AN EXTRAORDINARY OCCURRENCE.
After the many great mercies which had been vouchsafed me, such as my
being the only one saved of all the crew of the _Laughing Mary_, my
deliverance from the dangers of an open boat, my meeting with this
schooner and discovering within her everything needful for the support
of life, I should have been guilty of the basest ingratitude had I
repined because there was no boat in the ship. Yet for all that I could
not but see it was a matter that concerned me very closely. Should the
vessel be crushed, what was to become of me? It was easy to propose to
myself the making of a raft or the like of such a fabric; but everything
was so hard frozen that, being single-handed, it was next to impossible
I should be able to put together such a contrivance as would be fit to
live in the smallest sea-way.
However, I was resolved not to make myself melancholy with these
considerations. The good fortune that had attended me so far might
accompany me to the end, and maybe I was the fitter just then to take a
hopeful view of my condition because of the cheerfulness awakened in me
by the noble show of coal in the forepeak. At twelve o'clock by the
watch in my pocket I got my dinner. I had a mind for a lighter drink
than brandy, and went to the lazarette and cut out a block of the wine
in the cask I had opened; I also knocked out the head of a tierce of
beef, designing a hearty regale for supper. You smile, perhaps, that I
should talk so much of my eating; but if on shore, amid the security of
existence there, it is the one great business of life, that is to say,
the one great business of life after love, what must it be to a poor
shipwrecked wretch like me, who had nothing else to think of but his
food?
Yet I could not help smiling when I considered how I was carrying my
drink about in my fingers. What the wine was I do not know; it looked
like claret but was somewhat sweet, and was the most generous wine I
ever tasted, spite of my having to drink it warm, for if I let the cup
out of my hand to cool, lo! when I looked it was ice!
Whilst I sat smoking my pipe it entered my head to presently turn those
two silent gentlemen in the cabin out of it. It was a task from which I
shrank, but it must be done. To be candid, I dreaded the effects of
their dismal companionship on my spirits. I had been in the schooner two
days only; I had been heartened by the plenty I had met with, a sound
night's rest, the fire, and my escape from the fate that had certainly
overtaken me had I gone away in the boat. But being of a superstitious
nature and never a lover of solitude, I easily guessed that in a few
days the weight of my loneliness would come to press very heavily upon
me, and that if I suffered those figures to keep the cabin I should find
myself lying under a kind of horror which might end in breaking down my
manhood and perhaps in unsettling my reason.
But how was I to dispose of them? I meditated this matter whilst I
smoked. First I thought I would drag them to the fissure or rent in the
ice just beyond the stern of the schooner and tumble them into it. But
even then they would still be with me, so to speak--I mean, they would
be neighbours though out of sight; and my eagerness was to get them away
from this island altogether, which was only to be done by casting them
into the sea. Why, though I did not mention the matter in its place, I
was as much haunted last night by the man on deck and the meditating
figure on the rocks as by the fellows in the cabin; and, laugh as you
may at my weakness, I do candidly own my feeling was, if I did not
contrive that the sea should carry those bodies away, I should come
before long to think of them as alive, no matter in what part of the
island I might bear them to, and at night-time start at every sound,
hear their voices in the wind, see their shapes in the darkness, and
even by day dread to step upon the cliffs.
That such fancies should possess me already shows how necessary it was I
should lose no time to provide against their growth; so I settled my
scheme thus: first I was to haul the figures as best I could on to the
deck; then, there being three, to get them over the side, and afterwards
by degrees to transport the four of them to some steep whence they would
slide of themselves into the ocean. Yet so much did I dread the
undertaking, and abhor the thought of the tedious time I foresaw it
would occupy me, that I cannot imagine any other sort of painful and
distressing work that would not have seemed actually agreeable as
compared with this.
My pipe being smoked out, I stepped into the cabin, and ascending the
ladder threw off the companion-cover and opened the doors, and then went
to the man that had his back to the steps, but my courage failed me; he
was so lifelike, there was so wild and fierce an earnestness in the
expression of his face, so inimitable a picture of horror in his
starting posture, that my hands fell to my side and I could not lay hold
of him. I will not stop to analyse my fear or ask why, since I knew that
this man was dead, he should have terrified me as surely no living man
could; I can only repeat that the prospect of touching him, and laying
him upon the deck and then dragging him up the ladder, was indescribably
fearful to me, and I turned away, shaking as if I had the ague.
But it had to be done, nevertheless; and after a great deal of reasoning
and self-reproach I seized him on a sudden, and, kicking away the bench,
let him fall to the deck. He was frozen as hard as stone and fell like
stone, and I looked to see him break, as a statue might that falls
lumpishly. His arms remaining raised put him into an attitude of
entreaty to me to leave him in peace; but I had somewhat mastered
myself, and the hurry and tumult of my spirits were a kind of hot
temper; so catching him by the collar, I dragged him to the foot of the
companion-steps, and then with infinite labour and a number of sickening
pauses hauled him up the ladder to the deck.
I let him lie and returned, weary and out of breath. He had been a very
fine man in life, of beauty too, as was to be seen in the shape of his
features and the particular elegance of his chin, despite the distortion
of his last unspeakable dismay; and with his clothes I guessed his
weight came hard upon two hundred pounds, no mean burden to haul up a
ladder.
I went to the cook-house for a dram and to rest myself, and then came
back to the cabin and looked at the other man. His posture has been
already described. He made a very burly figure in his coat, and if his
weight did not exceed the other's it was not likely to be less. Nothing
of his head was visible but the baldness on the top and the growth of
hair that ringed it, and the fluffing up of his beard about his arms in
which his face was sunk. I touched his beard with a shuddering finger,
and noted that the frost had made every hair of it as stiff as wire. It
would not do to stand idly contemplating him, for already there was
slowly creeping into me a dread of seeing his face; so I took hold of
him and swayed him from the table, and he fell upon the deck sideways,
preserving his posture, so that his face remained hidden. I dragged him
a little way, but he was so heavy and his attitude rendered him as a
burthen so surprisingly cumbrous that I was sure I could never of my own
strength haul him up the ladder. Yet neither was it tolerable that he
should be there. I thought of contriving a tackle called a whip, and
making one end fast to him and taking the other end to the little
capstan on the main deck; but on inspecting the capstan I found that the
frost had rendered it immovable, added to which there was nothing
whatever to be done with the iron-hard gear, and therefore I had to give
that plan up.
Then, thought I, if I was to put him before the fire, he might presently
thaw into some sort of suppleness, and so prove not harder than the
other to get on deck. I liked the idea, and without more ado dragged him
laboriously into the cook-room and laid him close to the furnace,
throwing in a little pile of coal to make the fire roar.
I then went on deck, and easily enough, the deck being slippery, got my
first man to where the huge fellow was that had sentinelled the vessel
when I first looked down upon her; but when I viewed the slopes, broken
into rocks, which I, though unburdened, had found hard enough to ascend,
I was perfectly certain I should never be able to transport the bodies
to the top of the cliffs, I must either let them fall into the great
split astern of the ship, or lower them over the side and leave the
hollow in which the schooner lay to be their tomb.
I paced about, not greatly noticing the cold in the little valley, and
relishing the brisk exercise, scheming to convey the bodies to the sea,
for I was passionately in earnest in wishing the four of them away; but
to no purpose. I had but my arms, and scheme as I would, I could not
make them stronger than they were. It was still blowing a fresh bright
gale from the south; the sea, as might be known by the noise of it, beat
very heavily against the cliffs of ice; and the extremity of the hollow,
where it opened to the ocean but without showing it, was again and again
veiled by a vast cloud of spray, the rain of which I could hear ringing
like volleys of shot as the wind smote it and drove it with incredible
force against the rocks past the brow of the north slope. I thought to
myself there should be power in this wind to quicken the sliding of even
so mighty a berg as this island northwards. Every day should steal it by
something, however inconsiderable, nearer to warmer regions, and no
gale, nay, no gentle swell even, but must help to crack and loosen it
into pieces. "Oh," cried I, "for the power to rupture this bed, that the
schooner might slip into the sea! Think of her running north before such
a gale as this, steadily bearing me towards a more temperate clime, and
into the road of ships!" I clenched my hands with a wild yearning in my
heart. Should I ever behold my country again? should I ever meet a
living man? The white and frozen steeps glared a bald reply; and I heard
nothing but menace in the shrill noises of the wind and the deep and
thunderous roaring of the ocean.
It was mighty comforting, however, on returning to the cabin to find it
vacant, to be freed from the scare of the sight of the two silent
figures. I drew my breath more easily and stopped to glance around. It
was the barest cabin I was ever in--uncarpeted, with no other seats than
the little benches. I looked at the crucifix, and guessed from the sight
of it that, whatever might be the vessel's nation, she had not been
sailed by Englishmen. I peeped into poor Polly's cage--if a parrot it
was--and the sight of the rich plumage carried my imagination to skies
of brass, to the mysterious green solitude of tropic forests, to islands
fringed with silver surf, in whose sunny flashing sported nude girls of
faultless forms, showing their teeth of pearl in merry laughter, winding
amorously with the blue billow, and filling the aromatic breeze with the
melody of their language of the sun. Ha! thought I, sailors see some
changes in their time; and with a hearty sigh I stepped into the
cook-room.
I started, stopped, and fell back a pace with a cry. When I had put the
figure before the fire he was in the same posture in which he had sat at
the table, that is, leaning forward with his face hid in his arms; I had
laid him on his side, with his face to the furnace, and in that attitude
you would have supposed him a man sound asleep with his arms over his
face to shield it from the heat. But now, to my unspeakable
astonishment, he lay on his back, with his arms sunk to his side and
resting on the deck, and his face upturned.
I stared at him from the door as if he was the Fiend himself. I could
scarce credit my senses, and my consternation was so great that I cannot
conceive of any man ever having laboured under a greater fright. I
faintly ejaculated 'Good God!' several times, and could hardly prevent
my legs from running away with me. You see, it was certain he must have
moved of his own accord to get upon his back. I was prepared for the
fire to thaw him into limberness, and had I found him straightened
somewhat I should not have been surprised. But there was no power in
fire to stretch him to his full length and turn him over on his back.
What living or ghostly hand had done this thing? Did spirits walk this
schooner after all? Had I missed of something more terrible than any
number of dead men in searching the vessel?
I had made a great fire and its light was strong, and there was also the
light of the lanthorn; but the furnace flames played very lively,
completely overmastering the steady illumination of the candle, and the
man's figure was all a-twitch with moving shadows, and a hundred
fantastic shades seemed to steal out of the side and bulkheads and
disappear upon my terrified gaze. Then, thought I, suppose after all
that the man should be alive, the vitality in him set flowing by the
heat? I minded myself of my own simile of the current checked by frost,
yet retaining unimpaired the principle of motion; and getting my
agitation under some small control, I approached the body on tiptoe and
held the lanthorn to its face.
He looked a man of sixty years of age; his beard was grey and very
long, and lay upon his breast like a cloud of smoke. His eyes were
closed; the brows shaggy, and the dark scar of a sword-wound ran across
his forehead from the corner of the left eye to the top of the right
brow. His nose was long and hooked, but the repose in his countenance,
backed by the vague character of the light in which I inspected him,
left his face almost expressionless. I was too much alarmed to put my
ear to his mouth to mark if he breathed, if indeed the noise of the
burning fire would have permitted me to distinguish his respiration. I
drew back from him, and put down the lanthorn and watched him. Thought
I, it will not do to believe there is anything supernatural here. I can
swear there is naught living in this ship, and am I to suppose, assuming
she is haunted, that a ghost, which I have always read and heard of as
an essence, has in its shadowy being such quality of _muscle_ as would
enable it to turn that heavy man over from his side on to his back? No,
no, thought I! depend upon it, either he is alive and may presently come
to himself, or else in some wonderful way the fire in thawing him has so
wrought in his frozen fibres as to cause him to turn.
Presently his left leg, that was slightly bent towards the furnace,
stretched itself out to its full length, and my ear caught a faint
sound, as of a weak and melancholy sigh. Gracious heaven, thought I, he
_is_ alive! and with less of terror than of profound awe, now that I saw
there was nothing of a ghostly or preternatural character in this
business, I approached and bent over him. His eyes were still shut, and
I could not hear that he breathed; there was not the faintest motion of
respiration in his breast nor stir in the hair, that was now soft, about
his mouth. Yet, so far as the light would suffer me to judge, there was
a complexion in his face such as could only come with flowing blood,
however languid its circulation, and putting this and the sigh and the
movement of the leg together, I felt convinced that the man was alive,
and forthwith fell to work, very full of awe and amazement to be sure,
to help nature that was struggling in him.
My first step was to heat some brandy, and whilst this was doing I
pulled open his coat and freed his neck, fetching a coat from the cabin
to serve as a pillow for his head. I next removed his boots and laid
bare his feet (which were encased in no less than four pairs of thick
woollen stockings, so that I thought when I came to the third pair I
should find his legs made of stockings), and after bathing his feet in
hot water, of which there was a kettleful, I rubbed them with hot brandy
as hard as I could chafe. I then dealt with his hands in the like
manner, having once been shipmate with a seaman who told me he had seen
a sailor brought to by severe rubbing of his extremities after he had
been carried below supposed to be frozen to death, and continued this
exercise till I could rub no longer. Next I opened his lips and, finding
he wanted some of his front teeth, I very easily poured a dram of brandy
into his mouth. Though I preserved my astonishment all this while, I
soon discovered myself working with enthusiasm, with a most passionate
longing indeed to recover the man, not only because it pleased me to
think of my being an instrument under God of calling a human being, so
to speak, out of his grave, but because I yearned for a companion, some
one to address, to lighten the hideous solitude of my condition and to
assist me in planning our deliverance.
I built up a great fire, and with much trouble, for he was very heavy,
disposed him in such a manner before it that the heat was reflected all
over the front of him from his head to his feet. I likewise continued to
chafe his extremities, remitting this work only to rest, and finding
that the brandy had stolen down his throat, I poured another dram in and
then another, till I think he had swallowed a pint. This went on for an
hour, during which time he never exhibited the least signs of life; but
on a sudden he sighed deep, a tremor ran through him, he sighed again
and partly raised his right hand, which fell to the deck with a blow;
his lips twitched, and a small convulsion of his face compelled the
features into the similitude of a grin that instantly faded; then he
fetched a succession of sighs and opened his eyes full upon me.
I was warm enough with my work, but when I observed him looking at me I
turned of a death-like cold, and felt the dew of an intolerable emotion
wet in the palms of my hands. There was no speculation in his stare at
first; his eyes lay as coldly upon me as those of a fish; but as life
quickened in him so his understanding awoke; he slightly knitted his
brows, and very slowly rolled his gaze off me to the furnace and so over
as much of the cook-room as was before him. He then started as if to sit
up, but fell back with a slight groan and looked at me again.
"What is this?" said he in French, in a very hollow feeble voice.
I knew enough of his language to enable me to know he spoke in French,
but that was all. I could not speak a syllable of that tongue.
"You'll be feeling better presently; you must not expect your strength
to come in a minute," said I, taking my chance of his understanding me,
and speaking that he might not think me a ghost, for I doubt not I was
as white as one; since, to be plain, the mere talking to a figure that I
had got to consider as sheerly dead as anybody in a graveyard was
alarming enough, and then again there was the sound of my own voice,
which I had not exerted in speech for ages, as it seemed to me.
He faintly nodded his head, by which I perceived he understood me, and
said very faintly in English, but with a true French accent, "This is a
hard bed, sir."
"I'll speedily mend that," said I, and at once fetched a mattress from
the cabin next mine; this I placed beside him, and dragged him on to it,
he very weakly assisting. I then brought clothes and rugs to cover him
with, and made him a high pillow, and as he lay close to the furnace he
could not have been snugger had he had a wife to tuck him up in his own
bed.
I was very much excited; my former terrors had vanished, but my awe
continued great, for I felt as if I had wrought a miracle, and I
trembled as a man would who surveys some prodigy of his own creation. It
was yet to be learnt how long he had been in this condition; but I was
perfectly sure he had formed one of the schooner's people, and as I had
guessed her to have been here for upwards of fifty years, the notion of
that man having lain torpid for half a century held me under a perpetual
spell of astonishment; but there was no more horror in me nor fright. He
followed me about with his eyes but did not offer to speak; perhaps he
could not. I put a lump of ice into the kettle, and when the water
boiled made him a pint of steaming brandy punch, which I held to his
lips in a pannikin whilst I supported his back with my knee; he supped
it slowly and painfully but with unmistakable relish, and fetched a sigh
of contentment as he lay back. But he would need something more
sustaining than brandy and water; and as I guessed his stomach, after so
prodigious a fast, would be too weak to support such solids as beef or
pork or bacon, I mused a little, turning over in my mind the contents of
the larder (as I call it), all which time he eyed me with bewilderment
growing in his face; and I then thought I could not do better than
manufacture him a broth of oatmeal, wine, bruised biscuit, and a piece
of tongue minced very small.
This did not take me long in doing, the tongue being near the furnace
and soft enough for the knife, and there was nothing to melt but the
wine. When the broth was ready I kneeled as before and fed him. He ate
greedily, and when the broth was gone looked as if he would have been
glad for more.
"Now, sir," says I, "sleep if you can;" with which he turned his head
and in a few minutes was sound asleep, breathing regularly and deeply.