Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe

by Volume 01-05 (lit)

  assisted in hastening the catastrophe. He was now thoroughly

  insensible, and there was no probability that he would be otherwise

  for many hours.

  It is hardly possible to conceive the extremity of my terror. The

  fumes of the wine lately taken had evaporated, leaving me doubly

  timid and irresolute. I knew that I was altogether incapable of

  managing the boat, and that a fierce wind and strong ebb tide were

  hurrying us to destruction. A storm was evidently gathering behind

  us; we had neither compass nor provisions; and it was clear that, if

  we held our present course, we should be out of sight of land before

  daybreak. These thoughts, with a crowd of others equally fearful,

  flashed through my mind with a bewildering rapidity, and for some

  moments paralyzed me beyond the possibility of making any exertion.

  The boat was going through the water at a terrible rate- full before

  the wind- no reef in either jib or mainsail- running her bows

  completely under the foam. It was a thousand wonders she did not

  broach to- Augustus having let go the tiller, as I said before, and I

  being too much agitated to think of taking it myself. By good luck,

  however, she kept steady, and gradually I recovered some degree of

  presence of mind. Still the wind was increasing fearfully, and

  whenever we rose from a plunge forward, the sea behind fell combing

  over our counter, and deluged us with water. I was so utterly

  benumbed, too, in every limb, as to be nearly unconscious of

  sensation. At length I summoned up the resolution of despair, and

  rushing to the mainsail let it go by the run. As might have been

  expected, it flew over the bows, and, getting drenched with water,

  carried away the mast short off by the board. This latter accident

  alone saved me from instant destruction. Under the jib only, I now

  boomed along before the wind, shipping heavy seas occasionally over

  the counter, but relieved from the terror of immediate death. I took

  the helm, and breathed with greater freedom as I found that there yet

  remained to us a chance of ultimate escape. Augustus still lay

  senseless in the bottom of the boat; and as there was imminent danger

  of his drowning (the water being nearly a foot deep just where he

  fell), I contrived to raise him partially up, and keep him in a

  sitting position, by passing a rope round his waist, and lashing it

  to a ringbolt in the deck of the cuddy. Having thus arranged every

  thing as well as I could in my chilled and agitated condition, I

  recommended myself to God, and made up my mind to bear whatever might

  happen with all the fortitude in my power.

  Hardly had I come to this resolution, when, suddenly, a loud and

  long scream or yell, as if from the throats of a thousand demons,

  seemed to pervade the whole atmosphere around and above the boat.

  Never while I live shall I forget the intense agony of terror I

  experienced at that moment. My hair stood erect on my head -- I felt

  the blood congealing in my veins -- my heart ceased utterly to beat,

  and without having once raised my eyes to learn the source of my

  alarm, I tumbled headlong and insensible upon the body of my fallen

  companion.

  I found myself, upon reviving, in the cabin of a large

  whaling-ship (the Penguin) bound to Nantucket. Several persons were

  standing over me, and Augustus, paler than death, was busily occupied

  in chafing my hands. Upon seeing me open my eyes, his exclamations of

  gratitude and joy excited alternate laughter and tears from the

  rough-looking personages who were present. The mystery of our being

  in existence was now soon explained. We had been run down by the

  whaling-ship, which was close-hauled, beating up to Nantucket with

  every sail she could venture to set, and consequently running almost

  at right angles to our own course. Several men were on the look-out

  forward, but did not perceive our boat until it was an impossibility

  to avoid coming in contact- their shouts of warning upon seeing us

  were what so terribly alarmed me. The huge ship, I was told, rode

  immediately over us with as much ease as our own little vessel would

  have passed over a feather, and without the least perceptible

  impediment to her progress. Not a scream arose from the deck of the

  victim- there was a slight grating sound to be heard mingling with

  the roar of wind and water, as the frail bark which was swallowed up

  rubbed for a moment along the keel of her destroyer- but this was

  all. Thinking our boat (which it will be remembered was dismasted)

  some mere shell cut adrift as useless, the captain (Captain E. T. V.

  Block, of New London) was for proceeding on his course without

  troubling himself further about the matter. Luckily, there were two

  of the look-out who swore positively to having seen some person at

  our helm, and represented the possibility of yet saving him. A

  discussion ensued, when Block grew angry, and, after a while, said

  that "it was no business of his to be eternally watching for

  egg-shells; that the ship should not put about for any such nonsense;

  and if there was a man run down, it was nobody's fault but Henderson,

  the first mate, now took the matter up, being justly indignant, as

  well as the whole ship's crew, at a speech evincing so base a degree

  of heartless atrocity. He spoke plainly, seeing himself upheld by the

  men, told the captain he considered him a fit subject for the

  gallows, and that he would disobey his orders if he were hanged for

  it the moment he set his foot on shore. He strode aft, jostling Block

  (who turned pale and made no answer) on one side, and seizing the

  helm, gave the word, in a firm voice, Hard-a-lee! The men flew to

  their posts, and the ship went cleverly about. All this had occupied

  nearly five minutes, and it was supposed to be hardly within the

  bounds of possibility that any individual could be saved- allowing

  any to have been on board the boat. Yet, as the reader has seen, both

  Augustus and myself were rescued; and our deliverance seemed to have

  been brought about by two of those almost inconceivable pieces of

  good fortune which are attributed by the wise and pious to the

  special interference of Providence.

  While the ship was yet in stays, the mate lowered the jolly-boat

  and jumped into her with the very two men, I believe, who spoke up as

  having seen me at the helm. They had just left the lee of the vessel

  (the moon still shining brightly) when she made a long and heavy roll

  to windward, and Henderson, at the same moment, starting up in his

  seat bawled out to his crew to back water. He would say nothing else-

  repeating his cry impatiently, back water! black water! The men put

  back as speedily as possible, but by this time the ship had gone

  round, and gotten fully under headway, although all hands on board

  were making great exertions to take in sail. In despite of the danger

  of the attempt, the mate clung to the main-chains as soon as they

  came within his reach. Another huge lurch now brought the starboard

  side of the vessel out of water nearly as far as he
r keel, when the

  cause of his anxiety was rendered obvious enough. The body of a man

  was seen to be affixed in the most singular manner to the smooth and

  shining bottom (the Penguin was coppered and copper-fastened), and

  beating violently against it with every movement of the hull. After

  several ineffectual efforts, made during the lurches of the ship, and

  at the imminent risk of swamping the boat I was finally disengaged

  from my perilous situation and taken on board- for the body proved to

  be my own. It appeared that one of the timber-bolts having started

  and broken a passage through the copper, it had arrested my progress

  as I passed under the ship, and fastened me in so extraordinary a

  manner to her bottom. The head of the bolt had made its way through

  the collar of the green baize jacket I had on, and through the back

  part of my neck, forcing itself out between two sinews and just below

  the right ear. I was immediately put to bed- although life seemed to

  be totally extinct. There was no surgeon on board. The captain,

  however, treated me with every attention- to make amends, I presume,

  in the eyes of his crew, for his atrocious behaviour in the previous

  portion of the adventure.

  In the meantime, Henderson had again put off from the ship,

  although the wind was now blowing almost a hurricane. He had not been

  gone many minutes when he fell in with some fragments of our boat,

  and shortly afterward one of the men with him asserted that he could

  distinguish a cry for help at intervals amid the roaring of the

  tempest. This induced the hardy seamen to persevere in their search

  for more than half an hour, although repeated signals to return were

  made them by Captain Block, and although every moment on the water in

  so frail a boat was fraught to them with the most imminent and deadly

  peril. Indeed, it is nearly impossible to conceive how the small

  jolly they were in could have escaped destruction for a single

  instant. She was built, however, for the whaling service, and was

  fitted, as I have since had reason to believe, with air-boxes, in the

  manner of some life-boats used on the coast of Wales.

  After searching in vain for about the period of time just

  mentioned, it was determined to get back to the ship. They had

  scarcely made this resolve when a feeble cry arose from a dark object

  that floated rapidly by. They pursued and soon overtook it. It proved

  to be the entire deck of the Ariel's cuddy. Augustus was struggling

  near it, apparently in the last agonies. Upon getting hold of him it

  was found that he was attached by a rope to the floating timber. This

  rope, it will be remembered, I had myself tied around his waist, and

  made fast to a ringbolt, for the purpose of keeping him in an upright

  position, and my so doing, it appeared, had been ultimately the means

  of preserving his life. The Ariel was slightly put together, and in

  going down her frame naturally went to pieces; the deck of the cuddy,

  as might have been expected, was lifted, by the force of the water

  rushing in, entirely from the main timbers, and floated (with other

  fragments, no doubt) to the surface- Augustus was buoyed up with it,

  and thus escaped a terrible death.

  It was more than an hour after being taken on board the Penguin

  before he could give any account of himself, or be made to comprehend

  the nature of the accident which had befallen our boat. At length he

  became thoroughly aroused, and spoke much of his sensations while in

  the water. Upon his first attaining any degree of consciousness, he

  found himself beneath the surface, whirling round and round with

  inconceivable rapidity, and with a rope wrapped in three or four

  folds tightly about his neck. In an instant afterward he felt himself

  going rapidly upward, when, his head striking violently against a

  hard substance, he again relapsed into insensibility. Upon once more

  reviving he was in fuller possession of his reason- this was still,

  however, in the greatest degree clouded and confused. He now knew

  that some accident had occurred, and that he was in the water,

  although his mouth was above the surface, and he could breathe with

  some freedom. Possibly, at this period the deck was drifting rapidly

  before the wind, and drawing him after it, as he floated upon his

  back. Of course, as long as he could have retained this position, it

  would have been nearly impossible that he should be drowned.

  Presently a surge threw him directly athwart the deck, and this post

  he endeavored to maintain, screaming at intervals for help. just

  before he was discovered by Mr. Henderson, he had been obliged to

  relax his hold through exhaustion, and, falling into the sea, had

  given himself up for lost. During the whole period of his struggles

  he had not the faintest recollection of the Ariel, nor of the matters

  in connexion with the source of his disaster. A vague feeling of

  terror and despair had taken entire possession of his faculties. When

  he was finally picked up, every power of his mind had failed him;

  and, as before said, it was nearly an hour after getting on board the

  Penguin before he became fully aware of his condition. In regard to

  myself- I was resuscitated from a state bordering very nearly upon

  death (and after every other means had been tried in vain for three

  hours and a half) by vigorous friction with flannels bathed in hot

  oil- a proceeding suggested by Augustus. The wound in my neck,

  although of an ugly appearance, proved of little real consequence,

  and I soon recovered from its effects.

  The Penguin got into port about nine o'clock in the morning,

  after encountering one of the severest gales ever experienced off

  Nantucket. Both Augustus and myself managed to appear at Mr.

  Barnard's in time for breakfast- which, luckily, was somewhat late,

  owing to the party over night. I suppose all at the table were too

  much fatigued themselves to notice our jaded appearance- of course,

  it would not have borne a very rigid scrutiny. Schoolboys, however,

  can accomplish wonders in the way of deception, and I verily believe

  not one of our friends in Nantucket had the slightest suspicion that

  the terrible story told by some sailors in town of their having run

  down a vessel at sea and drowned some thirty or forty poor devils,

  had reference either to the Ariel, my companion, or myself. We two

  have since very frequently talked the matter over- but never without

  a shudder. In one of our conversations Augustus frankly confessed to

  me, that in his whole life he had at no time experienced so

  excruciating a sense of dismay, as when on board our little boat he

  first discovered the extent of his intoxication, and felt himself

  sinking beneath its influence.

  ~~~ End of Text of Chapter 1 ~~~

  CHAPTER 2

  IN no affairs of mere prejudice, pro or con, do we deduce

  inferences with entire certainty, even from the most simple data. It

  might be supposed that a catastrophe such as I have just related

  would have effectually cooled my incipient passion for the sea. On
>
  the contrary, I never experienced a more ardent longing for the wild

  adventures incident to the life of a navigator than within a week

  after our miraculous deliverance. This short period proved amply long

  enough to erase from my memory the shadows, and bring out in vivid

  light all the pleasurably exciting points of color, all the

  picturesqueness, of the late perilous accident. My conversations with

  Augustus grew daily more frequent and more intensely full of

  interest. He had a manner of relating his stories of the ocean (more

  than one half of which I now suspect to have been sheer fabrications)

  well adapted to have weight with one of my enthusiastic temperament

  and somewhat gloomy although glowing imagination. It is strange, too,

  that he most strongly enlisted my feelings in behalf of the life of a

  seaman, when he depicted his more terrible moments of suffering and

  despair. For the bright side of the painting I had a limited

  sympathy. My visions were of shipwreck and famine; of death or

  captivity among barbarian hordes; of a lifetime dragged out in sorrow

  and tears, upon some gray and desolate rock, in an ocean

  unapproachable and unknown. Such visions or desires- for they

  amounted to desires- are common, I have since been assured, to the

  whole numerous race of the melancholy among men- at the time of which

  I speak I regarded them only as prophetic glimpses of a destiny which

  I felt myself in a measure bound to fulfil. Augustus thoroughly

  entered into my state of mind. It is probable, indeed, that our

  intimate communion had resulted in a partial interchange of

  character.

  About eighteen months after the period of the Ariel's disaster,

  the firm of Lloyd and Vredenburgh (a house connected in some manner

  with the Messieurs Enderby, I believe, of Liverpool) were engaged in

  repairing and fitting out the brig Grampus for a whaling voyage. She

  was an old hulk, and scarcely seaworthy when all was done to her that

  could be done. I hardly know why she was chosen in preference to

  other good vessels belonging to the same owners -- but so it was. Mr.

  Barnard was appointed to command her, and Augustus was going with