XIX
OF A GOOD PLAN THAT WENT WRONG WITH ME
For a while I was so stirred by the enthusiasm which my discoveryaroused in me that I had no room in my mind for any other thoughts.But at last, as I still stood pondering in the _Wasp's_ cabin, Ibecame aware that the daylight was fading into darkness; and as Irealized what that meant for me my thoughts came back suddenly tomyself, and then all my enthusiasm ebbed away.
I came out upon the deck again, but leaving everything as I had foundit--my momentary impulse to lift the flag having vanished as I felthow fit it was that this dead battle-captain should rest onundisturbed where his men had laid him beneath the colors that he haddied for; and I was glad to find when I got into the open that a gooddeal of daylight still remained. But it was so far gone, and waswaning so rapidly, that I saw that I had little chance of getting backto the _Hurst Castle_ before nightfall; and that the most that I couldhope for was to make a start in the right direction--and perhaps tofind a wreck to sleep on that had food and water aboard of it, andthence take up my search again the next day.
Yet the dread was strong upon me, as I looked around upon the wrecksamong which the _Wasp_ was bedded, that I might not only be unable tofind the _Hurst Castle_ again, but ever to find my way across thattangle to the outer edges of it--where only was it possible that shipson which were provisions fit for eating would be found. The very factthat the _Wasp_ had settled into her position more than fourscoreyears back made it certain that she was deep in the labyrinth; and thestrange old-fashioned look of the craft surrounding her showed me thatI should have to go far before finding a vessel wrecked inrecent times.
But these disheartening thoughts I crushed down as well as I could,yet not making much of it; and as trying to go back by the way that Ihad come to the _Wasp_ would not serve any good purpose--evensupposing that I could have managed it, which was not likely--I wenton beyond her on a new course: taking a longish jump from herquarter-rail and landing on the deck of a clumsy little ill-shapenbrig, with a high-built square stern and a high-built bow that waspretty nearly square too. She was Dutch, I fancy, and a merchantvessel; but she carried a little battery of brass six-pounders, andhad also a half dozen pederaros set along her rail. And by hercarrying these old-fashioned swivel-guns--which proved that she hadgot her armament not much later than the middle of the lastcentury--and by the general look of her, I knew that she was an oldervessel even than the _Wasp_.
This observation, and the reflection growing out of it that the deeperI went into the Sargasso Sea the older must be the craft bedded init--since that great dead fleet is recruited constantly by new wrecksdrifting in upon its outer edges from all ways seaward--put into myhead what seemed to me to be a very reasonable plan for finding my wayback to the _Hurst Castle_ again; or, at least, to some other newlycome in hulk on which there would be fresh water and sound food. Andthis was to shape my course by considering attentively the look ofeach wreck that I came aboard of, and the look of those surroundingit, and by then going forward to whichever one of them seemed to be ofthe most modern build.
As the first step in carrying out my plan--and it seemed to be such agood plan that I felt almost light-hearted over it--I got up on therail of the old brig and jumped back to the less-old _Wasp_ again:landing in her main-channels, and thence easily boarding her byscrambling up what was left of the chains. But in taking my next stepI had no choice in the matter, as only one other vessel was in touchwith the sloop--a heavily-built little schooner that had the look ofbeing quite as old as the brig which I had just left. And her agewas so evident as I came aboard of her--having crossed the deck of the_Wasp_ hastily, picking my way among the scattered bones--that of asudden my faith in my fine plan for getting out of the tangle beganto wane.
In a general way, of course, the conclusion which I had arrived at wasa sound one. Broadly speaking, it was certain that could I pass in astraight line from the centre to the circumference of that vastassemblage of wrecks I constantly would find vessels of newer build;and so at last, upon the outermost fringe, would come to the wrecks ofships belonging to my own day. But one weak point in my calculationswas my inability to hold to a straight line, or to anything likeone--because I had to advance from one wreck to another as theyhappened to touch or to be within jumping distance of each other, andtherefore went crookedly upon my course and often fairly had to doubleon it. And another weak point was that the sea in its tempestsrecognizes no order of seniority, but destroys in the same breath ofstorm ships just beginning their lives upon it and ships which havewithstood its ragings for a hundred years: so that I very well mightfind--as I actually did find in the case of the _Wasp_--acomparatively modern-built vessel lying hemmed in by ancient craft,survivals of obsolete types, which had lingered so long upon theocean that in their lives as in their deaths they merged and blendedthe present and the past.
Thus a check was put upon my plan at the very outset; yet in a stolidsort of way--knowing that to give it up entirely would be to bringdespair upon me, for I could not think of a better one--I tried stillto hold by it: going on from the clumsy little old schooner to thatone of two vessels lying beyond her which I fancied, though both ofthem belonged to a long past period, was the more modern-looking inher build. And so I continued to go onward over a dozen craft of onesort or another, holding by my rule--or trying to believe that I washolding by it, for all of the wrecks which I crossed were of anantique type--and now and then being left with no chance for choosingby finding open to me only a single way. And all this while thedaylight was leaving me--the sun having gone down a ruddy globe beyondthe forest of wrecks westward, and heavy purple shadows having begunto close down upon me through the low-hanging haze.
The imminence of night-fall made clear to me that I had no chancewhatever of getting out from among those long-dead ships before thenext morning; and this certainty was the harder to bear because I wasdesperately hungry--more than six hours having passed since I hadeaten anything--and thirsty too: though my thirst, because of thedampness of the haze I suppose, was not very severe. But the beliefthat I really was advancing toward the coast of my strange floatingcontinent and that I should find both food and drink when I got there,made me press forward; comforting myself as well as I could with thereflection that even though I did have to keep a hungry and thirstyvigil among those old withered hulks I yet should be the nearer, byevery one of them that I put behind me that night, to the freshly comein wrecks on the coast line--where I made sure of finding a breakfaston the following day. Moreover, I knew how forlornly miserable Ishould be the moment that I lost the excitement of scrambling andclimbing and just sat down there among the ancient dead, with thedarkness closing over me, to wait for the slow coming of another day.And my dread of that desolate loneliness urged me to push forwardwhile the least bit of daylight was left by which to see my way.
It was ticklish work, as the dusk deepened, getting from one wreck toanother; and at last--after nearly going down into the weed betweentwo of them, because of a rotten belaying-pin that I caught atbreaking in my hand--I had to resign myself to giving over untilmorning any farther attempt to advance. But I was cheered by thethought that I had got on a good way in the hour or more that had gonesince I had left the _Wasp_ behind me; and so I tried to make thebest of things as I cast around me for some sheltered nook on the deckof the vessel I had come aboard of--a little clumsy old brig--where mynight might be passed. As to going below, either into the cabin or theforecastle, I could not bring myself to it; for my heart failed me atthe thought of what I might touch in the darkness there, and mymind--sore and troubled by all that I had passed through, and by thedim dread filling it--certainly would have crowded those black depthswith grisly phantoms until I very well might have gone mad.
And so, as I say, I cast about the deck of the brig for some nook thatwould shelter me from the dampness while I did my best to sleep awayinto forgetfulness my hunger and my thirst; but was troubled all thewhile that I was making my round of investigation by a
hauntingfeeling that I had been on that same deck only a little while before.Growing stronger and stronger, this feeling became so insistent that Icould not rest for it; and presently compelled me to try to quiet itby taking a look at the wreck next beyond the brig to see if Irecognized that too--as would be likely, since I must have crossed italso, had I really come that way.
I did not try to board this adjoining wreck, but only clambered up onthe rail of the brig so that I could look well at it--and when I gotmy look I came more nearly to breaking down completely than I haddone at any time since I had been cast overboard from the _GoldenHind_, For there, showing faintly in the gloom below me, was thegun-set deck of a war-ship, and over the deck dimly-gleaming boneswere scattered--and in that moment I knew that the whole of mywandering had been but a circle, and that I was come back again at theweary ending of it to the _Wasp_.
But what crushed the heart of me was not that my afternoon of toil hadbeen wasted, but the strong conviction--from which I no longer saw anyway of escaping--that I had strayed too deep into that hideoussea-labyrinth ever to find my way out of it, and that I must die thereslowly for lack of water and of food.
In the Sargasso Sea Page 19