XXI

MY THIRST IS QUENCHED, AND I FIND A COMPa.s.s

It was a long while before the pale pink gleam to the eastward spread up into the sky far enough to thin the shadows which hung over my dead fleet heavily, and longer still before I had light enough to venture to begin my scrambling walk from ship to ship again. It seemed to me, indeed, that the mist lay lower and was a good deal thicker than on the preceding evening; and this, with the fiery glow that was in it when the sunrise came, gave me hope that a douse of rain might be coming--which chance of getting the water that I longed for heartened me even more than did the up-coming of the sun.

My throat was hurting me a good deal because of its dryness, and my itching thirst was all the stronger because the last food I had eaten--being the mess left in the pan by the two men who had killed each other--had been a salt-meat stew. Of hunger I did not feel much, save for gripes in my inside now and then; but I was weak because of my emptiness--as I discovered when I got on my legs, and found myself staggering a little and the things around me swimming before my eyes.

And what was worse than that was a dull stupidity which so possessed me that I could not think clearly; and so for a while kept me wandering about the deck of the brig aimlessly, while my wits went wool-gathering instead of trying to work out some plan--even a foolish plan--which would cheer me up with hopes of pulling through.

I might have gone on all day that way, very likely, if I had not been aroused suddenly by feeling a big drop of rain on my face; and only a moment later--the thick mist, I suppose, being surcharged with water, and some little waft of wind in its upper region having loosened its vent-peg--I was in the thick of a dashing shower. So violent was the downpour that in less than a minute the deck was streaming, and I had only to plug with my shirt one of the scuppers amidships to have in another minute or two a little lake of fresh sweet water from which--lying on my belly, with the rain pelting down on me--I drank and drank until at last I was full. And the feel of the rain on my body was almost as good as the drinking of it, for it was deliciously cool and yet not chill.

When I got at last to my legs again, with the dryness gone from my throat and only a little pain there because of the swollen glands, I found that I walked steadily and that my head was clear too; and for the moment I was so entirely filled with water that I was not hungry at all. Presently the rain stopped, and that set me to thinking of finding some better way to keep a store of water by me than leaving it in a pool on the open deck; where, indeed, it would not stay long, but would ooze out through the scupper and be sopped up by the rotten planks.

And so, though I did not at all fancy going below on the old brig, I went down the companion-way into the cabin to search for a vessel of some sort that would be water-tight; and shivered a little as I entered that dusky place, and did not venture to move about there until my eyes got accustomed to the half darkness for fear that I should go stumbling over dead men's bones.

As it turned out, the cabin was bare enough of dead people, and of pretty much everything else; from which I inferred that in the long past time when the brig had been wrecked her crew had got safe away from her, and had been able in part to strip her before they left her alone upon the sea. What I wanted, however, they had not taken away.

In a locker I found a case made to hold six big bottles, in which the skipper had carried his private stock of liquors very likely; and two of the bottles, no doubt being empty when the cabin was cleared, had been left behind. They served my turn exactly, and I brought them on deck and filled them from my pool of rain-water--and so was safe against thirst for at least another day.

Being thus freshened by my good drink, and cheered by the certainty of having water by me, I sat down for a while on the cabin-scuttle that I might puzzle out a plan for getting to some ship so recently storm-slain that aboard of her still would be eatable food. As for rummaging in the hold of the brig, I knew that no good could come of it--she having lain there, as I judged, for a good deal more than half a century; and for the same reason I knew that I only would waste time in searching the other old wrecks about me for stores. All that was open to me was to press toward the edge of the wreck-pack, for there alone could I hope to find what I was after--and there it pretty certainly would be. But after my miserable experience of the preceding day it was plain that before I started on my hunting expedition I must hit upon some way of laying a course and holding it; or else, most likely, go rambling from wreck to wreck until I grew so weak from starvation that on one or another of them I should fall down at last and die.

Close beside me, as I sat on the hatch, was the brig's binnacle, and in it I could see the shrivelled remnant of what had been the compa.s.s-card; and the sight of this put into my head presently the thought--that might have got there sooner had my wits been sharper--to look for a compa.s.s still in working order and by means of it to steer some sort of a steady course. The argument against this plan was plain enough, and it was a strong one: that in holding as well as I could to any straight line I might only get deeper and deeper into my maze--for I was turned around completely, and while I knew that I could not be very far from the edge of my island of flotsam I had not the faintest notion in which direction that near edge lay.

For some minutes longer I sat on the hatch thinking the matter over and trying to hit on something that would open to me a better prospect of success; and all the while I had a hungry pain in my stomach that made clear thinking difficult, and that at the same time urged me to do quickly anything that gave even the least promise of getting food.

And so the upshot of the matter was that I slung my two bottles of water over my shoulders with a bit of line that I found in the brig's cabin--making the slings short, that the bottles might hang close under my arms and be pretty safe against breaking--and then away I went on my cruise after a compa.s.s still on speaking terms with the north pole.

That I would find one seemed for a good while unlikely; for I searched a score and more of wrecks, and on every one of them the binnacle either was empty or the needle entirely rusted away. But at last I came to a barque that had a newer look about her than that of the craft amidst which she was lying, and that also had her binnacle covered with a tarred canvas hood such as is used when vessels are lying in port. How the hood came to be where it was on that broken wreck was more than I could account for; but by reason of its being in place the binnacle had been well protected from the weather, and I found to my delight that the compa.s.s inside was in working trim.

It was an awkward thing to carry, being an old-fashioned big square box heavily and clumsily made; but I was so glad to get it that I was not for quarrelling with it, though it did for a little put me to a puzzle as to how I should pack it along. What I came to was to sling it on my back knapsack-fashion, which was a poor way to have it, since every time that I looked at it I had to unsling it and then to sling it again; yet there was no other way for me to manage it, because in my scrambling from one wreck to another I needs must have both hands free. But what with this big box strapped to my shoulders, and the two big bottles dangling close up under my arm-pits, I must have looked--only there was n.o.body to look at me--nothing less than a figure of fun.

As I knew not which way I ought to go, and so had all ways open to me, I laid my course for the head of the compa.s.s; and was the more disposed thus to go due north because that way, as far as I could see for the mist and the mast-tangle, the wrecks lay packed so close together that pa.s.sing from one to another would be easy for me--which was a matter to be considered in view of the load that I had to carry along.

But just as I was ready to start another notion struck me. I had noticed the modern look of the barque, as compared with the ancient build of the hulks amidst which she was lying, when I first came aboard of her; and as I was about to leave her--my eye being caught by the soundness of a bit of line made fast to a belaying-pin on her rail--the thought occurred to me that I might find on her something or other still fit to be called food. And when this thought came to me I unslung my compa.s.s and my water-bottles in a hurry--for I was as ravenous as a man well could be.

XXII

I GET SOME FOOD IN ME AND FORM A CRAZY PLAN

The sun by that time being risen so high that the mist was changing again to a golden haze, and the cabin of the barque well lighted through the skylight over it, I felt less creepy and uncomfortable as I went down the companion-way than I had felt when I went below into the old brig's dusky cabin in the early dawn. But for all that I walked gingerly, and stopped to sniff at every step that I took downward; for I could not by any means get rid of my dread of coming upon some grewsome thing. However, the air was sweet enough--the slide of the hatch being closed, but the doors open and the cabin well ventilated--and when I got to the foot of the stair I saw nothing horrible in my first sharp look around.

It was a small cabin, but comfortably fitted; and almost the first thing that caught my eye was a work-basket spilled down into a corner and some spools and a pair of rusty scissors lying on the floor, and then in another corner I saw a little chair. And the sight of these things, which told that the barque's captain had had his wife and his child along with him, gave me a heavy sorrowful feeling--for all that if death had come to this sea-family the pain of it must have been over quickly a long while back in the past.

Two of the state-room doors, both on the starboard side, were open; and both rooms were empty, save for the mouldy bedding in the bunks and in one of them a canvas bed-bag such as seamen use. The doors of the other two rooms, there being four in all, were closed, and I opened them hesitatingly; and felt a good deal easier in my mind when I found that in neither of them was what I dreaded might be there. In one of them the bunk had been left in disorder, as though some one had risen from it hurriedly, and a frock and a bonnet were hanging against the wall; but the other one seemed to have been used only as a sort of storeroom--there being in it a pair of rubber boots and a suit of oil-skins, and a locker in which were some pretty trifles in sh.e.l.l-work such as might have been picked up in a West Indian port, and a little rack of books gone mouldy with the damp. One of these books I opened, and found written on the flyleaf: "Mary Woodbridge, with Aunt Jane's love. For the coming Christmas of 1879"--and this date, though it did not settle certainly when the barque had started on the voyage that had come to so bad an ending, at least proved that she had not been lying where I found her for a very great many years.

As to how the barque had got so deep into the wreck-pack, she being so lately added to it, I could not determine; but my conjecture was that some storm had broken the pack and had driven her down into it, and then that the opening had closed again, leaving her fast a good way in its inside. But about the way of her getting there I did not much bother myself, my one strong thought being that I had a chance of finding on board of her something that I could eat; and so--being by that time pretty well satisfied that I was safe not to come upon anything horrid hid away in a dark corner of her--I went at my farther explorations with a will. Indeed, I was so desperately hungry by that time that even had I made some nasty discoveries I doubt if they would have held me back from my eager search for food.

Luckily I had not far to look before I found what I was after, the very first door that I tried--a door in the forward side of the cabin--opening into a pantry in which were stowed what had been, as I judged from the nature of them and the place where I found them, the captain's private stores. The door was not locked, and a good many empty boxes were lying around on the floor with splintered lids, as though they had been smashed open in a hurry--which looked as though the pantry had been levied on suddenly to provision the boats after the wreck occurred, and so made me hope that the captain and his wife and baby had got away from the barque alive.

But the stock of stores had been a big one, and I saw that I was safe enough against starvation if only a part of what was left still were sound--and that uncertainty I settled in no time by picking up a hatchet that was lying among the broken boxes and splitting open the first tin on which I laid my hands. The tin had beans in it, and when I cracked it open that way more than half of them went flying over the floor; and they looked so good, those blessed beans, that without stopping to smell at them critically, or otherwise to test their soundness, I fell to feeding myself out of the open tin with my hand--and never stopped until all that remained of them were in my inside. I don't suppose that they were the better for having lain there so long, but they certainly were not much the worse for it--as I proved more conclusively, having by that time taken off the sharp edge of my hunger, by eating a part of another tin of them and finding them very good indeed. After that I opened a tin of meat--but on the instant that the hatchet split into it there came bouncing out such a dreadful smell that I had to rush on deck in a hurry with it and heave it over the side.

But even without the meat my food supply was secure to me for a good while onward, there being no less than ten boxes with two dozen tins of beans in each of them--quite enough to keep life in me for more than half a year. I rummaged through the place thoroughly, but found nothing more that was fit to eat there. Some boxes of biscuit and a barrel of flour had gone musty until they fairly were rotten; and all the other things that I came across were spoiled utterly by damp and mould. As for the stores for the crew, when I went forward to have a look at them, they were spoiled too--the flour and biscuit rotten, and the pickled meat a mouldy ma.s.s of tough fibre encrusted thickly with salt.

One other thing I did find in the captain's pantry that was as good, save for the mould that coated the outside of it, as when it came aboard--and because of its excellent condition was all the more tantalizing. This was a case of plug tobacco--a bit of which shredded and filled into one of the pipes that I found with it, could I have got it lighted, would have made me for the moment almost a happy man.

But as I could think of no way of lighting it I was worse off than if I had not found it at all.

Having made my tour of inspection and taken a general inventory of my new possessions, I came on deck again and seated myself on the roof of the cabin that I might do some quiet thinking about what should be my next move; for I realized that only by a stroke of rare good fortune had I come upon this supply of food far away from, the coast of my continent, and that should I leave it and keep on the course northward that I had set for myself I very likely might starve before another such store fell in my way. And yet, on the other hand, to stay on where I was merely because I was able to keep alive there--with no outlook of hope to stay me--was but making a bid for that madness which comes of despair.

As to carrying any great quant.i.ty of food on with me, it was a sheer impossibility. The tins of beans weighed each of them more than five pounds, and a score of them would make as much of a load as I well could carry on level ground--and far more of a load than I could manage in the scramble that was before me if I decided to go on.

Indeed, I had found my two bottles of water a serious inconvenience; and yet I would have them to carry also, and the big compa.s.s too. As to water, however, since the shower of the morning. I felt less anxiety: and the event proved that my confidence in the rainfall was justified--for the showers came regularly a little after dawn, and only once or twice after that first sharp experience did I feel more than pa.s.sing pain from thirst.

I sat there on the roof of the cabin for a good part of the morning cogitating the matter; and in the end I could think of no better plan than one which promised certainly a world of hard labor, and only promised uncertainly to serve my turn. This was to stick to my project of going steadily northward--carrying with me as much food as I could stagger under--until I came again to the outer edge of the wreck--pack; but to safeguard my return to the barque, should my food give out before my journey was accomplished, by blazing my path: that is to say, by making a mark on each wreck that I crossed so that I could retrace my steps easily and without fear of losing my way. What I would gain in the end I did not try very clearly to tell myself--having only a vague feeling that in getting again to the coast of my great dead continent I would be that much the nearer to the living world once more; and having a clearer feeling that only by sticking at some sort of hard work that had a little hopefulness in it could I save myself from going mad. And I cannot but think now, looking back at it, that a touch of madness already was upon me; for no man ever set himself to a crazier undertaking than that to which I set myself then.

XXIII

HOW I STARTED ON A JOURNEY DUE NORTH

The morning was well spent by the time that I had made my mind up, and I was growing hungry again. I made a good meal on what was left in the second tin of beans that I had opened for my breakfast; and when I was done I tried to get a light for my pipe by rubbing bits of wood together, but made nothing of it at all. I had read about castaways on desert islands getting fire that way--but they went at it with dry wood, I fancy, and in my mist-sodden desert all the wood was soaked with damp.

For that afternoon I decided to go forward only as far as I could fetch it to be back on board the barque again by sunset, taking with me as many tins of beans as I could carry and leaving them where I made my turn: by which arrangement I would save the carriage of my supper and my breakfast, and would have a little store of victuals to fall back upon--when I should be fairly started on my journey--without coming all the way again to the barque.

I got the bed-bag that I had seen in the stateroom, and managed with the rusty scissors to cut it down to half its size. Into this I packed ten tins of beans, and made them snug by whipping around the bag one end of a longish line--which served when coiled as a handle for it; and, being uncoiled, enabled me to haul it up a ship's side after me, or to let it down ahead of me, or to sway it across an open s.p.a.ce between two vessels, and so go at my climbing and jumping with both hands free. As for the compa.s.s, my back was the only place for it and I put it there--where it did not bother me much, having little weight; and I stuck the hatchet to blaze my path with into a sort of a belt that I made for myself with a bit of line.

Considering what a load I was carrying, and that on every vessel which I crossed I had to stop while I blazed a mark on her, I made a good long march of it before the waning of the daylight was a sign to me that I must put about again; and my return journey was both quick and easy, for I left the whole of my load, excepting the empty bag, behind me and came back lightly along my plainly marked path. But I was tired enough when I got on board the barque again, and glad enough to eat my supper and then stretch myself out to sleep upon the cabin floor.

That night, being easy in my body--except for my wholesome weariness--and easier in my mind because it seemed to me that I was doing something for my deliverance, and being also aboard a vessel that I knew was clean and pure, I had no visions of any kind whatever, but went to sleep almost in a moment, and slept like a log, as the saying is, the whole night through. Indeed, I slept later than suited my purposes--being for rising early and making a long day's march of it--and I might have wasted still more time in drowsing lazily had I not been wakened a little before sunrise by the rattle on the cabin roof of a dashing burst of rain. I was on deck in a moment, and by stopping a scupper--as I had done the previous morning--presently had by me a far bigger supply of water than I needed; from which I got a good drink lying down to it, and filled an empty bean-tin for another drink after my breakfast, and so had my two bottles full to last me until the next day--and was pretty well satisfied by the rain's recurrence that I could count upon a shower every morning about the hour of dawn.

When I had finished my breakfast I stowed ten tins of beans in the bag and lashed four more together so that I could carry them on my shoulders--being able to manage them in that way because I had no other back-load--and so was ready to set out along my blazed path. But before leaving the barque--hoping never again to lay eyes on her--I took one more look through the cabin to make sure that I had not pa.s.sed over something that might be useful to me: and was lucky enough to find under one of the bunks a drawer--that had been hidden by the tumbled sheets hanging down over it--in which were some shirts and a suit of linen clothing that most opportunely supplied my needs. They all were badly mildewed, but sound enough, and the trousers--I had no use for the coat and waistcoat--fitted me very well. So I threw off the rags and tatters that I was wearing and put on in their place these sound garments; and then I picked up my load and was off.

Not having to stop to take bearings or to blaze my way, I made such good time that I got to the end of the course over which I had spent a good part of the previous afternoon in not much more than three hours.

I was pretty well pleased to find that I could make such brisk marching under such a load; for it showed me that even when I should get a long way from my base of supplies, that is to say from the barque, I still could return to it at no great expense of time--and the thought never entered my head that time was of no value to me, since only by what would be close upon a miracle could I hope for anything better than to find ways for killing it through all the remainder of my days.

Being thus come to my place of deposit I had to rearrange my packing--going forward with a lighter load of food that I might carry also the compa.s.s and the hatchet; and going slowly because of my constant stops to take fresh bearings and to mark my path. But that time I went straight onward until nightfall; and my heart sank a good deal within me as I found that the farther I went the more antique in model, and the more anciently sea-worn, were the wrecks which I came upon--and so I knew that I must be making my way steadily into the very depths of my maze.

Yet I could not see that I would gain anything by going back to the barque and thence taking a fresh departure. The barque, as I knew certainly from the sort of craft surrounding her, was so deeply bedded in the pack that no matter how I headed from her I should have to go far before I came again to the coast of it; and on the other hand I thought that by holding to my course northward I might work my way in no great time across the innermost huddle of ancient wrecks--for of the vast number of these I had no notion then--and so to the outer belt of wrecks new-made: on board of which I certainly should find fresh food in plenty, and from which (as I forced myself to believe) I might get away once more into the living world. And so I pushed on doggedly until the twilight changed to dusk and I could not venture farther; and then I ate my supper on board of a strange old ship, as round as a dumpling and with a high bow and a higher stern; and when I had finished settled myself for the night, being very weary, under the in-hang of her heavy bulging side.

When morning came--and a shower with it that gave me what drink I wanted and a store of water for the day--I debated for a while with myself as to whether I should go onward with my whole load, or leave a part of it in a fresh deposit to which I could return at will. The second course seemed the better to me; and, indeed, it was necessary for me to go light-loaded in order to get on at all. For I had come among ships of such strange old-fashioned build, standing at bow and stern so high out of the water, that unless they happened to be lying side by side so that I could pa.s.s from one to another amidships--which was the case but seldom--I had almost as much climbing up and down among them as though I had been a monkey mounting and descending a row of trees.

Therefore I ate as much breakfast as I could pack into myself--that being as good a way as any other of carrying food with me--and then I tore the sleeves from my shirt and stuffed them from the tins that I opened until I had two great bean sausages, which I fastened belt-fashion about my waist and so carried without any trouble at all.

Indeed, but for this new arrangement of my load I doubt if I could have gone onward; and even with it I had all that I could do to make my way. The bag with the remaining tins in it I stood away inside the cabin of the old ship--which I should have explored farther, so strange-looking was it, but for my eager desire to get on; and I felt quite sure that I would find all just as I had left it there even though I did not come back again for twenty years.