I shall spare the reader many details of this voyage of of the
_Pandora_. There were but few incidents outside the vessel itself to
break the monotony--not even one sail was seen for two weeks after
leaving the Gulf of Guinea. But there were incidents enough on board,
many horrid ones, of which I shall spare the reader the details.
One I must relate in all its particulars. It will be found to contain
horrors enough for a thousand, which I would spare the reader if
possible; but by doing so my narrative must come to a sudden
termination, since in this incident lies the continuation of my story.
Incident is hardly the name for what I am about to relate. It was more
than a mere occurrence; it was a dread and awful calamity; and in a
retrospect of the events of my life, this is the one which rises upon my
memory the saddest and darkest; indeed, at the time of its occurrence it
made upon my mind an impression so appalling, that it was a long while
before I could think of anything else. Even now, long years after the
terrible drama, I was witness of, and partly an actor in, is often
passed in review before the eye of memory; and its horrid scenes appear
to me with all the painful vividness of reality.
Listen, then! and I shall make known the nature of this dread
occurrence.
As already stated, we had been about two weeks out to sea, with a
favouring wind nearly all the time, and had arrived in mid-Atlantic--
that is, about half-way between Cape Palmas in Africa and the most
easterly point of South America--of course, therefore, we were many
hundreds of miles from either shore.
The breeze continued fair, for we were sailing under the southern
trade-wind, and everything seemed to promise a quick passage to the
coast of Brazil. I was myself gratified at our progress, for I looked
upon every day as a week of misery, and every hour a day, not only to
myself but to the poor creatures who lived only in torments, and by
these torments daily died. Not daily, but hourly, I might almost say,
were they dying; and the plunge of their bodies, as they were
unceremoniously tumbled over the side, had become of as frequent
occurrence as the ringing of the watch bells. Over the side were they
pitched in all their ghastly nakedness--just as a dead dog would have
been thrown--with not even a shot or a stone tied to them to sink their
corpses below the surface of the water. On the contrary, many of their
bodies, swollen in an unnatural manner after death, remained upon the
surface of the sea, and could be seen in our wake bobbing up and down
upon the waves that had been made by the keel of the vessel in her
passage through the water! Never for a very long period was this awful
spectacle before our eyes. Though oft repeated it was usually a short
scene, and ended in an abrupt strife among the monsters of the deep,
amid the foam and spray flung aloft by the violent strokes of their
tails, until a cloud seemed to rest over the spot, concealing the
hideous struggle underneath. Then as this cloud slowly settled away, it
could be seen that a human form was no longer there, but in its place
might be observed some mangled remains, with the sail-like fin of the
shark projected above the surface or gliding rapidly through the water.
This, at first, had been a painful spectacle to me, whilst, incredible
to relate, it afforded only amusement to the crew of the _Pandora_. But
in a short while, it had been so oft repeated that it ceased to interest
them even as a momentary diversion; and I--my heart growing, not
hardened, I hope, but only practised to bear the pain--was less every
day touched with the hideous spectacle.
I had infinite opportunities of observing the habits of those
sea-monsters, the sharks. Many of them, I have no doubt, had followed
us all the way from the African coast, for there were several with whose
aspect I had grown familiar, from having noticed them day after day.
Indeed several of them were marked by the cicatrices of old wounds,
which probably they had received in encounters with antagonists of their
own species, or in battles with some other voracious monsters of the
deep. By these scars was I enabled to distinguish more than one; and I
am certain they had followed us all the way, for I had noticed some of
the marked individuals as we sailed out of the Gulf. I had observed,
too, that there were several kinds of them, though the sailors took
little notice of the distinction, calling them all by their well-known
characteristic name of "sharks." Indeed, my own observations of them
were not very minute or scientific. I had too much upon my mind, as
well as upon my hands, to direct any thoughts beyond the boundaries of
the vessel; and it was only at intervals that I gave any attention to
the sea or its finny inhabitants. One thing I could not help observing,
and that was, that the number of the sharks had daily increased, and
kept increasing; and now, at the end of two weeks, they could be seen
around the barque in dozens--sometimes gliding across her course, and
sometimes running in the same direction, like a shoal of porpoises! At
other times they would be seen all around the vessel, looking up at her
sides as though they would leap aboard, and glaring greedily with their
eyes, like hungry dogs expecting a bone to be thrown them.
To one not accustomed to it, it would have been a fearful sight; but,
along with the rest, I had grown so used to these demonstrations that I
could look upon them without the slightest feeling of concern.
But to return to the relation of that fearful calamity I have promised
to describe.