night sky. Above it a great comber roared and foamed down upon him as
the top of the sea broke and fell downward along the slope. He was in
the sea and the water was warm, warmer than the air had been when on
deck. He had on his rubber boots and oilskins, and he wondered why he
still floated. He had heard that men with boots on sank at once. He
remembered this distinctly and he struck out strongly as the foaming
crest of the comber swept over him and smothered him down into the
blackness beneath. He kept struggling and his head came out into the
night again. The wind swept over his face, driving the foam and spume
so that he could not see or breathe, but he knew he was still upon the
surface of the sea. He turned his back toward it and managed to get a
little breath. Then, half blinded and strangling with the brine, he
struck out again.
It suddenly occurred to him that the steamer would stop and try to
pick up the wrecked crew, but then he knew it would be impossible to
lower a boat that night, and the masters of liners seldom stopped for
anything. Transatlantic express steamers hardly ever stopped in good
weather for a man overboard in daylight. Never unless they could see
him distinctly upon the surface. If those upon the steamer could not
see a four-masted schooner under storm canvas with her lights burning
brightly, they would hardly hope to see a floating man who could not be
seen ten fathoms distant by the sharpest eyes in that wind and sea. He
tried to raise himself to see if the hull of the vessel was still in
view, or if she were burning lights, but not even a Coston flare was
visible. There was nothing save the desolate storm-lashed sea.
He had kicked off his rubber boots in a few moments, as they were
dragging him down, and being a powerful man he struggled steadily to
rid himself of his oilskins. Death had not made his appearance yet.
He could not come upon a strong man so quickly while that man had his
powers still left him to fight with. The very thought of the ending
made him exert more power and a sudden realization of his position
caused him to tear off his coat in a frantic effort. The faces of those
he had left at home came before his half-blinded vision. He knew he was
facing almost certain death, and that it would come quickly if no one
picked him up. He was apparently alone in the middle of the Atlantic
Ocean, and the steamer had kept on her course after completing the
destruction of his ship. The rest of his crew must also have gone
overboard. There were twenty-five souls all told, and he cursed the
men of the steamer who had caused their sudden end. It had been vile
carelessness. It had been more than brutal disregard for life. Their
callousness amazed him, and he had been to sea many years and knew its
heartlessness.
What would his family do without him? He could see their amazed and
terrified looks when the news would be brought to them. His poor wife
who adored him and whose only thought had been for him and the little
ones. No, he could not die. No, no, by God, he would not die. He shook
the water from his face and dashed it out of his eyes with his hand,
and raised his head again for a look. The snoring roar of a comber
sounded near, but even as he noted it he thought he heard the surging
wash of something floating heavily in the sea. He knew there might be
pieces of wreck about him. It was a chance and he flung himself high
out of the water to see. The next instant the bursting wave fell over
him and bore him down again into the blackness below. It seemed a long
time it held him down, and he was exhausted when he got his head out
again and drew in a mixture of water and air. A few more heavy seas
and he would be very weak. The knowledge of it caused a terror within
him. His heart began to beat rapidly. The end was really approaching in
spite of his struggles. He was beginning to realize it, to realize that
death could win after all.
But the thought of those ashore still steadied him. He must do his
utmost. Had he been alone in the world the futility of his exertions
would have been instantly apparent. He would have made a slight,
ordinary effort, the effort of the animal who instinctively fears
death, but his reason would have quickly told him that the sooner he
went under the better it would be for him. He would have died like the
twenty-five souls who had been in his care half an hour before. But he,
no, he could not go, he would swim on, and on, and on.
He had been in the water half an hour now and he saw nothing but the
house where his family lived. The sun was shining bright and the grass
was green near the front gate. His wife stood upon the front steps and
smiled at him. He reached toward her, but she seemed to recede and
smile at him, leading him on, and on, and on.
He was still swimming but did not know it. His breath had gone to
little choking gasps which hardly reached his half-filled lungs. His
jaws were working spasmodically, clinching under the strain and opening
to gasp out the briny mixture which he was forced to breathe. But
always before his vision, before his blinded eyes, was that picture of
his home. The whirling, choking blackness around him seemed to close
in upon him. He stopped time and again to drive the drowning spray and
spume from his face. He was drowning. The wind and sea were too heavy
for a man to face for any length of time. The great combing crests of
the seas swept over him, and it was only by that dogged, persistent
effort to reach the vision before him that he managed to keep himself
upon the surface after the smothering foam held him under. Once he
seemed to realize his hopeless surroundings and raised himself out to
the shoulders to try to see. He happened to be upon the lee slope of a
hill of water and he got a momentary glimpse of the turmoil about him.
All around was the gloom of the night, lit here and there by the white
flashes of foam. It dawned upon his fading senses that he had reached
the limit, he was going under, there was no hope.
Like the lamp that flares up before it dies, the flame of his life rose
again in one more desperate resolve. He would keep on fighting, he
would not go.
The pitiful futility of his struggle roused his expiring senses to a
strange fury. He struck out fiercely, driving himself ahead before the
wind and raising himself with each stroke. He sank into the hollow of
a great sea, the slopes on either hand raised high above him and he
was in a sheltered spot for a second. The surging wash of some heavy
floating thing again came to his half-filled ears, and as he rose upon
the crest he made a mighty effort. He raised himself and shook the
water from his face. Right alongside of him lay a black object outlined
by a white fringe of foam which now and then showed phosphorescent
flares. He had been swimming now for more than fifty minutes.
With failing brain and cramping muscles he strove for it, swimming,
striking, reaching, the last expiring effort of a dying man who dies
hard in the full powers of his manhood. His headway through the water
was almost nothing. He was not a good swimmer. Few sailors can swim
at all. A sea hurled him close to the object, and another swept him
clear out of sight of it. Then one drove him against it heavily and he
clutched frantically for a hand-hold.
When he set his fingers upon an edge about three feet above the
surface he hung and rested. His senses were failing and he fought
instinctively. Something within him seemed to tell him that he must
get upon that object, that he must get clear of the water about him,
and he rested before making the effort which must decide his fate. It
was a high lift for an exhausted man and he set his strength slowly
and persistently, hauling steadily with all his remaining energy. He
managed to get his face level with the edge, but here he stopped. His
head wobbled weakly with the surge of the sea. His eyes were closed and
his jaws set. The sunshine seemed to play upon the green grass before
him and the form of his wife stood beckoning. He sank an inch lower. A
sea washed over him and he was slipping slowly back as it went past.
He gave a choking cry, a strangling groan of despair and slipped down
again into the sea just as a hand reached over the edge and closed upon
his shirt collar.
The sun was shining and the wind-swept sea presented a beautiful
aspect the following morning. The water broke over the lower edge
of the deck-house upon which he lay, but only reached to his feet,
foaming down the slant until it made a whirlpool in a mass of line
which floated in a tangle. A line about his waist was made fast to a
ring-bolt near him, and sitting alongside of him, with his head thrust
forward peering out over the sea, was Garfunkle, his second mate.
An exclamation and their eyes met. Johnson raised himself to a sitting
posture, though the pain in his cramped limbs made him groan.
"The forrad house, eh?" he said.
"Yessir," said the mate.
"You saved me?"
"Yessir, I just heard your call in time. You were done for, but were
right within a foot of me. It was dark."
"No one else but us two?" asked the captain.
"All gone, sir, and it looks like we are going. There won't be another
ship this way in a week. That was the West India liner, _Hammersea_,
from Kingston to Liverpool, who ran us down. I saw the name on one of
her boats that was torn off her. It was smashed up and floating close
aboard us an hour ago."
"To run a man down is carelessness, but to leave him afterwards is
murder," said Johnson with bitterness.
They were about six hundred miles from the Bahamas and to the eastward
of the Stream. The water was warm and blue and the sea was going down.
The easterly weather was dying out and the semi-tropical warmth was
taking its place. Near them several dark objects showed now and again
upon the slopes of the seas, and they knew they must be débris from the
sunken ship.
Johnson had probably not swam over twenty fathoms in the whole
desperate endeavour he had made the night before. The darkness had
prevented him from making any definite course and he had swum with the
drift of the house. Garfunkle had been swept overboard with the wreck
of the mainmast; the stem of the steamer had torn its way through the
forward house, knocking it overboard. It was the only thing that had
floated clear, for the spars were all stayed with steel rigging and the
lanyards of the lee rigging had held against the shock although the
mainmast had been driven out of her. The great spar had been dragged
down with the sinking ship, but the house had floated clear and was
resting upon its side. In the open doorway they could see clothes and
sea-chests which had remained in the forecastle and which had not been
washed out with the force of the sea.
They were weak and exhausted from the night of effort, but they went to
work at a chest and dragged it through the door and upon the slanting
side of the house. It sent the float down a good foot in the sea, but
they persisted in the hope of finding something of value. The chest was
almost empty. It contained a few clothes, a Bible and a large revolver,
the cartridges still intact within the chambers. Johnson stuck the
weapon in his waist-band, and his mate placed the Bible and clothes
clear of the sea. Then he kicked the chest adrift. It floated off,
setting high upon the water and looking absurdly out of place.
"Nothing to eat--nothing to drink--looks pretty bad," said Garfunkle.
Johnson made no comment. He was grateful that he was still alive, and
being a sailor he felt that it was a long way between that floating
deck-house and drowning. He would get ashore again soon enough, and
would not let his wife or children know how near he had come to
passing. It would be simply a money loss. He had owned several shares
in the schooner, and she had been a fine ship, paying twenty per cent.,
but he would get another and go on as before. If he ever caught up with
the pilot of that steamer, he would see that the fellow gave an account
of himself. His cargo had been insured fully, and the underwriters
would make things hot for the rascal who had so ruthlessly run him down.
The first day passed without incident of importance. The pangs of
hunger were beginning to be felt keenly by both men upon the float.
Johnson was cheerful but Garfunkle was pessimistic and grumbled
continually. He stood up every now and then to scan the horizon, but
nothing broke the evenness of the dark blue rim.
The second day it was hot and calm. Both men took off their clothes and
cooled themselves in the sea until a huge shadow rising alongside made
them hasten up the slanting side of their float. A great tiger shark
rose at the edge of the house, and taking a shove, sent his broad nose
up the slanting side until it almost touched their feet. Then he slid
back again into the sea and swam slowly around the house, coming back
again to the side that sloped into the water for another effort to get
his prey. The men were more amused than frightened at his attempts.
Garfunkle stripped a plank off the edge where it had been shattered,
and at the monster's third effort he drove the ragged sharpened point
deep into its eye. He floundered back into the sea and remained
motionless some ten fathoms distant upon the surface. A smaller denizen
of the same species came up and tried the same method, but he was
rapped sharply over the head and he kept away. But as the darkness came
on, the men realized that they must not relax their vigilance, for the
hungry fish made other attempts to get them.
The morning of the third day Garfunkle was delirious. He raved about
water and stood up oftener to scan the sea. Johnson was very weak,
but kept his senses. He noticed a floating object near at hand and
soon made out the sunken small boat torn from the steamer's side. As
the morning wore on it drifted nearer and finally came alongside. He
grasped the painter and managed to get the mate to give him a hand.
Together they managed to drag the boat's bow up the slope of the float,
and they saw that the plank at the stem just below the water-line had
been smashed in. Weakened as he was, Johnson determined to patch it
and accordingly set to work. By placing a piece of the house planking
on the outside and lashing it fast with the line, he managed to get
the leak stopped sufficiently to allow the bailing of the craft. Then
by getting into the stern, they kept the leak clear of the sea and
the boat was safe enough. Searching through the locker aft, where
the food for emergency was kept, they came upon the case of biscuit,
water-soaked, to be sure, but still in partly solid shape. They ate
some and felt better for a time, but their thirst was aggravated. The
small water-breaker usually kept in lifeboats was missing. Under the
thwarts was a sail, and one oar was still fast in her bottom. Johnson
cut the lashings and drew the gear out. It would be of service to them
for a rudder.
The hunger pains had died away by the fourth day, but their thirst was
terrible. A man may go for days upon water alone, but without it he can
last only a short time under a warm sun. By keeping their bodies wet
they eased themselves a little, but not much. The absorption through
the skin was insufficient to do them much good. Time and again, they
seemed to see a ship bearing down upon them and one or the other would
cry out, but after a while they desisted. The sea was a heaving plain
as far as the sight could reach, unbroken by a single object. The deep
blue turned to a deeper steel-gray nearer the horizon in the calm,
meeting the almost cloudless sky in a haze. There was no wind, but
they must get away. To remain any longer on the house was to invite a
terrible death. It might be the same thing in the boat, but they would
at least feel that they were going somewhere, getting nearer to help
and water.
It was water, always water. The liquid around them made the madness of
thirst double. They had gazed down into the clear depths for hours,
seeing visions of streams of fresh water, craving to plunge into them,
the burning and all-consuming thirst in their throats waxing more and
more intense. They had no longer any idea of hunger. The ship's bread
they left untouched, for it was wet with salt water and the slightest
bit of that liquid made them frantic. They could have just as well
drunk pure alcohol.
Garfunkle was for starting off at once. He had become rational again,
but his eyes held a certain light when they met the captain's that
told of the madness in his brain. He always lowered them when Johnson
looked at him, but he spoke always in a low, soft voice now, a sort of
purring, and Johnson knew it was the purring of the famished tiger.
Garfunkle was a big man and very powerful. He had risen to mate's berth
as much by his physical abilities as mental. He was stripped to the
waist, and his body, which he had kept wet, was burned to a bright
red by the sun. The patch of hair on his broad chest showed in marked
contrast to the surrounding skin. Johnson had kept his shirt on his
back and saved himself the extra annoyance of the sun. He preferred to
shiver a bit at night than to burn during the daytime.
When they had stepped the mast and made all ready for a start, they
noticed some small fish swimming close to the edge of the float.
The dorsal fin of a large shark lay twenty fathoms distant upon the
surface of the sea, and they wondered at the carelessness of the fish
who ignored it. They seemed quite tame, and Johnson took the piece
of wood they had used to keep off the sharks, whittled the end into
a fresh point and lay at full length upon the house, his idea being
to spear a few of the small fry and take them along for food. He was
quite weak and his brain was dizzy. The exertion of mending the boat
was exhausting and he made many ineffectual attempts to strike the fish
without looking up.
Suddenly he was aware of a feeling of danger. He turned and saw
Garfunkle stealthily coming upon him with the upraised oar. There was
a wild look in the mate's eyes, but he grinned when Johnson turned
and began a soft speech, half incoherent. Johnson was lying down, but
managed to draw the pistol he had kept in his belt. The mate smiled,
put the oar back into the boat and suddenly shoved her clear of the
house, springing into her and sitting down upon a thwart.
Johnson looked at him, dazed, half understanding, his brain reeling in
the sunshine.
"Come back," he said calmly.
Garfunkle grinned at him and grasped the sheet, hauled it aft and put
the oar over the stern for a rudder. There was no wind and the boat
remained motionless. The mate began to scull away slowly.
"Come back," said Johnson in a low tone.
The mate turned his back upon him and as the boat's head payed off,
kept her on her course to the westward.
"Come back," said Johnson again.
The boat drew slowly off. She was ten fathoms before Johnson realized
that he was being deserted. Garfunkle sculled her slowly, the sail
slatting with the roll of the sea.
Johnson still held the revolver. It came upon him suddenly that he was
being left, that he was lost. The vision of the home ashore flashed
before him, the green grass and white cottage, with his smiling wife
and romping children. He was being left to die.
He drew the hammer of the revolver back and raised the weapon, letting
the front sight stop full upon the middle of Garfunkle's back between
the shoulders. He hesitated, and as he did so he remembered that the
man had saved his life but a few days before. He would have drowned
but for the rescuing grip which hauled him upon the house. He let the
weapon sink until its muzzle touched the planks, and he put his left
hand to his head to try to help his reeling brain to reason properly.
No, he could not die. The vision of the home ashore came stronger to
him. It was not for himself alone that he would live, but live he must,
and would.
The sights of the pistol settled again upon the back of his mate. He
was twenty fathoms distant and drifting slowly away. Johnson pressed
the trigger.
The report jarred him. The puff of smoke disappeared at once into the
air, and he saw Garfunkle look around and grin. Then the mate stood up,
reeled, staggered, and plunged headlong overboard. He saw him no more.
Without waiting an instant Johnson swam toward the craft and managed to
gain her. He had forgotten about the sharks, but nothing struck him. He
took the oar the mate had dropped in the water alongside, and after he
climbed aboard he trimmed the sheet and settled himself in the stern,
making the oar fast in a becket. If he let go of it now he would not
lose it. The sun was in the west and he headed away, steering as near
as he could guess for the Bahamas.
The wrecking sloop _Sea-Horse_ was coming along up the coast and the
captain, Sanders, of Key West, noticed something floating upon the
broad stretch of sea which looked like a small white boat. Boats were
not met with so far off shore, and the object sat so low in the water
and appeared without control that the skipper of the wrecker called his
mate.
"What d'ye make of that, Bill?" said he, pointing to the white speck.
Bahama Bill, the huge negro diver and wrecker, looked long and intently
at it.
"'Pears to me like it was er wrack, cap--what? Looks to be a stove-in
boat, an' I reckon we might as well pick her up--maybe we kin fix her
to be ob use wid a little paint and putty. Ennyways, we kin sell her to
some dub in Miami en clar enough fo' de trouble--what yo' say, cap?"
"Oh, let her head up to it if you want to," said Sanders. "I don't like
running out of my line when I'm in a hurry, but if you want her, get
her. I reckon we might pass her off for a few dollars--stand by the
main sheet."
"Ship's boat--yassir, dat's a ship's boat fo' shuah, cap," said the
giant mate as the wrecking vessel drew nearer. "Must be some ob de
wrack hereabouts--we better lay by en take a look eround, yassir."
"Let her luff a little," called Sanders to the man at the wheel.
"Steady--so, let her go, jest so--steady--Good God! What--There's a man
in her--"
"Stand by de jib sheet," roared Bahama Bill. "Yo' kin let her come to
when yo' ready, sah--I'll stand by toe ketch him, sah."
The huge mate leaned far over the side of the _Sea-Horse_ and with a
mighty grip seized the floating small craft by the gunwale. She was
half full of water, but he sprang into her and passed up her painter
to a man on deck while the wrecking sloop plunged and bucked into the
sea, her sails slatting and switching as she lay right in the wind.
In a moment the mate had lifted the body and passed it aboard and the
half-sunken small boat was dropped astern.
They poured water between his sun-baked lips and upon his swollen,
livid tongue. In a few hours the corpse showed signs of life, but
the blue-black face was motionless for days, and they had reached
Jacksonville before the man's features relaxed enough for him to
speak. He could not make himself understood, and it was three weeks
later, when he was able to sit up in the cot at the seaman's hospital,
before he could tell of his affair.
He was discharged as cured and went to his home. He had heard nothing
from his wife and supposed she had heard nothing concerning him. When
he entered the gate he noticed that all was silent about the place. A
neighbour accosted him and asked who he was, but he was put out at the
delay and refused to tell his business. Then the man told him how the
news had come in that he had gone down in his ship nearly a month ago
and that his wife had failed and died within a week.
He listened silently, and when the man finished he went into the house.
They found him dead that evening with a bullet-hole between the eyes.
"Crazy with grief," said the neighbours who knew his home life. The
doctor who examined him thought differently.
"There is absolutely nothing abnormal about him," said the physician.
"He looks like a man who has gotten tired out--clean exhausted with the
futility of some great effort--look at his face."
X
On the Great Bahama Bank
Stormalong Journegan was a Conch, a native of the Bahamas. He stood six
feet four inches upon his thin spindle-shanks, and it is doubtful if he
ever weighed more than one hundred pounds; no, not even when soaking
wet. He was thin.
He lit up for the night, wiped the bar free from the gin and bitters
spilled there by a drunken customer, and then turned to survey his
room, waiting for the whistle of the liner. It was the night the ship
was due, the giant New York mail liner, ten thousand tons and not less
than three hundred passengers. All of these would be thirsty, for the
weather is always warm in Key West in the early spring.