The day passed, the light breeze lingered, but it brought nothing into
sight. I would think as I sent my glance along the naked, sea-swept,
desolate deck, gaunt and skeleton-like, with its ragged exhibition of
splintered plank and crushed bulwark, that had there been a mast left in
the hull I might from the summit of it be able to see the _Ruby_, whose
topmost cloths lay sunk behind the horizon to the eyes which I levelled
from the low side of the wreck. “Oh!” I would cry aloud, “if I could but
be sure that she was near me though hidden!” Maddening as the
expectation might have been which the sight of her afar would have
raised in me, yet the mere having her in view, no matter how dim,
deceptive a speck she proved, would have taken a deal of the bitterness,
the heart-subduing feeling of hopelessness out of the wild and awful
sense of desolation that possessed me.
The sun sank; with the telescope trembling in my hands I made a slow,
painful circle of the ocean whilst the western magnificence lay upon it,
and then let fall the glass and fell into the chair, and with bowed head
and tightly-folded arms, and eyes closed to mitigate by the shadowing of
the lids the anguish of the fires which despair had kindled in them--for
my heart was parched, no relief of tears came to me--I waited for the
darkness of a second night to settle down upon the wreck. But on this
day the gloom fell with the brilliance of stars, and some time after
eight the moon rose, a moist, purple shield, at whose coming the light
draught of wind died out and the ocean flattened into a breathless,
polished surface. When presently the moon had soared and whitened, the
sea looked as wide again as it was to the showering of her light,
brimming the atmosphere with a delicate silver haze; indeed there went a
shadowing round about its confines to the shaft of moonlight on the
water that made it seem hollow where the wreck lay, and it was like
floating in the vastness of the firmament that bent over it to glance
over the side of the hull and see the mirror-like breast studded with
reflections of the larger stars, and to follow the shadow of the deep,
curled at the extremities as it seemed, to the tropic astral dust that
twinkled there like dew trembling to the breath of a summer night wind.
I had brought up some blankets from below and these I made a kind of
mattress of under the shelter of the umbrella. It was about ten o’clock,
I think, when I threw myself down upon them. A pleasant breeze was then
blowing directly along the wake of moonlight, and the water was
rippling like the murmurs of a fountain against the sides of the pale,
silent, gently-rolling hull. I lay awake for a long time listening to
this cool, refreshing, tinkling sound of running ripples, with a mind
somewhat weakened by my distress. Indeed, many thoughts wearing a
complexion of delirium passed through my head with several phantasies
which must have frightened me as a menace of madness had my wits been
equal to the significance of them. For example, I can recall seeing, as
I believed, the _Ruby_ floating up towards the wreck out of the western
gloom, luminous as a snow-clad iceberg, with the soft splendor of the
moonshine on her canvas; I recollect this, I say, and that I laughed
quietly at the thought of her approach, as though I would ridicule
myself for the fears which had been upon me throughout the day; then of
jumping up in a sudden transport and passion of delight; when the vision
instantly vanished, whereupon a violent fit of trembling seized me, and
I sank down again upon the blankets groaning. But the agitation did not
linger; some fresh deception of the brain would occur and win my
attention to it.
This went on till I fell asleep. Meanwhile the breeze continued to blow
steadily, and the rippling of water along the bends was like the sound
of the falling of large raindrops.
I awoke, and turning my head towards the forepart of the wreck, I spied
the figure of a man erect and motionless on the forecastle. The moon was
low in the west; I might guess by her position that daybreak was not far
off. By her red light I saw the man. I sat erect and swept a glance
round; there was no ship near me, no smudge upon the gloom to indicate a
vessel at a distance. Father of heaven! I thought, what _is_ it? Could
yonder shadowy form be one of the three sailors who had been left on the
wreck? Surely I had closely searched the hull; there was nothing living
aboard of her but myself. The sweat-drops broke from my brow as I sat
motionless with my eyes fixed upon the figure that showed with an
inexpressible ghostliness of outline in the waning moonlight. On a
sudden there arose another figure alongside of him, seemingly out of the
hard planks of the deck; then a third; and there the three of them stood
apparently gazing intently aft at me, but without a stir in their
frames, that I could witness. Three of them!
I rose to my feet and essayed to speak, but could deliver no more than a
whisper. I tried again, and this time my voice sounded.
“In the name of God, who, and what are you?”
“Ha!” cried one of them. He said something to his companions, in words
which were unintelligible to me, then approached, followed by the
others, all three of them moving slowly, with a wavering gait, as
though giddy.
“Som drink for Christu’s sake!” said the man who had cried Ha! pointing
his finger at his mouth, and speaking in a tone that made one think of
his throat as something rough, like a file. By this time it was clear to
me they were no ghosts. I imagined them negroes, so dark their faces
looked in the dim west rays and failing starlight. Whence they had
sprung, in what manner they had arrived, I could not imagine; but it was
not for me to stand speculating about them in the face of the husky
appeal for drink.