The aspect of my affairs had now undergone a complete change for the
better. My larder was replenished with store enough to last me for ten
days, at the least; for I made a sort of resolution that my future
ration should be one rat per diem. In ten days what might I not effect?
Surely I should be able to accomplish the great feat which I ought to
have attempted at the first, but which, as ill fortune would have it, I
had hitherto considered impossible--that is, to cut my way to the deck.
A rat a day, reflected I, will not only keep me alive, but restore some
of my spent strength; and labouring constantly for ten days, I should be
almost certain to reach the topmost tier of the cargo. Perhaps in less
time? If less, all the better; but certainly in ten days I might get
through them all, even though there should be ten tiers of boxes between
me and the upper deck.
Such were the new hopes with which the successful rat-catching had
inspired me, and my mind was restored to a state of confidence and
equanimity that had long been stranger to it.
I had one apprehension that still slightly troubled me, and that was
about getting through the cask. It was not the fear of the time it
might take, for I no longer believed that I should be pinched for time;
but I was still in dread lest the fumes of the brandy (which inside the
cask were as strong as ever) might again overcome my senses, despite all
my resolution to guard against a too long exposure to them. Even when I
had entered the cask on the second occasion, it was as much as I could
do to drag myself out of it again.
I resolved, however, to steel myself against the seductions of the
potent spirit that dwelt within the great barrel, and retreat before I
felt its influence too strong to be resisted.
Notwithstanding that I was now more confident as regarded time, I had no
thought of wasting it in idleness; and as soon as my dinner was washed
down by a copious libation from the water-butt, I possessed myself once
more of my knife, and proceeded towards the empty cask, to take a new
spell at enlarging the bung-hole.
Ha! the cask was not empty. It was full of cloth. In the excitement of
trapping the "vermin," I had forgotten the circumstance of my having
placed the cloth within the empty barrel.
Of course, thought I, I must remove it again, in order to make room for
my work; and laying aside the knife, I commenced pulling out the pieces.
While thus engaged, a new reflection arose, and I asked myself some
questions, to the following effect:--
Why am I removing the cloth from the brandy-cask? Why not let it remain
there? Why try to go through the cask at all?
Certainly there was no reason why I should proceed in that direction.
There _had been_, at an earlier period--while I was only searching for
food, and not thinking of the object I now desired and hoped to
accomplish--but for my newly-conceived enterprise there was no necessity
to cut through the cask at all. On the contrary, it would be the worst
direction I could take. It did not lie in the line which would lead to
the hatchway, and that was the line in which my tunnel ought to point.
I was pretty certain as to the direction of the hatch, for I remembered
how I passed from it to the water-butt when I first came into the hold.
I had struck sharply to the right, and gone in a nearly direct line for
the end of the butt. All these little points I distinctly remembered,
and I was confident that my position was somewhere near the middle of
the ship, on the side which sailors would call the "starboard beam." To
go through the cask, therefore, would lead me too far aft of the
main-hatchway, which was that by which I had come down. Moreover, there
was still the difficulty of broaching the side of the cask--greatly
exaggerated, of course, by the dangerous atmosphere I should be
compelled to breathe while effecting it.
Why, then, should I attempt it at all? Why not return, and proceed once
more in the direction of the boxes? Circumstances were changed since I
was last there. I could now find vent for my "back-water," since the
empty cask would serve for that, in one case as well as the other.
Besides, it would be much easier to cut through the deal board than the
hard oak; and, moreover, I had made some progress in that--the right--
direction already. Therefore, considering all things--the danger as
well as the difficulty--I came to the conclusion that, by tunnelling
through the cask, I would be heading the wrong way; and, in this belief,
I turned right about, determined to take the other.
Before proceeding to the boxes, I repacked the cloth into the cask, and
added more, placing it piece by piece, with sufficient care, and
afterwards wedging it in as tightly as my strength would permit.
I was considerate, also, to return my nine rats to the bag, and draw the
string; for I suspected that I had not killed all the rats in the ship,
and I feared that the comrades of the defunct nine might take a fancy to
eat their old shipmates. This I had been told was not an uncommon habit
of the hideous brutes, and I determined to guard against it, so far as
my victims were concerned.
When these arrangements were completed, I swallowed a fresh cup of
water, and crawled once more into one of the empty boxes.