CHAPTER V. MY REWARD
The sun declined; my shadow broadened on die waters; and now I felt thatif my cockle-shell could live a little longer, why, so could I.
I had got at the fowls without further hurt. Some of the bars took out,I discovered how. And now very carefully I got my legs in, and knelt;but the change of posture was not worth the risk one ran for it; therewas too much danger of capsizing, and failing to free oneself before shefilled and sank.
With much caution I began breaking the bars, one by one; it was hardenough, weak as I was; my thighs were of more service than my hands.
But at last I could sit, the grating only covering me from the kneesdownwards. And the relief of that outweighed all the danger, which, as Idiscovered to my untold joy, was now much less than it had been before.I was better ballast than the fowls.
These I had attached to the lashings which had been blown asunder by theexplosion; at one end of the coop the ring-bolt had been torn clean out,but at the other it was the cordage that had parted. To the frayedends I tied my fowls by the legs, with the most foolish pride in my owncunning. Do you not see? It would keep them fresh for my use, and it wasa trick I had read of in no book; it was all my own.
So evening fell and found me hopeful and even puffed up; but yet, nosail.
Now, however, I could lie back, and use had given me a strange sense ofsafety; besides, I think I knew, I hope I felt, that the hen-coop was inother Hands than mine.
All is reaction in the heart of man; light follows darkness nowhere moresurely than in that hidden self, and now at sunset it was my heart'shigh-noon. Deep peace pervaded me as I lay outstretched in my narrowrocking bed, as it might be in my coffin; a trust in my Maker's willto save me if that were for the best, a trust in His final wisdom andloving-kindness, even though this night should be my last on earth. Formyself I was resigned, and for others I must trust Him no less. Who wasI to constitute myself the protector of the helpless, when He was inHis Heaven? Such was my sunset mood; it lasted a few minutes, and then,without radically changing, it became more objective.
The west was a broadening blaze of yellow and purple and red. I cannotdescribe it to you. If you have seen the sun set in the tropics, youwould despise my description; and, if not, I for one could never makeyou see it. Suffice it that a petrel wheeled somewhere between deepeningcarmine and paling blue, and it took my thoughts off at an earthytangent. I thanked God there were no big sea-birds in these latitudes;no molly-hawks, no albatrosses, no Cape-hens. I thought of an albatrossthat I had caught going out. Its beak and talons were at the bottomwith the charred remains of the Lady Jermyn. But I could see themstill, could feel them shrewdly in my mind's flesh; and so to the oldsuperstition, strangely justified by my case; and so to the poem whichI, with my special experience, not unnaturally consider the greatestpoem ever penned.
But I did not know it then as I do now--and how the lines eluded me! Iseemed to see them in the book, yet I could not read the words!
"Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink."
That, of course, came first (incorrectly); and it reminded me of mythirst, which the blood of the fowls had so very partially appeased. Isee now that it is lucky I could recall but little more. Experience isless terrible than realization, and that poem makes me realize what Iwent through as memory cannot. It has verses which would have driven memad. On the other hand, the exhaustive mental search for them distractedmy thoughts until the stars were back in the sky; and now I had a newoccupation, saying to myself all the poetry I could remember, especiallythat of the sea; for I was a bookish fellow even then. But I neverwas anything of a scholar. It is odd therefore, that the one appositepassage which recurred to me in its entirety was in hexameters andpentameters:
Me miserum, quanti montes volvuntur aquarum! Jam jam tacturos sidera summa putes. Quantae diducto subsidunt aequore valles! Jam jam tacturas Tartara nigra putes. Quocunque adspicio, nihil est nisi pontus et aether; Fluctibus hic tumidis, nubibus ille minax....
More there was of it in my head; but this much was an accurate statementof my case; and yet less so now (I was thankful to reflect) than inthe morning, when every wave was indeed a mountain, and its trough aTartarus. I had learnt the lines at school; nay, they had formed my veryearliest piece of Latin repetition. And how sharply I saw the room Isaid them in, the man I said them to, ever since my friend! I figuredhim even now hearing Ovid rep., the same passage in the same room. And Ilay saying it on a hen-coop in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean!
At last I fell into a deep sleep, a long unconscious holiday of thesoul, undefiled by any dream.
They say that our dreaming is done as we slowly wake; then was I out ofthe way of it that night, for a sudden violent rocking awoke me inone horrid instant. I made it worse by the way I started to a sittingposture. I had shipped some water. I was shipping more. Yet all aroundthe sea was glassy; whence then the commotion? As my ship came trimagain, and I saw that my hour was not yet, the cause occurred to me; andmy heart turned so sick that it was minutes before I had the courage totest my theory.
It was the true one.
A shark had been at my trailing fowls; had taken the bunch of themtogether, dragging the legs from my loose fastenings. Lucky they hadbeen no stronger! Else had I been dragged down to perdition too.
Lucky, did I say? The refinement of cruelty rather; for now I hadneither meat nor drink; my throat was a kiln; my tongue a flame; andanother day at hand.
The stars were out; the sea was silver; the sun was up!
. . . . .
Hours passed.
I was waiting now for my delirium.
It came in bits.
I was a child. I was playing on the lawn at home. I was back on theblazing sea.
I was a schoolboy saying my Ovid; then back once more.
The hen-coop was the Lady Jermyn. I was at Eva Denison's side. They weremarrying us on board. The ship's bell was ringing for us; a guitar inthe background burlesqued the Wedding March under skinny fingers; theair was poisoned by a million cigarettes, they raised a pall of smokeabove the mastheads, they set fire to the ship; smoke and flame coveredthe sea from rim to rim, smoke and flame filled the universe; the seadried up, and I was left lying in its bed, lying in my coffin, withred-hot teeth, because the sun blazed right above them, and my witheredlips were drawn back from them for ever.
So once more I came back to my living death; too weak now to carry afinger to the salt water and back to my mouth; too weak to think of Eva;too weak to pray any longer for the end, to trouble or to care any more.
Only so tired.
. . . . .
Death has no more terrors for me. I have supped the last horror of theworst death a man can die. You shall hear now for what I was delivered;you shall read of my reward.
My floating coffin was many things in turn; a railway carriage, apleasure boat on the Thames, a hammock under the trees; last of all itwas the upper berth in a not very sweet-smelling cabin, with a clatterof knives and forks near at hand, and a very strong odor of onions inthe Irish stew.
My hand crawled to my head; both felt a wondrous weight; and my headwas covered with bristles no longer than those on my chin, only lessstubborn.
"Where am I?" I feebly asked.
The knives and forks clattered on, and presently I burst out cryingbecause they had not heard me, and I knew that I could never make themhear. Well, they heard my sobs, and a huge fellow came with his mouthfull, and smelling like a pickle bottle.
"Where am I?"
"Aboard the brig Eliza, Liverpool, homeward bound; glad to see them eyesopen."
"Have I been here long?"
"Matter o' ten days."
"Where did you find me?"
"Floating in a hen-coop; thought you was a dead 'un."
"Do you know what ship?"
"Do we know? No, that's what you've got to tell us!"
"I can't," I sighed, too weak to wag my head upon the pillow.
The man went to my cabin door.
"Here's a go," said he; "forgotten the name of his blessed ship, he has.Where's that there paper, Mr. Bowles? There's just a chance it may bethe same."
"I've got it, sir."
"Well, fetch it along, and come you in, Mr. Bowles; likely you may thinko' somethin'."
A reddish, hook-nosed man, with a jaunty, wicked look, came and smiledupon me in the friendliest fashion; the smell of onions became more thanI knew how to endure.
"Ever hear of the ship Lady Jermyn?" asked the first corner, winking atthe other.
I thought very hard, the name did sound familiar; but no, I could nothonestly say that I had beard it before.
The captain looked at his mate.
"It was a thousand to one," said he; "still we may as well try him withthe other names. Ever heard of Cap'n Harris, mister?"
"Not that I know of."
"Of Saunderson-stooard?"
"No."
"Or Crookes-quartermaster."
"Never."
"Nor yet of Ready--a passenger?"
"No."
"It's no use goin' on," said the captain folding up the paper.
"None whatever, sir," said the mate
"Ready! Ready!" I repeated. "I do seem to have heard that name before.Won't you give me another chance?"
The paper was unfolded with a shrug.
"There was another passenger of the name of San-Santos. Dutchman,seemin'ly. Ever heard o' him?"
My disappointment was keen. I could not say that I had. Yet I would notswear that I had not.
"Oh, won't you? Well, there's only one more chance. Ever heard of MissEva Denison--"
"By God, yes! Have you?"
I was sitting bolt upright in my bunk. The skipper's beard dropped uponhis chest.
"Bless my soul! The last name o' the lot, too!"
"Have you heard of her?" I reiterated.
"Wait a bit, my lad! Not so fast. Lie down again and tell me who shewas."
"Who she was?" I screamed. "I want to know where she is!"
"I can't hardly say," said the captain awkwardly. "We found the gig o'the Lady Jermyn the week arter we found you, bein' becalmed like; therewasn't no lady aboard her, though."
"Was there anybody?"
"Two dead 'uns--an' this here paper."
"Let me see it!"
The skipper hesitated.
"Hadn't you better wait a bit?"
"No, no; for Christ's sake let me see the worst; do you think I can'tread it in your face?"
I could--I did. I made that plain to them, and at last I had thepaper smoothed out upon my knees. It was a short statement of the lastsufferings of those who had escaped in the gig, and there was nothingin it that I did not now expect. They had buried Ready first--then mydarling--then her step-father. The rest expected to follow fast enough.It was all written plainly, on a sheet of the log-book, in differenttrembling hands. Captain Harris had gone next; and two had beendiscovered dead.
How long I studied that bit of crumpled paper, with the salt spraystill sparkling on it faintly, God alone knows. All at once a peal ofnightmare laughter rattled through the cabin. My deliverers startedback. The laugh was mine.