were packed so closely that the wonder was that my hulk moved through
it at all. Of wind there was not a particle; indeed, as I found later,
under that soft golden haze was a dead calm that very rarely in those
still latitudes was ruffled by even the faintest breeze. Only a weak
swirl of current from the far-off Gulf Stream pushed my hulk onward;
and this, I suppose, was helped a little by that attraction of
floating bodies for each other which brings chips and leaves together
on the surface of even the stillest pool. But a snail goes faster than
I was going; and it was only at the end of a full hour of watching
that I could see--yet even then could not be quite certain about it--that
my position a very little had changed.
Save that now and then I went below and got some solid food into me--and
as I was careful to eat but little at a time I got the good of it--I sat
there on the deck all day long gazing; and by nightfall my hulk had gone
forward by perhaps as much as a hundred yards. But my motion was a steady
and direct one, and I saw that if it continued it would end by laying me
aboard of a big steamer--having the look of being a cargo-boat--that stood
out a little from the others and evidently herself had not long been a
part of that broken company. She was less of a wreck, in one way, than
my own hulk; for she floated on an even keel and so high out of the
water as to show that she had no leak in her; but her masts had been
swept clean away and even her funnel and her bridge were gone--as though
a sharp-edged sea had sliced like a razor over her and shaved her decks
clean.
Immediately beyond this steamer lay a big wooden ship evidently
waterlogged; for she lay so low that the whole of her hull, save a bit of
her stern, was hidden from me by the steamer, and the most of her that
showed was her broken masts. And beyond her again was a jam of wrecks so
confused that I could not make out clearly any one of them from the rest.
Taken all together, they made a sort of promontory that jutted out from
what I may call the main-land of wreckage; and to the right and left of
the promontory there went off in long receding lines the coast of that
country of despair.
At last the sun sunk away to the horizon, and as it fell off westward pink
tones began to show in the clouds there and then to be reflected in the
haze; and these tones grew warmer and deeper until I saw just such another
blood-red sunset as I had seen in what I had fancied was my dream. And
under the crimson haze lay the dead wrecks, looming large in it, with
gleams of crimson light striking here and there on spars and masts and
giving them the look of being on fire. And then the light faded slowly,
through shades of purple and soft pink and warm gray, until at last the
blessed darkness came and shut off everything from my tired eyes.
Indeed, I was glad when the darkness fell; for as I sat there looking and
looking and feeling the bitter hopelessness of it all, I was well on my
way to going crazy with sorrow. But somehow, not seeing any longer the
ruin which was so near to me, and of which I knew myself to be a part, it
seemed less real to me--and so less dreadful. And being thus eased a
little I realized that I was hungry again, and that commonplace natural
feeling did me good too.
I went below to the pantry, striking a match to see my way by; and when
I had lighted the big lamp that was hanging there--the glass chimney of
which, in some wonderful way, had pulled through the crash which had sent
the mizzen-mast flying--the place seemed so cheerful that my desire for
supper increased prodigiously, and tended still farther to down my
sorrowful thoughts. I even had a notion of trying to light a fire in
the galley and cooking over it some of the beef or mutton that I had
found in the cold-room; but I gave that up, just then, because I
really was too hungry to wait until I could carry through so large
a plan.
But there was a plenty of good food in tins easily to be got at; and
what was still better I felt quite strong enough to eat a lot of it
without hurting myself. I even went at my meal a little daintily,
spreading a napkin--that I got from a locker filled with table
linen--on the pantry dresser, and setting out on it a tin of chicken
and a bunch of cheese and some bread which was pretty stale and hard
and a pot of jam to end off with; and from the wine-room I brought a
bottle of good Bordeaux.
As I ate my supper, greatly relishing it, the oddness of what I was
doing did not occur to me; but often since I have thought how strange
was that meal of mine--in that brightly lighted cosey little room,
and myself really cheerful over it--in its contrast with the utterly
desperate strait in which I was. And I think that the contrast was
still sharper, my supper being ended, when I fetched a steamer-chair
that I had noticed lying on the floor of the cabin and settled myself
in it easily--facing toward the stern, so that the slope of the deck
only made the slope of the chair still easier--and so sat there in the
brightness smoking a very good cigar.
And after a while--what with my comfort of body, and the good meal
in my stomach, and the good wine there too--a soothing drowsiness
stole over me, and I had the feeling that in another moment or two I
should fall away into a delicious doze. And then, all of a sudden, I
was roused wide awake again by hearing faintly, but quite distinctly,
a long and piercingly shrill cry.
I fairly jumped from my chair, so greatly was I startled; and for a
good while I stood quite still, drawing my breath softly, in waiting
wonder for that strange cry to come again. But it did not come
again--and as the silence continued I fell to doubting if I had not
been asleep, and that this sound which had seemed so real to me had
not been only a part of a dream.
XIV
OF MY MEETING WITH A MURDERED MAN
Robinson Crusoe's footprint in the sand did not startle him more than
that strange lonely cry startled me. Indeed, as between the two of us,
I had rather the worse of it: for Crusoe, at least, knew that he was
dealing with a reality, while I could not be certain that I was not
dealing with a bit of a dream in which there was no reality at all.
For a long while I sat there puzzling over it--half hoping that I
might hear it again, and so be sure of it; and half hoping that I
might not hear it, because of the thrilling tone in it which had
filled me with a sharp alarm. I was so shaken that I had not the
courage to go off to my berth in the cabin, with only a candle to
light me there, but stayed on in the little room that the lamp lighted
so brightly that there were no dark corners for my fancy to people
with things horrible; and so, at last, still scared and puzzled, I
went off to sleep in my chair.
When I woke again the lamp had burned out and had filled the place
with a vile smell of lamp-smoke that set me to sneezing. But I did
not mind that much; for daylight had come, and my nerves were both
quieted by sleep and steadied by that confident courage which most men
feel--no matter how tight a fix they may be in--when they have the
backing of the sun.
My first thought was to get on deck and have a look about me; the
feeling being strong in my mind that on one or another of the near-by
wrecks I should find the man who had uttered that thrilling cry, and
would find him in some trouble that I might be able to help him out
of. But my second thought, and it was the wiser, was to eat first of
all a good breakfast and so get strength in me that would make me
ready to face whatever might come along--for a vague dread hung by me
that I was in the way of danger, and whatever it might be I knew that
I could the better stand up against it after a hearty meal. Therefore
I got out another tin of meat and ate the whole of it, and a hunk of
stale bread along with it, and washed down my breakfast with a bottle
of beer--longing greatly for a cup of coffee in place of the beer, but
being in too much of a hurry to stop for that while I made a fire.
As the food got inside of me--though in that smoky and smelly place
eating it was not much of a pleasure--my thoughts took a more cheerful
turn. The hope of meeting a live man to talk to and to help me out of
my utter loneliness rose strong in my mind; and I felt that no matter
who or what he might be--even a man in desperate sickness and pain,
whom I must nurse and care for--finding him in that solitude would
make my own case less sad. And so, when I went on deck, my longing
hope for companionship was the strongest feeling in my heart.
With my first glance around I saw that during the night my hulk had
made more progress than I had counted on; having moved the faster, I
suppose, as it felt more strongly the pull of the mass of floatage
near by. Be this as it may, I found myself so close alongside the big
cargo-boat that a good jump would carry me aboard of her; and I was so
eager to begin my investigations that I took the jump without a single
moment of delay. And being come to her deck, the first thing that I
saw there was a dead man lying in the middle of it with a pool of
still fresh blood staining the planks by his side.
I never had seen anything like that, and as I looked at the dead
man--he was a big strong coarse fellow, dressed in a pair of dirty
sail-cloth trousers and in a dirty checked shirt--I went so queasy and
giddy that I had to step back a little and lean for a while against
the steamer's rail. It was clear enough that he had died fighting. His
face had a bad cut on it and there was another on his neck, and his
hands were cut cruelly, as though he had caught again and again at a
sharp knife in trying to keep it away from him; but the stab that had
finished him was in his breast, showing ghastly as he lay on his back
with his shirt open--and no doubt it was as the knife went into him
there that he had uttered the cry of mortal agony which had come to me
through the darkness, with so thrilling a note in it, while I was
sitting in bright comfort drowsily smoking my cigar. And then, as I
remembered my drowsiness, for a moment I seemed to get back into
it--and I had a half hope that perhaps what I was looking at was only
a part of a horrible dream.
Had there been any sign of a living man about, of the murderer as well
as the murdered, I should have been less broken by what I saw; for
then I should have had something practical to attend to--either in
bringing the other man to book on the poor dead fellow's account, or
in fighting him on my own. But the nearest thing to life in sight, on
that storm-swept hulk under the low-hanging golden haze, was the rough
body out of which life had but just gone forever; and the bloody
stains everywhere on the deck showing that he and another must have
been fighting pretty much all over it before they got to an end. And
the horror of it all was the stronger because of the awful and
hopeless loneliness: with the dead-still weed-covered ocean
stretching away to the horizon on the one hand, and on the other only
dead ships tangled and crushed together going off in a desolate
wilderness that grew fainter--but for its faintness all the more
despairing--until it was lost in the dun-gold murky thickness of
the haze.
As I got steadier, in a little while, I realized that I must hunt up
the other man, the one who had done the killing, and have things out
with him. Pretty certainly, his disposition would be to try to kill
me; and if I were to have a fight on hand as soon as I fell in with
him it was plain that my chances would be all the better for downing
him could I take him by surprise. I would have given a good deal just
then for a knife, and a good deal more for a pistol; but the best that
I could do to arm myself was to take an iron belaying-pin from the
rail, and with this in my hand I walked aft to the companion-way
--feeling sure that my best chance of coming upon my man
unexpectedly was to find him asleep in the cabin below. And then,
suddenly, the very uncomfortable thought came to me that there might
be more than one man down there--with the likelihood that if I roused
them they all would set upon me together and finish me quickly; and
this brought me to a halt just within the companion-way, in the
shadowy place at the head of the cabin stair.
I stood there for a minute or two listening closely, but I heard no
sound whatever from below; and presently the dead silence made me feel
rather ashamed of myself for being so easily scared. And then I
noticed, my eyes having become accustomed to the shadow, that there
was a splash of blood on the top step and more blood on the steps
lower down--as though a man badly hurt, and without any one to help
him, had gone down the stair slowly and had rested on almost every
step and bled for a while before he could go on; and seeing this made
it seem likely to me that I would have but a single man to deal with,
and he in such a state that I need not fear him much. But for all that
I kept a tight grip on my belaying-pin, and held it in such a way that
I could use it easily, as I put my foot on the first of the bloody
steps and so went on down.
The cabin, when I got to it, was but a small one--the boat not being
built to carry passengers--and so dusky that I could not make it out
well; for the skylight was covered with a tarpaulin--put there, I
suppose, to protect it when the gale came on that the steamer was
wrecked in--and all the light there was came in from one corner where
the covering had fetched away. It gave me a sort of shivering feeling
when I looked into that dusky place, where I saw nothing clearly and
where there was at least a chance that in another moment I might be
fighting for my life. I stood in the doorway, gripping my
belaying-pin, until I began to see more clearly--making out that a
small fixed table, with a water-jug and some bottles and glasses on
it, filled a half of the cabin, and that three state-room doors--one
of which stood open--were ranged on each of its sides. And then, just
as I was about to enter, I fairly jumped as there came to me softly
through the silence a low sad sound that was between a groan and a
sigh. But in an instant my reason told me that this was not the sort
of sound to come from a man whom I need be afraid of; and as it came
plainly enough from the state-room of which the door stood open I
stepped briskly over there and looked inside.
XV
I HAVE SOME TALK WITH A MURDERER
At first--the dead-light being fast over the port, and the state-room
in darkness save for the little light which came in from the dusky
cabin, and my own person in the doorway making it darker still--I was
sure of nothing there. But presently I made out a biggish heap of some
sort in the lower berth, and then that the heap was a man lying with
his back toward me and his face turned to the ship's side.
The noise of my footsteps must have roused him, either from sleep or
from the stupor that his hurts had put him in: for while I stood
looking at him his body moved a little, and then his head turned
slowly and in the shadows I caught the glint of his open eyes. What
little light there was being behind me, all that he could see--and
that but in black outline--was the figure of a tall man looming in the
doorway; but instantly at sight of me he let off a yell as sharp as
though I had run a knife into him, and then he covered his head all up
with the bedclothes and lay kicking and shaking as though he were in
deadly fear. I myself was so upset by his outburst, and by the
half-horror that came to me at sight of his spasms of terror, that I
stood for a moment or so silent; but in one way satisfied, since it
was evident that this poor scared wretch could not possibly do me
harm. Just as I was about to speak to him, hoping to soothe him a
little, he pushed the bedclothes down from over his eyes and took
another look at me--and straightway yelled again, and then cried out
at me: "Go away, damn you! Go away, damn you! You're dead! You're
dead, I tell you! Do you want me to kill you all over again, when I've
done it once as well as I know how?" And with that he fell to kicking
again, and to shouting out curses, and to letting off the most
dreadful shrieks and cries--until suddenly a gasping choking checked
him, and he lay silent and still.
Then the notion came to me that he took me for the dead man up on
deck; I being about the dead fellow's size and build, and therefore
looking very like him as I stood there with the light behind me and
the shadows too deep for him to make out my face. And so, to ease his
mind and get him quiet--and this was quite as much for my own sake as
for his, for his wild fear was strangely horrible to witness--I spoke
to him, asking him if he were badly hurt and if I could help him; and
at the sound of my voice he gave a long sigh, as though of great
relief, and in a moment said: "Who the devil are you, anyway? I
thought you was Jack--come back after my killin' him to have another
round with me. Is Jack true dead?"
"If you mean the man on deck," I answered, "he is true dead--as dead
as any man can be with a cut straight through his heart."
He gave another sigh of relief, as though what I told him was a real
comfort to him; and in a moment he said: "Well, that's a good job, and
I'm glad of it. He's killed me, too, I reckon; but I'm glad I got in
on him first an' fixed him fur his damn starin' at me. Now he's dead I
guess he won't stare at me no more." He was silent for nearly a
minute, and then he added: "Jest get me a drink, won't you? I'm all
burnin' up inside. There's water in th' jug out there. An' put a good
dash of gin in it--there's gin out there, too."
I got him some water from the jug on the cabin table, but when he
tasted it and found that it was water only he began to swear at me for
leaving out the gin; and when I added the gin--thinking that he
probably was so used to strong drink as really to need a little to put
some life into him--he took off the whole glassful at a gulp and
asked for more.
I told him to wait for another drink until I should have a look at his
hurts and see what I could do to better them; for, while hanging
seemed to be what he deserved, I had a natural desire to ease the
pain that was racking him--as I could tell by the gasps and groans
which he was giving and by the sharp motions which he made.
"Jest shet your head an' gimme some more drink," he said in a surly
way. "Jack's give me a dose that'll settle me, an' lookin' at me won't
do no good--'cause there's nothin' to be done. He's ripped me up, Jack
has, an' no man can live long that way. All I can do is to die
happy--so it's a good thing there's lots of gin. You'll find a kag of
it over there in th' fur corner. Me an' Jack filled it from th' spirit
room yesterday, afore our fuss begun."
But I stuck out that I must have a look at his hurts first, and
managed to open the dead-light--which luckily had not been screwed
tight--and so had some light in the room; and in the end, finding that
I would not give him a drink otherwise, he let me have my way. But I
had only to take a glance over him to see that what he said about the
other man having settled him was true enough; for he was cut in a
dozen places savagely, and had one desperate slash--which had laid him
all open about the waist--from which alone he was certain to die in a
very little while.
There was nothing for me to do, and I did not know what was best to
say to him; and while I was casting about in my mind to comfort him a
little, for his horrible hurts could not but stir my pity, he settled
the matter for both of us in his own way--grunting out that he guessed
I'd found he knew what he was talking about, and then asking for
more gin.
This time I gave it to him, and gave it to him strong--being certain
that he was past hurting by it, and hoping that it might deaden his
pain. And presently, when he asked for another drink, I gave him
that too.
The liquor did make him easier, and it raised his spirits so much that
he fell to swearing quite cheerfully at the man Jack who had given him
his death--and seemed to feel a good deal better for freeing his mind
that way. And after a while he began of his own accord to tell me
about the wreck that he had passed through, and about what had come
after it--only stopping now and then to ask for more gin-and-water,
and gulping it down with such satisfaction that I gave him all he
cared to have. Indeed, it was the only thing that I could do to ease
him, and I knew that no matter how much he drank the end shortly would
be the same.
As well as I could make out from his rambling talk, the storm that had
wrecked him had happened about three months earlier: a tremendous
burst of tempest that had sent everything to smash suddenly, and had
washed the captain and first and second officers overboard--they all
being on the bridge together--and three or four of the crew as well.
At the same time the funnel was carried away, and such a deluge of
water got down to the engine-room that the fires were drowned. This
brought the engineers on deck and the coal-passers with them; and the
coal-passers--"a beach-combin' lot," he called them--led in breaking
into the spirit-room, and before long pretty much all the men of the
crew were as drunk as lords. What happened after that for a while he
did not know; but when he got sober enough to stagger up on deck he
found the man Jack there--who also had just come up after sleeping off
his drunk below somewhere--and they had the ship to themselves. The
others might have found a boat that would float and tried their luck
that way, or they might have been washed overboard. He didn't know
what had become of them, and he didn't care. Then the hulk had taken
to drifting slowly, and at the end of a month or so had settled into
the berth where I found her; and since then the two of them had known
that all chance of their getting back into the world again was gone.
"At first I didn't mind it much," he went on, "there bein' lashins to
eat aboard, an' more to drink than me an' Jack ever'd hoped to get a
show at in all our lives. But pretty soon Jack he begun to be
worryin'. He'd get drunk, an' then he'd set an' stare at me like a
damn owl--jest a-blinkin' and a-blinkin' his damn eyes. You hev no
idee, ontil it's done to you, how worryin' it is when a drunken man
jest sets an' stares at you fur hours together in that fool way. I
give Jack fair warnin' time and agen when he was sober that I'd hurt
him ef he kep' on starin' at me like that; but then he'd get drunk
agen right off, an' at it he'd go. I s'pose I wouldn't 'a' minded it
in a ornary way an' ashore, or ef we'd had some other folks around.
But here we was jest alone--oh, it was terr'ble how much we was
alone!--an' Jack more'n half the time like a damn starin' owl, till he
a-most druv me wild."
"An' Jack said as how I was onbearable too. _He_ said it was me as
stared at him--the damn fool not knowin' that I was only a-tryin' to
squench his beastly owlin' by lookin' steady at him; an' he said he'd
settle me ef I kep' on. An' so things went like that atween us fur
days an' days--and all th' time nothin' near us but dead ships with
mos' likely dead men fillin' 'em, an' him an' me knowin' we'd soon got
to be dead too. An' the stinks out of th' rotten weed, and out of all
th' rotten ships whenever a bit of wind breezed up soft from th'
s'uthard over th' hull mess of 'em, was horrider than you hev any
idee! Gettin' drunk was all there was lef' fur us; and even in gettin'
drunk there wasn't no real Christian comfort, 'cause of Jack's damn
owlin' stares."
"I guess ef anybody stared steady at you fur better'n three months
you'd want to kill him too. Anyway, that's how I felt about it; an' I
told Jack yesterday--soon as he waked up in th' mornin', an' while he
was plumb sober--that ef he didn't let up on it I'd go fur him sure.
An' that fool up an' says it was me done th' starin', and I'd got to
stop it or he'd cut out my damn heart--an' them was his very words.
An' by noon yesterday he was drunker'n a Dutchman, an' was starin'
harder'n ever. An' he kep' at it all along till sunset, an' when we
come down into th' cabin to get supper he still was starin'; and after
supper--when we mought 'a' been jest like two brothers a-gettin' drunk
together on gin-an'-water--he stared wust of all."