--instead of trying to teach the porpoises such tricks of rolling and pitching as never entered into their poor brute minds. But you'll do without doctoring for the present, myself having last night sewed up all right and tight for you the bit of your scalp that had fetched away. How does it feel?"

"It hurts," was all that I could answer.

"And small blame to it," said the doctor, and went on: "It's a well-made thick head you have, and it's tough you are, my son, not to be killed entirely by such a whack as you got on your brain-box--to say nothing of your fancy for trying to cure it hydropathically by taking it into the sea with you when you were for crossing the Atlantic Ocean on the f.a.g-end of a mast. It's much indeed that you have to learn, I am thinking, both about surgery and about taking care of yourself. But in the former you'll now do well, being in the competent hands of a graduate of Dublin University; and in regard to your incompetence in the latter good reason have you for being thankful that the _Hurst Castle_ happened to be travelling in these parts last night, and that her third officer is blessed with a pair of extra big ears and so happened to hear you talking to him from out of the depths of the sea.

"But talking isn't now the best thing for you, and some more of the sleep that you're so fond of is--if only the tumbling of the ship will let you have it; so take this powder into that mouth of yours which you opened so wide when you were conversing with us as we went sailing past you, and then stop your present chattering and take all the sleep that you can hold."

With that he put a bitter powder into my mouth, and gave me a drink of water after it--raising me up with a wonderful deftness and gentleness that I might take it, and settling me back again on the pillow in just the way that I wanted to lie. "And now be off again to your friends the Ephesians," he said; "only remember that if you or they--or their dog either, poor beasty--wants anything, it's only needed to touch this electric bell. As to the doggy," he added, with his hand on the door-k.n.o.b, "tell him to poke at the b.u.t.ton with the tip of his foolish nose." And with that he opened the door and went away. All this light friendly talk was such a comfort to me--showing, as it did, along with the good care that I was getting, what kindly people I had fallen among--that in my weak state I cried a little because of my happy thankfulness; and then, my weakness and the powder acting together to lull me, in spite of the ship's sharp motion I went off again to sleep.

But that time my sleep did not last long. In less than an hour, I suppose, the motion became so violent as to shake me awake again--and to give me all that I could do to keep myself from being shot out of my berth upon the floor. Presently the doctor came again, fetching with him one of the cabin stewards to rig the storm-board at the side of my berth and some extra pillows with which to wedge me fast. But though he gave me a lot more of his pleasant chaff to cheer me I could see that his look was anxious, and it seemed to me that the steward was badly scared. Between them they managed to stow me pretty tight in my berth and to make me as comfortable as was possible while everything was in such commotion--with the ship bouncing about like a pea on a hot shovel and all the wood-work grinding and creaking with the sudden lifts and strains.

"It's a baddish gale that's got hold of the old _Hurst Castle_, and that's a fact," the doctor said, when they had finished with me, in answer to the questioning look that he saw in my eyes. "But it's nothing to worry about," he went on; "except that it's hard on you, with that badly broken head of yours, to be tumbled about worse than Mother O'Donohue's pig when they took it to Limerick fair in a cart.

So just lie easy there among your pillows, my son; and pretend that it's exercise that you are taking for the good of your liver--which is a torpid and a sluggish organ in the best of us, and always the better for such a shaking as the sea is giving us now. And be remembering that the _Hurst Castle_ is a Clyde-built boat, with every plate and rivet in her as good as a Scotsman knows how to make it--and in such matters it's the Sandies who know more than any other men alive. In my own ken she's pulled through storms fit to founder the Giant's Causeway and been none the worse for 'em, and so it's herself that's certain to weather this bit of a gale--which has been at its worst no less than two times this same morning, and therefore by all rule and reason must be for breaking soon.

"And be thinking, too," he added as he was leaving me, "that I'll be coming in to look after you now and then when I have a spare minute--for there are some others, I'm sorry to say, who are after needing me; and as soon as the gale goes down a bit I'll overhaul again that cracked head of yours, and likely be singing you at the same time for your amus.e.m.e.nt a real Irish song." But not much was there of singing, nor of any other show of lightheartedness, aboard the _Hurst Castle_ during the next twelve hours. So far from breaking, the gale--as the doctor had called it, although in reality it was a hurricane--got worse steadily; with only a lull now and then, as though for breath-taking, and then a fiercer rush of wind--before which the ship would reel and shiver, while the grinding of her iron frame and the crunching of her wood-work made a sort of wild chorus of groans and growls. For all my wedging of pillows I was near to flying over the storm-board out of my berth with some of the plunges that she took; and very likely I should have had such a tumble had not the doctor returned again in a little while and with the mattress from the upper berth so covered me as to jam me fast--and how he managed to do this, under the circ.u.mstances, I am sure I don't know.

When he had finished my packing he bent down over me--or I could not have heard him--and said: "It's sorry I am for you, my poor boy, for you're getting just now more than your full share of troubles. But we're all in a pickle together, and that's a fact, and the choice between us is small. And I'd be for suggesting that if you know such a thing as a prayer or two you'll never have a finer opportunity for saying them than you have now." And by that, and by the friendly sorrowful look that he gave me, I knew that our peril must be extreme.

I don't like to think of the next few hours; while I lay there packed tight as any mummy, and with no better than a mummy's chances, as it seemed to me, of ever seeing the live world again--terrified by the awful war of the storm and by the confusion of wild noises, and every now and then sharply startled by hearing on the deck above me a fierce crash as something fetched away. It was a bad time, Heaven knows, for everybody; but for me I thought that it was worst of all. For there I was lying in utter helplessness, with the certainty that if the ship foundered there was not a chance for me--since I must drown solitary in my state-room, like a rat drowned in a hole.

VIII

THE _HURST CASTLE_ IS DONE FOR

At last, having worn itself out, as sailors say, the storm began to lessen: first showing its weakening by losing its little lulls and fiercer gusts after them, and then dropping from a tempest to a mere gale--that in turn fell slowly to a gentle wind. But even after the wind had fallen, and for a good while after, the ship labored in a tremendous sea.

As I grew easier in my mind and body, and so could think a little, I wondered why my friend the doctor did not come to me; and when at last my door was opened I looked eagerly--my eyes being the only free part of me--to see him come in. But it was the steward who entered, and I had a little sharp pang of disappointment because I missed the face that I wanted to see. However, the man stooped over me, kindly enough, and lifted off the mattress and did his best to make me comfortable; only when I asked him where the doctor was he pretty dismally shook his head.

"It's th' doctor himself is needin' doctorin', poor soul," he answered, "he bein' with his right leg broke, and with his blessed head broke a-most as bad as yours!" And then he told me that when the storm was near ended the doctor had gone on deck to have a look at things, and almost the minute he got there had been knocked over by a falling spar. "For th' old ship's shook a-most to pieces," the man went on; "with th' foremast clean overboard, an' th' mizzen so wobbly that it's dancin' a jig every time she pitches, and everything at rags an' tatters of loose ends."

"But the doctor?" I asked.