In the Sargasso Sea
Page 12
XII
I HAVE A FEVER AND SEE VISIONS
Because I had felt hungry and thirsty, and the cold chicken and beerhad tasted good, I had eaten and drunk a great deal more heartily thanwas wholesome for me--being so weakened by loss of blood, and by thestrain put upon me by the danger that I had passed through, and byliving only on slops and some scraps of biscuit since my rescue, thatmy insides were in no condition to deal with such a lot of strongfood. And then, within an hour after I so unwisely had stuffed myself,came the blow--in itself hard enough to upset a strong digestion ingood working order--of discovering that I could do nothing to savemyself, and that my hulk was drifting steadily deeper and deeper intothat ocean mystery out of which no man ever yet had come alive.
The first sign that I had that something was going wrong with me was aswimming in my head--so sudden and so violent that I lurched forwardand was close to pitching over the rail of the bridge into the sea.For a moment I fancied that the ship had taken a quick plunge; andthen a sick feeling in my own stomach, and a blurring of my eyes thatmade everything seem misty and shadowy, settled for me the fact thatit was I who was reeling about and that the ship was still--and I hadsense enough to lie down at full length on the bridge, between thewheel-house and the rail, where I was safe against rolling off. Andthen the shadows about me got deeper and blacker, and a horrible senseof oppression came over me, and I seemed to be falling endlessly whilemyriads of black specks arranged themselves in curious geometricalfigures before my eyes--and then the black specks and everything elsevanished suddenly, and my consciousness left me with what seemed to mea great crash and bang.
Had I begun matters by being roundly sick I might have pulled throughmy attack without being much the worse for it. But as that did nothappen--my weakness, I suppose, not giving nature a chance to setthings right in her own way--I had a good deal more to suffer before Ibegan to mend. After a while I got enough of my senses back to knowthat my head was aching as though it would split open, and to realizehow utterly miserable I was lying there on the bridge with the hotsunshine simmering down on me through the haze; and then to think howdelightful it would be if only I were back in the cabin again--wherethe sun could not stew me, and where my berth would be easy and soft.
How I managed to get to the cabin I scarcely know. I faintly rememberworking my way along the bridge on my hands and knees, and goingbackward down the steps in the same fashion for fear of falling; andof trying to walk upright when I got to the deck, so that I should notget wet above my knees in the water there, and of falling souse intoit and getting soaked all over; and then of crawling aft veryslowly--stopping now and then because of my pain and dizziness--anddown the companion-way and through the passage, and so into the cabinat last; and then, all in my wet clothes, of tumbling anyhow into myberth--and after that there is only a long dead blank.
When I caught up with myself again, night had come and I was in pitchdarkness. My head still ached horridly, and I was burning hot allover, and yet from time to time shivering with creeping chills. What Iwanted most in the world was a drink of water; but when I tried to getup, in the hope of finding some in the jug that no doubt was in thestate-room, I went so dizzy that I had to plump back into my berthagain. As the night went on, and I lay there thinking how deliciouslythe water would taste going cool and sweet down my throat, I got quitecrazy with longing for it; and, in a way, really crazy--for throughmost of the night I was light-headed and saw visions that sometimescomforted me and sometimes made me afraid. The comforting ones were offresh green meadows with streams running through them, and of shadyglens in the woods where springs welled up into little basinssurrounded by ferns--just such as I remembered in the woods whichbordered the creek where I used to go swimming when I was a boy. Thehorrible ones were not clear at all, and for that were the moredreadful--being of a fire that was getting nearer and nearer to me,and of a blazing sun that fairly withered me, and of huge hot globesor ponderously vague masses of I knew not what which were comingstraight on to crush me and from which I could not get away.
At last I got so worn out with it all that I fell off into an uneasysleep, which yet was better than no sleep and a little rested me. WhenI woke again there was enough light in the room for me to see thewater-jug, and that gave me strength to get to it--and most blessedlyit was nearly full. And so I had a long drink, that for a time checkedthe heat of my fever; and then I lay down in my berth again, with thejug on the floor at my side.
For a while I was almost comfortable. Then the fever came back, andthe visions with it--but no longer so painful as those which had beenbegotten of my thirst. I seemed to be in a region dreamy and unreal.Sometimes I would see far stretches of mountain peaks, and sometimesthe crowded streets of cities; but for the most part my visions wereof the sea--tall ships sailing, and little boats drifting over calmwater in moonlight, and black steamers gliding quickly past me; andstill more frequently, but always in a calm sea, the broken hulks ofwrecked ships with shattered masts and tangled rigging and with deadmen lying about their decks, and sometimes with a dead man hangingacross the wheel and moving a little with the hulk's motion so that ina horrible sort of way he seemed to be half alive.
Night came again, bringing me more pain and the burning of a strongerfever; and then another day, in which the fever rose still higher andthe visions became almost intolerable--because of their intensereality, and of my conviction all the while that they were unreal andthat I must be well on the way toward a raving madness in which Iwould die.
It was at the end of this day--or it may have been at the end of stillanother day, for I have no clear reckoning of how the timepassed--that my worst vision came to me; hurting me not because it wasterrifying in itself, but because it made me feel that even hope hadparted company with me at last. And it was more like a dream than avision, seemingly being brought to my sight by my own bodilymovement--not something which floated before my eyes as I lay still.
As the afternoon went on my fever increased a good deal; but in a waythat was rather pleasant to me, for the pain in my head lessened and Iseemed to be getting back my strength. After a while I began to longto get out of the cabin and up on deck, and so have a look around meover the open sea; and with my longing came the feeling that I wasstrong enough to realize it.
My getting up seemed entirely real and natural, as did my firmwalking--without a touch of dizziness--after I fairly was on my feet;and all the rest of it seemed real too. Even when I came to thecompanion-way I seemed to go up the stairs easily, and to step out onthe deck as steadily as though I had been entirely well.
The sun was near setting, but as I came on the deck my back was towardthe sunset and I saw only its red light touching the soft swell of theweed-covered sea extending far before me, and the same red lightshimmering in the mist and caught up more strongly on a bank oflow-lying clouds. The outlook was much the same as that which I hadhad from the bridge, only the weed seemed to be packed more closelyand there was wreckage about me everywhere. Masts and spars and plankswere in sight in all directions, sometimes floating singly andsometimes tangled together in little heaps; half a mile away was whatseemed to be a large ship lying bottom upward; near me was a perfectlysound boat, having in its stern-sheets a bit of sail that fell in suchfolds as to make me think that a human form lay under it; and offtoward the horizon was a large raft, with a sort of mast fitted to it,and at the foot of the mast I fancied that I saw a woman in a whiterobe of some sort stretched out as though asleep. And it seemed to me,though I could not tell why, that all this flotsam, and my own hulkalong with it, slowly was drifting closer and closer together; and waspacking tighter and tighter in the soft oozy tangle of the weed, whicheverywhere was matted so thickly that the water did not show at all.
Then I seemed to walk around to the other side of my hulk and to lookdown into the west--and to feel all hope dying with the sight that Isaw there. Far away, under the red mist, across the red gleaming weedand against a sunset sky bloody red, I seemed to see a
vast ruinouscongregation of wrecks; so far-extending that it was as though all thewrecked ships in the world were lying huddled together there in amiserably desolate company. And with sight of them the certainconviction was borne in upon me that my own wreck presently would takeits station in that shattered fleet for which there was no salvation;and that it would lie among them rotting slowly, as they wererotting, through months or years--until finally, in its turn, it woulddrop down from amidst those lepers of the ocean, and would sink withall its foulness upon it into the black depths beneath the oozy weed.
And I knew, too, that whether I already were dead and went down withit, or saved my life for a while longer by getting aboard of anotherhulk which still floated, sooner or later my end must come to me inthat same way. On one or another of those rotting dead ships my owndead body surely must sink at last.