I pulled myself up just in the nick of time, for in another second I
should have made the plunge, and that would have meant death, a horrible
death; for the splash which I should have made upon entering the water
must have inevitably attracted the attention of the monsters and brought
them upon me with a rush. It almost appeared as though some malicious
influence was at work to prevent my escape, as though fate was against
me! Yet, after all, it was not fate that was to blame, but my own
dullness in not perceiving my chance and availing myself of it the
moment that it presented itself. If instead of vacillating, as I had
done, I had promptly taken the plunge, I should have accomplished my
short swim before the sharks had made their appearance and cut off my
retreat. When I first sighted the detached fragments of wreckage the
distance which separated them from me was trifling; now it was at least
double as far, and was increasing rapidly; soon it would pass out of
sight altogether and my last hope would be gone.
I stood watching those two sharks as they swam lazily to and fro between
me and the fast receding wreckage. It really looked as though they were
aware of my presence, had divined my purpose, and were determined to
frustrate it. For what seemed at least half-an-hour, but was probably
not more than ten minutes, the voracious fish tacked this way and that,
approaching me a little nearer every tack, until at length they were so
close that I could have leapt upon the back of the nearer one, so close
that I could distinctly see their entire bulk; and the sight turned my
blood cold, for they were veritable monsters, one of them being fully
twenty feet long from snout to the tip of the unevenly fluked tail,
while the other was perhaps three feet shorter. And there was now no
room to doubt that they were fully aware of my existence, for every time
that they passed me their great goggle eyes glared at me hungrily with
an expression which seemed to say--"All right, my boy; you may hold on
there as long as you like: but we will wait for you, and get you at
last."
I began to cast about in my mind for some means by which I might drive
the creatures away. I had a knife with a long, strong, sharp blade,
attached to my neck by a lanyard, and I looked about me to see if there
was anything available which I could convert into a spear by lashing the
knife to it; but there was nothing; and I was still puzzling my brain
when suddenly the two fish paused in their patrol, swung quickly round,
and the next instant made sail dead to windward, as though they had just
caught the scent of some especially tempting morsel.
Now, if ever, was my time, I told myself; the brutes had undoubtedly
left me, there were no other sharks in sight, and every second was
precious; therefore, without allowing myself an instant for pause and
hesitation, I quietly slid off the mainmast into the water and struck
out smoothly and steadily for a certain knoll ashore, in line with which
I had last seen the floating fragments that I desired to reach.
It was still blowing quite fresh, and there was a very heavy sea
running; but it no longer broke badly, and it was in my favour, every
sea that overtook me flinging me forward at least a couple of fathoms,
so that I made excellent progress, as I ascertained when I turned for a
moment to glance back at the mass of wreckage that I had just abandoned.
I saw also that, whatever happened, I must keep on, there must be no
thought of turning back, for while the run of the sea was helping me
grandly in my progress to leeward, it was powerful enough to render
return to my late refuge an impossibility; I, therefore, set my teeth
and, with my eyes fixed upon the distant knoll which was to serve me as
a guide, struck out with a long, quiet, steady stroke that I knew from
experience I could maintain for hours on end, if need were. Of course,
I kept a very sharp lookout for the wreckage that I was aiming for, but
saw nothing of it for a long time, and more than once a qualm of
something very nearly approaching terror seized me, as the idea
suggested itself that possibly I had missed my goal, and was every
moment leaving it farther behind me. I was fast approaching a state of
panic that might very easily have resulted in fatal consequences, when
it suddenly occurred to me that, of course, it would be quite impossible
for me to see those insignificant fragments of flotsam, unless they and
I each happened to be hove up on the crest of a wave at precisely the
same moment, and the reflection so far steadied my nerves that I was
able successfully to combat the almost irresistible impulse to put forth
my whole strength in a frantic struggle to increase my speed through the
water and quickly settle the question one way or the other. My reward
came to me some ten minutes later when, as I went soaring up on the
breast of an unusually high wave, I caught a momentary glimpse of what
was undoubtedly a small piece of plank of some sort floating in the
midst of a lacework of foam on the crest of a wave immediately in line
with the knoll by which I was directing my course, and which, like
everything else at a greater distance than some fifty or sixty fathoms,
I could only see when on the summit of a wave. But the fragment of
plank still seemed to be a terribly long way off, my strength was
beginning to flag, and despair was again gripping at my heart when, as I
rose upon the next sea, I was cheered by the quite unexpected sight of a
considerable quantity of wreckage not more than a hundred fathoms
distant. The sight renewed my courage, my composure returned; I was
once more calm enough to be able to husband my remaining strength and
employ it to the best advantage; I found myself steadily gaining upon
the objects of my pursuit; and finally, after a long and dreadfully
exhausting struggle, I arrived in the midst of the wreckage.
The first thing I came to happened to be a seaman's chest, which had
undoubtedly floated up through the hatchway when the schooner foundered.
It floated deep, for in addition to being full of water it evidently
contained several articles of the usual kind which a sailor takes to sea
with him; but it had a sufficient reserve of buoyancy to afford me an
appreciable measure of support, and I clung to it while recovering my
breath and resting my wearied limbs after my long swim; it also enabled
me to look round at my leisure and make up my mind as to which of the
objects in sight would best serve my purpose. There was one of the
halves of the wheel grating floating at no great distance from me, but
it was a small, thin affair, made of oak, possessing no very great
amount of buoyancy, and, although it would undoubtedly be better than
nothing at all, I quickly came to the conclusion that there were other
pieces that would serve my purpose better. There was, for instance, a
hatch--probably one of the main hatches; and after some consideration I
decided that I could not do better than secure possession of it. But I
wanted something else as well; I could not resign myself to the idea of
merely supporting myself upon it and passively allowing the wind and sea
to take me whithersoever they would; there was land in sight, and it was
my purpose to reach it, if possible, therefore I required something in
the nature of a paddle wherewith to propel my hatch and guide it in the
right direction; and presently I saw a piece of splintered plank, about
four-feet long and six inches wide, which looked more suited to my
purpose than anything else in sight. I had by this time quite recovered
my breath, and was also somewhat rested; I, therefore, abandoned the
chest without more ado, and, swimming first to the piece of plank,
secured possession of it, and then, pushing it before me, headed for the
hatch, which I soon reached.
To climb up on the hatch was a very much more difficult feat than I had
imagined it would be, for my first efforts merely resulted in causing it
to turn over; but at length, having considered the matter a little, I
managed partly to guide it under me, and partly to climb up on it, until
I had it fairly under me, when, to my great delight, I found that it was
just buoyant enough to support my weight, and that by carefully seating
myself cross-legged, tailor fashion, in the exact centre of it, I could
keep it right side up. I next experimented with my makeshift paddle,
and although the hatch proved so terribly crank that I was several times
in imminent danger of capsizing by the mere sway of my body from side to
side, I presently acquired the trick of keeping my balance, and found,
to my great delight, that I could actually progress, although only
slowly and at the cost of great exertion.
Strangely enough, I had not thus far suffered very greatly from thirst,
although something like eighteen hours had elapsed since the last
draught had passed my lips; but my sense of hunger was by this time
painfully acute. I had no means, however, of satisfying my gnawing
craving for food, and I, therefore, addressed myself to the task of
paddling my tiny raft shoreward, fully convinced that the only hope of
saving my life lay in reaching the land before the scanty remains of my
strength became exhausted.
I estimated, from the height of the sun above the horizon, that it was
about nine o'clock in the morning when I fairly started upon my
shoreward voyage, and the exasperating slowness with which I drew away
from the rest of the wreckage caused me to put my speed through the
water at not more than a mile an hour at the utmost, while the grey
misty appearance of the land for which I was making convinced me that it
must be at least twenty miles distant; I had, therefore, something like
another twenty-four hours of continuous laborious paddling before me
before I might once more hope to feel the solid earth beneath my feet,
and find something--were it no more than a little wild fruit--wherewith
to stay my hunger. But this was not all: the skin of my hands had
become so exceedingly soft and tender through long immersion in the
water that the sharp edges of the board which I was using as a paddle
quickly caused them to blister, and although I paused long enough in my
labours to enable me to trim those sharp edges away with my knife, and
to work the board into somewhat more convenient shape, the blistering
process continued until within about an hour my palms were quite raw,
and smarting most atrociously from the salt in the water. Moreover, I
had lost my hat, and the sun struck down so fiercely upon my unprotected
head that I was soon nearly delirious with headache and the throbbing of
my old wound, received in the attack upon the pirate brigantine on the
Costa Firme. Still, headache or no headache, blisters or no blisters,
there was the land, yet a long distance off, and it had to be reached
before my strength gave out, or my life would pay the forfeit; so I set
my teeth and paddled doggedly on, hour after hour, my hunger ever
growing keener, while now I began to experience in addition the torments
of thirst, my whole body became racked with aches and pains as though I
had been unmercifully bruised and beaten, my head throbbed until it
seemed as if it would burst open, and, as for my hands, they at length
felt as though the rough paddle were white-hot iron; I had certainly
never in all my life before experienced such a complication of agonising
pains. And, despite it all, the land seemed to draw never an inch
nearer.
I think I must at length have become light-headed, for gradually a
feeling stole over me that everything--my surroundings, my situation,
and my suffering--was unreal; that I was the victim of a peculiarly
ghastly and horrible nightmare; and that I should by and by be wakened
fortunately to find that I was in my own bunk, and that the events of
the past twenty-four hours had been nothing more than an exceptionally
vivid and realistic dream. From this state I was partially aroused by
seeing a number of glittering objects start out of the sea all round me,
while at the same instant I was conscious of receiving a sharp blow on
the chest, when, on looking down into my lap, I saw a fine flying-fish
wriggling and flapping there, making a gallant but ineffectual effort to
hoist himself out of the hollow formed by my crossed legs, and return to
the water. For a second or two I stared stupidly down at the struggling
creature, and then it seemed to dawn upon my dazed faculties that here
at last was food, something that would at least mitigate for a time the
fierce pangs of my gnawing hunger, and in a very frenzy of eagerness I
clutched the unfortunate fish and bit savagely into its writhing body!
Yes, I know that the idea is inexpressibly repugnant, even revolting,
yet I solemnly declare that never in my life before had I tasted
anything so exquisitely delicious as that raw fish, never had I so
keenly enjoyed a meal. I am glad to believe that there will be very few
who can sympathise with or appreciate my enjoyment; for, reader, you
must have experienced the first agonies of starvation--which are the
worst--before you can do so. But, revolting or not, I am profoundly
convinced that I owe my life to that meal, for my senses returned to me
at once upon its completion; and although with them there also returned
a full appreciation of the acuteness of my physical discomfort, I felt
distinctly revived and reinvigorated. Moreover, with the full return of
my senses I became aware that, after all, my painful efforts had not
been nearly so ineffectual as I had imagined them to be, the land being
now appreciably nearer than it had been at daylight that morning, a few
of its bolder details being now visible.
And now once more I was sufficiently rational to take cognisance of the
flight of time. I was not at all certain of my bearings, but I felt
that the sun must certainly have crossed the meridian--that the eternity
of suffering through which I had passed could never have been compressed
into a short half-hour or so--and if I was correct in this surmise the
hour must be somewhere about three o'clock in the afternoon.
Three o'clock in the afternoon! And the land still so far away that
many further hours of toil and agony must be endured ere I might hope to
reach it! My brain reeled again at the mere prospect of it, and in a
perfect frenzy of despair I resumed my paddle, crying aloud mad,
incoherent prayers to God that He would either send me help in my
extremity, or mercifully put an immediate end to my sufferings. Then
another thought came to torment me: in something like three hours the
sun would set, darkness would encompass me about, and if the sky should
become obscured with clouds and the stars be hidden, how should I
continue to find my way? At that idea I looked about me--my mind had
been too confused, and too busily occupied with other matters to take
intelligent note of the weather during the last few hours--and I was
somewhat relieved to observe that the sky was now clear, save for a few
scattered, solemnly drifting clouds, that the weather had a tolerably
settled appearance, that the wind had moderated to quite a gentle
breeze, and that the sea had gone down very considerably and was no
longer breaking. This certainly was a point in my favour, since I was
not any longer in momentary peril of being capsized or washed off my
frail ark; but the advantage was to a certain extent counterbalanced by
the fact that the run of the sea was not materially helping me.
Wearily yet desperately I continued to ply my clumsy paddle, first on
this side and then on the other, and with alarming rapidity my
sufferings seemed to grow in acuteness until I found myself moaning and
uttering short, sharp cries of distress with every movement of my body,
ay, and with every breath I drew; for now, to add to my discomfort, I
suddenly became aware that my lungs were in some way affected, and that
the mere act of breathing seemed to tear them asunder. Yet, though my
situation appeared to be so utterly hopeless, I doggedly persevered in
my efforts, telling myself over and over again, out loud, that if I
would but hold out long enough I must, in the natural order of things,
eventually reach the shore and succour. I think it was about this time
that I finally lost control of myself, for thenceforward I was conscious
that I was continually talking to myself--in a hoarse, guttural croak,
that even now I shudder to call to mind--now arguing, now encouraging,
now reproaching myself, until at length my ideas wandered away to all
sorts of incongruous subjects; and by turns I detected myself laughing,
singing, praying, apostrophising the sun, the clouds, the distant land,
and even the spirits of my drowned companions, whom I imagined to be
crowding round me and trying to drag me off the floating hatch. I was
aware, in a vague, impersonal fashion, of the gradual decline of the sun
toward the west, of his disappearance beneath the horizon, and of the
fact that just as the outlines of the land ahead were fading into the
gathering darkness a small spark of light sprang into view somewhere in
the direction that I was steering for, and then suddenly all grew black
about me, there was a singing in my ears--and oblivion.
When consciousness returned, and I opened my eyes, I found myself
stretched upon a bed in a large and lofty room, very barely furnished,
there being nothing in the apartment save the bed upon which I lay, a
large old-fashioned wardrobe, a dressing-table, a small round table by
my bedside, and two massive carved chairs upholstered in stamped leather
which showed signs of having seen many years of service. It was night,
apparently, for the only illumination came from a large handsome lamp
that had the appearance of being wrought out of silver. One of the two
chairs in the room stood by the side of my bed, and was occupied by a
very respectable-looking negress of some forty years of age, or
thereabout, sound asleep. Two jugs, one of porcelain and one of cut
glass, stood on the table, in company with a large tumbler and a cup
with a spoon in it. The glass jug was three-parts full of lemonade, if
my eyes did not deceive me, and the sight of it suddenly caused me to
become acutely conscious of the fact that I was athirst. Had the
negress been awake I would have asked her to give me a drink, but seeing
that she was sleeping the sleep of the just I decided to help myself,
and with that intent essayed to raise myself in bed. But I might as
well have attempted to lift the house itself, for when I came to move I
discerned, to my consternation, that I was so weak I could scarcely stir
hand or foot, much less raise my entire body. In my alarm and distress
I unwittingly gave vent to a feeble groan, which, faint as it was,
proved sufficient to arouse my attendant, who stirred in her chair,
adjusted her turban, and then, rising to her feet, leaned over the bed
and peered down into my face. For some seconds she stood thus, when--
her eyes having adjusted themselves to the rather dim light of the
lamp--she perceived that I was awake.
"Ah!" she murmured, in a half whisper, in Spanish, "the Senor is at
length himself again, thanks be to all the blessed saints! And how are
you feeling, Senor?"
"Very thirsty," I replied, in the same language, which I spoke fairly
well, and to my amazement, though I had intended to speak out loud, my
voice was no more than a scarcely audible whisper, which the negress had
to bend her head to catch.
"_Bueno_!" she ejaculated, with every evidence of keen satisfaction;
"the Senor is thirsty--and he has the Spanish. He shall drink, and
then,"--she laid her hand upon my forehead, and I now discovered, to my
further astonishment, that my head was swathed in bandages--"yes, then
the medicine, and more sleep."
So saying, she filled the big tumbler with lemonade--how delicious it
looked with the thin shreds of lemon and the leaves of mint floating on
its surface!--passed her arm very gently beneath my shoulders, raised me
to a semi-sitting posture, and applied the tumbler to my lips.
Oh! how good, how delicious, how refreshing was that long, cool draught;
how grateful to the parched palate its exquisite acidity of flavour!
You talk of nectar; but my belief at that moment was that nectar was
merely lemonade under another name! I smacked my lips audibly as I
gasped for breath after emptying the tumbler, and my sable friend smiled
with satisfaction. Then, still holding me, she poured about a
wine-glassful of very dark-brown--almost black--liquid from the
porcelain jug into the cup and presented it to me. This, too, I drank,
for I was still thirsty; but the "medicine" was by no means so palatable
as the lemonade, being of an exceedingly pungent, bitter taste, and I am
afraid I made a rather wry face as the negress removed the cup from my
lips.
"Ah!" she murmured smilingly, "the Senor does not like that so well as
the lemonade, but it is nevertheless the better drink of the two, for it
will kill the fever in his blood and give him back his strength, while
the lemonade merely refreshes."
Then, as she gently laid me back on my pillow, and adjusted the sheet--
my only covering--about my throat, she continued: "Now the Senor must
sleep; and when he awakes Mama Elisa will have some nice nourishing
broth ready for him--very good, ah! very good indeed, to make him strong
again."
Whether it was the comfort and refreshment that followed the slaking of
my thirst, the effect of the medicine which my kind-hearted nurse had
administered, or the cooling night breeze that swept in through the open
window and played freely over me, I cannot say,--possibly it might have
been a combination of the three,--but, whatever the cause, true it is
that my head was scarcely back on the pillow before I sank into a
profound and most refreshing sleep, refreshing both to mind and body;
for during the hours of unconsciousness that followed my brain remained
absolutely quiescent, and I was no longer disturbed or harassed by the
vague yet terrifying phantasies, dim memories of which had haunted me
during the few minutes of my wakefulness.
When I next opened my eyes the room in which I lay was flooded with
brilliant sunshine, that streamed in through a large open window in the
wall that faced me, and which also freely admitted an indescribably
refreshing breeze, richly laden with the mingled perfumes of a tropical
garden. A spray of rose bush, laden with magnificent crimson blooms,
swished to and fro before the window, swayed by the breeze, and wafted
dashes of its scent-laden breath toward me; and beyond it there
stretched a vista of flowering shrubs, orange and banana trees, the
straight smooth stems of palms, part of the gigantic trunk of a
silk-cotton tree springing from a smooth sward of guinea grass; and
beyond it again a thicket of bamboo, the delicate feathery foliage of
which closed the view. Splendid butterflies flitted hither and thither,
a few humming-birds, poised upon their swiftly-fanning wings, hung over
the flowering plants, like living gems, sipping the nectar of the
blooms; and occasionally a brilliant green lizard would dart along the
broad window-sill in chase of a fly.
For several minutes I lay quite motionless, lost in admiration of the
beauty of the picture upon which my eyes rested, and inhaling long
breaths of the perfumed air that played about me; then a swiftly awaking
consciousness that I was distinctly hungry caused me to turn my head
toward the chair which Mama Elisa had occupied when I fell asleep. The
chair was still occupied, not by Mama Elisa, however, but by a quadroon
girl of about seventeen years of age, clad in the usual garb of the
coloured women, namely, a sort of loose chemise of white cotton, and a
petticoat, printed in a kind of Paisley pattern, which reached to a
little below her knees. Her long black hair hung in two thick plaits
down far below her waist; she wore massive gold earrings in her small
shapely ears; a necklace of big amber beads encircled her
finely-modelled neck, and her otherwise bare feet were shod in low-cut
crimson morocco slippers. When I first glimpsed her she was leaning
back in a chair, idly waving a palm-leaf fan, while her fine dark eyes
gazed abstractedly, and with a somewhat sad expression, methought, upon
the brilliant picture presented by the open window; but as I stared she
started to her feet and bent over me, gazing intently into my eyes; then
she laid her soft, shapely hand for a moment upon my brow, withdrew it
again, and murmured, in pure, rich Castilian:
"The Senor is better. He has slept long and well. His skin is cool;
the fever has gone. And he is hungry; is it not so?"