The Boy Tar Part 11

I cried, I screamed, I shouted. Long and loudly I cried, but how long I cannot tell. I did not leave off till I was weak and hoa.r.s.e.

At intervals I listened, but no response reached me--no sound of human voice. The echoes of my own reverberated along the sides of the ship, throughout the dark hold; but no voice responded to its lamentable tones.

I listened to discover whether I could not hear the voices of the sailors. I had heard them in their chorus, when they were weighing anchor, but then the ship was at rest, and the waves were not lashing her timbers. Moreover, as I afterwards learned, the hold hatches had then been up, and were only put down on our standing out to sea.

For a long while I listened, but neither command nor chorus reached my ears. If I could not hear their loud baritone voices, how could they hear mine?

"Oh! they cannot hear me! They will never hear me! They will never come to my rescue! Here I must die--I must die!"

Such was my conviction, after I had shouted myself hoa.r.s.e and feeble.

The sea-sickness had yielded for a time to the more powerful throes of despair; but the physical malady returned again, and, acting in conjunction with my mental misery, produced such agony as I never before endured. I yielded to it; my energies gave way, and I fell over like one struck down by paralysis.

For a long while, I lay in a state of helpless stupor. I wished myself dead, and indeed I thought I was going to die. I seriously believe, that at that moment I would have hastened the event if I could; but I was too weak to have killed myself, even had I been provided with a weapon. I _had_ a weapon, but I had forgotten all about it in the confusion of my thoughts.

You will wonder at my making this confession--that I desired death; but you would have to be placed in a situation similar to that I was in, to be able to realise the horror of despair. Oh, it is a fearful thing!

May you never experience it!

I fancied I was going to die, but I _did not_. Men do not die either from sea-sickness or despair, nor boys either. Life is not so easily laid down.

I certainly was more than half dead, however; and I think for a good while insensible. I was in a stupor for a long time--for many hours.

At length my consciousness began to return, and along with it a portion of my energies. Strange enough, too, I felt my appet.i.te reviving; for, in this respect, the "sea-sickness" is somewhat peculiar. Patients, under it, often eat more heartily than at other times. With me, however, the appet.i.te of thirst was now far stronger than that of hunger, and its misery was not allayed by any hope of its being appeased. As for the other, I could still relieve it; some morsels were in my pocket.

I need not recount the many fearful reflections that pa.s.sed through my mind. For hours after, I was the victim of many a terrible paroxysm of despair. For hours I lay, or rather tossed about, in a state of confused thought; but at last, to my relief, I fell asleep.

I fell asleep, for I had now been a long time awake, and this, with the prostration of my strength from mental suffering, had at length deadened the nerve of pain; so that, despite all my misery, I fell asleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

THIRST.

I slept neither very long, nor very soundly. My sleep was full of dreams, all troubled and horrid; but not more horrid than the reality to which I once more awoke.

After awaking, it was some time before I could think of where I was; but on stretching out my arms, I was reminded of my situation: on every side the wooden walls of my prison were within reach, and I could touch them with my fingers all around. I had little more than room sufficient to turn myself in. Small as was my body, another as big as myself would almost have filled the s.p.a.ce in which I was shut up.

On again comprehending my fearful situation, I once more gave utterance to loud cries, shouting and screaming at the very highest pitch of my voice. I had not yet lost all hope that the sailors might hear me; for, as already stated, I knew not what quant.i.ty of merchandise might be stowed above me, nor did I think of the hatches of the lower deck being fastened down.

Perhaps it was as well I did not know the whole truth, else the complete despair which the knowledge must have produced might have driven me out of my senses. As it was, the intervals of despair already endured had ever alternated with glimpses of hope; and this had sustained me, until I became more able to look my terrible fate in the face.

I continued to cry out, sometimes for minutes at a time, and then only now and again, at intervals; but as no response came, the intervals between my spells of shouting became longer and longer, till at length, resigning all hope of being heard, I allowed my hoa.r.s.e voice to rest, and remained silent.

For several hours after this, I lay in a sort of half stupor--that is, my mind was in this state, but unfortunately my body was not so. On the contrary, I was racked with severe bodily pain--the pain of extreme thirst--perhaps the most grievous and hardest to endure of all physical suffering. I never should have believed that one could be so tortured by so simple a thing as the want of a drink of water, and when I used to read of travellers in the desert, and shipwrecked mariners on the ocean, having endured such agonies from thirst, as even to die of it, I always fancied there was exaggeration in the narrative. Like all English boys, brought up in a climate where there is plenty of moisture, and in a country where springs or runlets exist within a few hundred yards of any given point, it is not likely I should ever have known thirst by experience. Perhaps a little of it at times, when at play off in the fields, or by the sea-sh.o.r.e, where there was no fresh water. Then I had felt what we ordinarily call thirst--a somewhat unpleasant sensation in the throat, which causes us to yearn for a gla.s.s of water. But this unpleasantness is very trifling, and is almost neutralised by the antic.i.p.ation we have of the pleasure to be experienced while allaying it; for this, we know, we shall be able to accomplish in a very short time. Indeed, so trifling is the annoyance we feel from ordinary thirst, that it is rare when we are compelled to stoop, either to the ditch or the pond, for the purpose of a.s.suaging it. We are dainty enough to wait, until we encounter a cool well or some limpid spring.

This, however, is not thirst; it is but thirst in its first and mildest stage--rather pleasant from the knowledge you have of being able soon to remove the pain. Once take away this confidence--become a.s.sured that no wells nor springs are near--no ponds, ditches, lakes, nor rivers--that no fresh water is within hundreds of miles of you--no fluid of any kind that will allay the appet.i.te, and then even this incipient feeling of thirst would at once a.s.sume a new character, and become sufficiently painful to endure.

I may not have been so absolutely in need of drink at the time, for I had not been so long without it. I am sure I had often gone for days without thinking of water, but this was just because I knew I might have as much as I pleased at a moment's notice. Now, that there was none to be had, and no prospect of obtaining any, I felt for the first time in my life that thirst was a real agony.

I was not again hungry. The provisions which I had purchased with the price of my sloop were not yet exhausted. Some pieces of the cheese, and several of the biscuits, still remained, but I did not venture to touch them. They would only have increased my thirst. The last morsels I had eaten had produced this effect. My parched throat called only for water--water at that moment appeared to me the most desirable thing in the world.

I was in a situation somewhat similar to that of Tantalus. Water I saw not, but I heard it. The hoa.r.s.e rushing of the waves as they tore along the sides of the ship was plainly audible. I knew it was the water of the sea--salt, and of no service to me, even could I have reached it-- but still it was the sound of water playing continually on my ears as if to mock and tantalise me.

I need not recount the many painful reflections that pa.s.sed through my mind during the period that followed. Suffice it to say, that for many long hours I endured the terrible pain of thirst, without any hope of being relieved from its torture. I felt certain it was going to kill me. I knew not how soon, but I was sure that sooner or later it would cause my death. I had read of men living for days under the agony of thirst, before life became extinct. I tried to remember how many days they had lived, but my memory was at fault. Six or seven, I fancied, was the longest period. The prospect was appalling. How could I endure for six or seven days what I was then suffering? How could I bear it for even one day longer? Oh! it was fearful to endure! I hoped that death would sooner come, and release me from such torture!

But a far brighter hope was nigh; and almost upon the instant that I had given mental expression to that despairing wish, a sound fell upon my ears that at once changed the current of my thoughts, and caused me to forget the horror of my situation.

Oh! that sweet sound! It was like the whisper of an angel of mercy!

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

A SWEET SOUND.

I was lying, or half-standing erect, with my shoulder against one of the great ribs of the ship that traversed my little chamber from top to bottom, dividing it into two nearly equal parts. I had got into this att.i.tude merely as a change; for during the long days and nights since I entered my confined quarters, I had tried every att.i.tude I could think of, in order to obtain freedom from the monotony of remaining too long in one position. I had tried sitting; also standing, though somewhat bent; more generally I had lain down--now on one side, now on the other--sometimes upon my back, and even sometimes on my face.

The position I had now a.s.sumed to rest me for a moment was a standing one, though only half erect, as the height of my chamber was not equal to my own length. The point of my shoulder found a resting-place against the rib of the vessel, and my head, drooping forward, was nearly in contact with the side of the great b.u.t.t, upon the swell of which my hand rested.

Of course, my ear was close to the cask, almost touching its hard oaken staves; and it was through these that the sound reached me which I have described as having caused a sudden and pleasant reaction in my feelings.

The sound itself was simple enough to understand. I easily understood it. It was the "cluk-cluk" of water moving about inside the b.u.t.t, its motion being caused by the pitching of the ship, and a slight rolling of the cask itself, which had not been steadily "cleated" in its place.

The first "cluk" was music to my ears; but I did not permit myself the free enjoyment of it until I had fully satisfied myself as to the nature of what I had heard.

I had raised my head with a start, and I now placed my cheek against the oak staves, and stood with every nerve in my ear straining to catch the sounds. I waited a good while, for it was only at intervals that the ship gave her heaviest lurches, and only then did the fluid within the b.u.t.t become disturbed. I waited patiently, and my patience was rewarded. There again!--"cluk-cluk-cluk!"

"_Cluk-cleek-clee-chuckle-cluk_." Beyond a doubt there was water in the cask!

I could not restrain myself from uttering a shout of joy. I felt like one who had been for a long while in the act of being drowned, and who at length had reached land, and was saved.

The sudden transition in my feelings almost caused me to faint; as it was, I staggered back against the timbers, and dropped down in a state of half-insensibility.

Not long did I remain so. The acute torture soon prompted me to action; and I rose again, and leant forward against the cask.

For what purpose? To find the bung, of course; draw it out, and relieve my thirst by a draught of water. What other object could I have in approaching it?

Alas! alas! my new-sprung joy fast fleeted away, almost as suddenly as it had arisen! Not quite so suddenly; for it took me some time to run my fingers all over the swelling outlines of that great vessel; to pa.s.s them around its ends as far as the heavy boxes would permit; to go over the ground again and again, inch by inch, and stave by stave, with all the careful touch of one who is blind. Yes, it took me minutes to accomplish this, and to become satisfied that the bung was not upon my side of the cask--that it was either upon the top or the opposite side; but, whether one or the other, it was beyond my reach, and it was therefore as useless to me as if no such aperture existed.

In my search for the bung I had not forgotten the vent or tap-hole. I knew that every cask is provided with both these apertures--that one should be in the side and the other in the head or end. But my search for the vent did not occupy two seconds of time. I at once perceived that both ends of the barrel, with the exception of a few inches near the edge, were completely blocked up--one by the box, and the opposite one by the other cask, already mentioned--the latter of which appeared to be a counterpart of that in front of me.

It occurred to me that this other cask might also contain water, and I proceeded to make a "reconnaissance" of it; but I could only "grope" a small portion of its end, and there I felt only the smooth hard heading of oak, that resisted my touch like a wall of rock.

It was only after all this had been accomplished, that I began once more to feel the misery of my situation--once more to resign myself to despair. I was now tantalised even worse than ever. I could hear at intervals the "jabbling" of the water within two inches of my lips, and was unable to taste it! Oh! what I would have given for one drop upon my tongue! one gill to moisten my throat, parched and burning like a coal of fire!

If I had had an axe, with room to wield it, how I should have burst open that huge cistern, and drank fiercely of its contents! But I had no axe, no weapon of any kind; and without one the thick oaken staves were as impenetrable to me as if they had been solid iron. Even had I succeeded in reaching the bung or vent, how could I have got out the stopper or vent-peg? With my fingers it would plainly have been impracticable; though in the eagerness of my first hope I had never thought of this difficulty.

I believe that I once more sat or staggered down, and after a little while rose up again, and made a fresh examination of the b.u.t.t; but I am not sure about what I did, for this new disappointment had quite stupefied me, and I cannot exactly remember what followed for a good while after. I believe, however, that I performed these acts in a sort of mechanical way; and also that I tried once more to move the box, and pushed against it with all my strength; but, as before, to no purpose.