XXIX
I GET INTO A SEA CHARNEL-HOUSE
That I should get to the steamer that night I knew was cleanimpossible, for she lay a long way off from me, and that I had seenher funnel at all was due to the mere happy accident of its standingfor that single minute directly between me and the setting sun. I didhope, though, that by pressing hard toward her I might fetch aboard ofsome vessel not long wrecked on which I would find eatable food; yetin this I was disappointed, the shadows coming down on me so fast thatI was forced in a little while to pull up short--stopping while stilla little daylight remained so that I might stow myself the morecomfortably for the night.
As to looking for provender on the little old ship that I settled tocamp on, I knew that it was useless. From her build I fixed her asbelonging to the beginning of the present century, and from her depthin the wreck-pack she probably had met her death-storm not less thanthreescore years before; and so what provisions she had carried longsince had wasted away. Yet there was a chance that I might find somespirits aboard of her--which would be a poor substitute for food, butbetter than nothing--and I hurried to have a look in her cabin beforedarkness settled down.
The cabin hatch was closed, and as it was both locked and swelled withmoisture I could not budge it; but two or three kicks sent the doorsbeneath the hatch flying and so opened an entrance for me--that I wasslow to make use of because of a heavy musty stench which poured outfrom that shut up place and made me turn a little sick, as I got myfirst strong whiff of it. Indeed, I was so faint and so hungry that Iwas in no condition to stand up against that curiously vile smell. Tolessen it, by getting a current of air into the cabin, I smashed inthe little skylight--over which some ropes were stretched and stillheld the remnant of a tarpaulin, that must have been set in placewhile the storm was blowing which sent the ship to her account; andthis so far improved matters that presently I was able to go down thecompanion-way, though the stench still was horridly strong.
At the bottom of the stair, the light being faint, I tripped oversomething; and looking down saw bones lying there with a sort offungus partly covering them, and to the skull there still clung a matof woolly hair plaited here and there into little braids: by which,and by the size of the bones, it seemed that a negro woman must havebeen left fastened into the cabin to die there after the crew hadbeen washed overboard or had taken to the boats. But even then thebusiness in which the ship had been engaged did not occur to me; andafter hesitating for a moment I went on into the cabin, and lookedabout me as well as I could in the twilight for the case of bottlesthat I hoped to find.
The case was there, as I was pretty certain that it would be, suchprovision rarely being absent from old-time vessels, but all thebottles had been taken from it except an empty one--which looked asthough the cabin had been opened at the last moment to fetch outsupplies for the boats, and then deliberately locked fast again withthe poor woman inside: an act so barbarous that it did not seempossible unless a crew of out and out devils had been in charge of theancient craft. However, the matter which just then most concerned mewas the liquor that I was in search of, that I might a little stay mystomach with it against the hunger that was tormenting me; and so Iransacked the lockers that ran across the stern of the ship and acrossa part of the bulkhead forward, in the faint hope that I might comeupon another supply--but my search was a vain one, two of the lockershaving only some mouldy clothing in them, and all the rest beingfilled with arms. The stock of muskets and pistols and cutlasses wasso large, so far beyond any honest traders needs, that I could not atall account for it: until the thought occurred to me that the vesselI had come aboard of had been a pirate--and that notion seemed to fitin pretty well with her crew having gone off and left the poor womanlocked up in the cabin to starve. However, as I found out a littlelater, while my guess was a close one it still was wrong.
The four bunks, two on each side, were not enclosed, and the only dooropening from the cabin was in the bulkhead forward--and worth tryingbecause it might lead to a store-room, I thought. It was a verystout-looking door, and across it, resting in strong iron catches,were two heavy wooden bars. These puzzled me a good deal, there beingno sense in barring the outside of a store-room door in that fashion,since the door did not seem to be locked and anybody could lift thebars away. However, I got them out of their sockets without muchdifficulty; and after a good deal of tugging at a ring made fast in itI got the door open too--and instantly I was thrust back from theopening by an outpouring of the same vile heavy musty stench that hadcome up from the cabin when I staved in the hatch, only this was stillranker and more vile. And I found that the door did not lead into alittle store-room, as I had fancied, but right through from the cabinto the ship's main-deck--that stretched away forward in a gloomytunnel, as black as a cellar on a rainy night, into which I couldsee only for four or five yards. Indeed, but for the way that the shipchanced to be lying--with her stern toward the west, so that a gooddeal of light came in through the broken skylight from the ruddysunset--I could not have seen into it at all.
But I saw far enough, and more than far enough--and the sight that Ilooked on sent all over me a creeping chill. Wherever the light went,skeletons were lying--with a fungus growth on the bones that gave ahorrid effect of scraps of flesh still clinging to them, and theloose-lying skulls (of which a couple were close by the doorway) werecovered still with a matting of woolly hair. And I could tell from thetangle that the skeletons were in--though also lying in some sort oforderly rows, because of the chains which held them fast--that thepoor wretches to whom they had belonged had writhed and struggled overeach other in their agony: and I could fancy what a hell that blackplace must have been while death was doing his work among them, theyall squirming together like worms in a pot; and it seemed to me that Icould hear their yells and howls--at first loud and terrible, and thengrowing fainter and fainter until they came to be but low groans ofmisery that at last ended softly in dying sighs.
The horror of it all came home to me so sharply, after I had stoodthere at the doorway for a moment or two held fast by a sort ofghastly fascination, that I gave a yell myself as keen and as loud asany which the poor blacks had uttered; and with that I turned aboutand dashed up the companionway to the deck as hard as I could go. Norcould I bear to abide on the slave-ship, nor even near her, for thenight. Very little light was left to me, but I made the most of it andwent scrambling from hulk to hulk until I had put a good distancebehind me--so that I not only could not see her but could not tellcertainly, having twisted and turned a dozen times in my scurryingflight, in which direction she lay. And being thus rid of her, Ifairly dropped--so weak and so wearied was I--on the deck of thevessel that I had come to, and lay there for a while resting, with mybreath coming and going in panting sobs.
What sort of a craft I had fetched aboard of I did not dare to try tofind out. Going any farther then was impossible, the twilight havingslipped away almost into darkness, and whatever she might be I had tomake the best of her for the night. And so I settled myself into acorner well up in her bows--that I might be as far away as possiblefrom any grisly things that might be hid in her cabin--and did my bestto go to sleep. But it was a long while, utterly weary though I was,before sleep would come to me. My stomach, being pretty wellreconciled by that time to emptiness, did not bother me much; but myfrightened rush away from that sickening charnel-house had left megreatly tormented by thirst, and my mind was so fevered by the horrorof what I had seen that for a long while I could not stop makingpictures to myself of the black wretches, chained and imprisoned,writhing under the torture of starvation and at last dying desperatein the dark. And when sleep did come to me I still had the sameloathsome horrors with me in my dreams.
In the Sargasso Sea Page 29