CHAPTER XII.
A LONELY NIGHT
I had a pipe of my own in my pocket; I fetched a small block of theblack tobacco that was in the pantry, and, with some trouble, for it wasas hard and dry as glass, chipped off a bowlful and fell a-puffing withall the satisfaction of a hardened lover of tobacco who has long beendenied his favourite relish. The punch diffused a pleasing glow throughmy frame, the tobacco was lulling, the heat of the fire very soothing,the hearty meal I had eaten had also marvellously invigorated me, sothat I found my mind in a posture to justly and rationally consider mycondition, and to reason out such probabilities as seemed to be attachedto it.
First of all I reflected that by the usual operation of natural lawsthis vast seat of "thrilling and thick-ribbed ice" in which the schoonerlay bound was steadily travelling to the northward, where in due courseit would dissolve, though that would not happen yet. But as it advancedso would it carry me nearer to the pathways of ships using these seas,and any day might disclose a sail near enough to observe such signals ofsmoke or flag as I might best contrive. But supposing no opportunity ofthis kind to offer, then I ought to be able to find in the vesselmaterials fit for the construction of a boat, if, indeed, I met not witha pinnace of her own stowed under the main-hatch, for there wascertainly no boat on deck. Nay, my meditations even carried me further:this was the winter season of the southern hemisphere, but presently thesun would be coming my way, whilst the ice, on the other hand, floatedtowards him; if by the wreck and dissolution of the island the schoonerwas not crushed, she must be released, in which case, providing she wastight--and my brief inspection of her bottom showed nothing wrong withher that was visible through the shroud of snow--I should have a stoutship under me in which I would be able to lie hove to, or even makeshift to sail her if the breeze came from the south, and thus take mychance of being sighted and discovered.
Much, I had almost said everything, depended on the quantity ofprovisions I should find in here and particularly on the stock of coal,for I feared I must perish if I had not a fire. But there was the holdto be explored yet; the navigation of these waters must have beenanticipated by the men of the schooner, who were sure to make handsomeprovision for the cold--and the surer if, as I fancied, they wereSpaniards. Certainly they might have exhausted their stock of coal, butI could not persuade myself of this, since the heap in the corner of thecook-room somehow or other was suggestive of a store behind.
I knew not yet whether more of the crew lay in the forecastle, but sofar I had encountered four men only. If these were all, then I had aright to believe, grounding my fancy on the absence of boats, that mostof the company had quitted the ship, and this they would have doneearly--a supposition that promised me a fair discovery of stores. Hereinlay my hope; if I could prolong my life for three or four months, then,if the ice was not all gone, it would have advanced far north, servingme as a ship and putting me in the way of delivering myself, either bythe sight of a sail, or by the schooner floating free, or by myconstruction of a boat.
Thus I sat musing, as I venture to think, in a clearheaded way. Yet allthe same I could not glance around without feeling as if I wasbewitched. The red shining of the furnace ruddily gilded thecook-house; through the after-sliding door went the passage to the cabinin blackness; the storming of the wind was subdued into a strangemoaning and complaining; often through the body of the ship came thethrill of a sudden explosion; and haunting all was the sense of the deadmen just without, the frozen desolation of the island, the mighty worldof waters in which it lay. No! you can think of no isolation comparableto this; and I tremble as I review it, for under the thought of theenormous loneliness of that time my spirit must ever sink and breakdown.
It was melancholy to be without time, so I pulled out the gold watch Ihad taken from the man on the rocks and wound it up, and guessing at thehour, set the hands at half-past four. The watch ticked bravely. It wasindeed a noble piece of mechanism, very costly and glorious with itsjewels, and more than a hint as to the character of this schooner; andhad there been nothing else to judge by I should still have sworn to herby this watch.
My pipe being emptied, I threw some more coals into the furnace, andputting a candle in the lanthorn went aft to take another view of thelittle cabins, in one of which I resolved to sleep, for though thecook-room would have served me best whilst the fire burned, I reckonedupon it making a colder habitation when the furnace was black than thosesmall compartments in the stern. The cold on deck gushed down sobitingly through the open companion-hatch that I was fain to close it.I mounted the steps, and with much ado shipped the cover and shut thedoor, by which of course the great cabin, as I call the room in whichthe two men were, was plunged in darkness; but the cold was nottolerable, and the parcels of candles in the larder rendered meindifferent to the gloom.
On entering the passage in which were the doors of the berths, I noticedan object that had before escaped my observation--I mean a smalltrap-hatch, no bigger than a manhole, with a ring for lifting it, midwaydown the lane. I suspected this to be the entrance to the lazarette, andputting both hands to the ring pulled the hatch up. I sniffedcautiously, fearing foul air, and then sinking the lanthorn by thelength of my arm I peered down, and observed the outlines of casks,bales, cases of white wood, chests, and so forth. I dropped through thehole on to a cask, which left me my head and shoulders above the deck,and then with the utmost caution stooped and threw the lanthorn lightaround me. But the casks were not powder-barrels, which perhaps a littlereflection might have led me to suspect, since it was not to be supposedthat any man would stow his powder in the lazarette.
As I was in the way of settling my misgivings touching the stock of foodin the schooner, I resolved to push through with this business at once,and fetching the chopper went to work upon these barrels and chests; andvery briefly I will tell you what I found. First, I dealt with a tiercethat proved full of salt beef. There was a whole row of these tierces,and one sufficed to express the nature of the rest; there were upwardsof thirty barrels of pork; one canvas bale I ripped open was full ofhams, and of these bales I counted half a score. The white cases heldbiscuit. There were several sacks of pease, a number of barrels offlour, cases of candles, cheeses, a quantity of tobacco, not to mentiona variety of jars of several shapes, some of which I afterwards found tocontain marmalade and succadoes of different kinds. On knocking the headoff one cask I found it held a frozen body, that by the light of thelanthorn looked as black as ink; I chipped off a bit, sucked it, andfound it wine.
I was so transported by the sight of this wonderful plenty that I fellupon my knees in an outburst of gratitude and gave hearty thanks to Godfor His mercy. There was no further need for me to dismally wonderwhether I was to starve or no; supposing the provisions sweet, here wasfood enough to last me three or four years. I was so overjoyed andwithal curious that I forgot all about the time, and flourishing thechopper made the round of the lazarette, sampling its freight byindividual instances, so that by the time I was tired I had enlarged thelist I have given, by discoveries of brandy, beer, oatmeal, oil, lemons,tongues, vinegar, rum, and eight or ten other matters, all stowed verybunglingly, and in so many different kinds of casks, cases, jars, andother vessels as disposed me to believe that several piraticalrummagings must have gone to the creation of this handsome andplentiful stock of good things.
Well, thought I, even if there be no more coal in the ship than whatlies in the cook-house, enough fuel is here in the shape of casks,boxes, and the like to thaw me provisions for six months, besides what Imay come across in the hold, along with the hammocks, bedding, boxes,and so forth in the forecastle, all which would be good to feed my firewith. This was a most comforting reflection, and I recollect springingout through the lazarette hatch with as spirited a caper as ever I hadcut at any time in my life.
I replaced the hatch-cover, and having resolved upon the aftmost of thefour cabins as my bedroom, entered it to see what kind of accommodationit would yield me. I hung up the lanthorn an
d looked into the cot, thatwas slung athwartships, and spied a couple of rugs, or blankets, which Ipulled out, having no fancy to lie under them. The deck was like an oldclothes' shop, or the wardrobe of a travelling troop of actors. From theconfusion in this and the ajoining cabins, I concluded that there hadbeen a rush at the last, a wild overhauling and flinging about ofclothes for articles of more value hidden amongst them. But just aslikely as not the disorder merely indicated the slovenly indifference ofplunderers to the fruits of a pillage that had overstocked them.
The first garment I picked up was a cloak of a sort of silk material,richly furred and lined; all the buttons but one had been cut off, andthat which remained was silver. I spread it in the cot, as it was asoft thing to lie upon. Then I picked up a coat of the fashion you willsee in Hogarth's engravings; the coat collar a broad fold, and the cuffsto the elbow. This was as good as a rug, and I put it into the cot withthe other. I inspected others of the articles on the deck, and amongthem recollect a gold-laced waistcoat of green velvet, two or threepairs of high-heeled shoes, a woman's yellow sacque, several frizzledwigs, silk stockings, pumps--in fine the contents of the trunks of somedandy passengers, long since gathered to their forefathers no doubt,even if the gentlemen of this schooner had not then and there walkedthem overboard or split their windpipes. But, to be honest, I cannotremember a third of what lay tumbled upon the deck or hung against thebulkhead. So far as my knowledge of costume went, every article pointedto the date which I had fixed upon for this vessel.
I swept the huddle of things with my foot into a corner, and lifting thelids of the boxes saw more clothes, some books, a collection ofsmall-arms, a couple of quadrants, and sundry rolls of paper whichproved to be charts of the islands of the Antilles and the western SouthAmerican coast, very ill-digested. There were no papers of any kind todetermine the vessel's character, nor journal to acquaint me with herstory.
I was tired in my limbs rather than sleepy, and went to the cook-room towarm myself at the fire and get me some supper, meaning to sit theretill the fire died out and then go to rest; but when I put my knife tothe ham I found it as hard frozen as when I had first met with it; sowith the cheese; and this though there had been a fire burning forhours! I put the things into the oven to thaw as before, and sittingdown fell very pensive over this severity of cold, which had power tofreeze within a yard or two of the furnace. To be sure the fire by myabsence had shrunk, and the sliding door being open admitted the cold ofthe cabin; but the consideration was, how was I to resist the killingenfoldment of this atmosphere? I had slept in the boat, it is true, andwas none the worse; and now I was under shelter, with the heat of aplentiful bellyful of meat and liquor to warm me; but if wine and hamand cheese froze in an air in which a fire had been burning, why not Iin my sleep, when there was no fire, and life beat weakly, as it does inslumber? Those figures in the cabin were dismal warnings and assurances;they had been men perhaps stouter and heartier in their day than ever Iwas, but they had been frozen into stony images nevertheless, undercover too, with the materials to make a fire, and as much strong watersin their lazarette as would serve their schooner to float in.
Well, thought I, after a spell of melancholy thinking, if I _am_ toperish of cold, there's an end; it is preordained, and it is as easy asdrowning, anyhow, and better than hanging; and with that I pulled outthe ham and found it soft enough to cut, finding philosophy (which, asthe French cynic says, triumphs over past and future ills) not so hardbecause somehow I did not myself then particularly feel the cold--Imean, I was not certainly suffering here from that pain of frost which Ihad felt in the open boat.
Having heartily supped, I brewed a pint of punch, and, charging my pipe,sat smoking with my feet against the furnace. It was after eight o'clockby the watch I was wearing. I knew by the humming noise that it wasblowing a gale of wind outside, and from time to time the decks rattledto a heavy discharge of hail. All sounds were naturally much subdued tomy ear by the ship lying in a hollow, and I being in her with thehatches closed; but this very faintness of uproar formed of itself aquality of mystery very pat to the ghastliness of my surroundings. Itwas like the notes of an elfin storm of necromantic imagination; it washollow, weak, and terrifying; and it and the thunder of the seascommingling, together with the rumbling blasts and shocks of splittingice, disjointed as by an earthquake, loaded the inward silence withunearthly tones, which my lonely and quickened imagination readilyfurnished with syllables. The lanthorn diffused but a small light, andthe flickering of the fire made a movement of shadows about me. I wasseparated from the great cabin where the figures were by the littlearms-room only, and the passage to it ran there in blackness.
It strangely and importunately entered my head to conceive, that thoughthose men were frozen and stirless they were not dead as corpses are,but as a stream whose current, checked by ice, will flow when the iceis melted. Might not life in them be suspended by the cold, not ended?There is vitality in the seed though it lies a dead thing in the hand.Those men are corpses to my eye; but said I to myself, they may have theprinciples of life in them, which heat might call into being.Putrefaction is a natural law, but it is balked by frost, and just asdecay is hindered by cold, might not the property of life be leftunaffected in a body, though it should be numbed in a marble form forfifty years?
This was a terrible fancy to possess a man situated as I was, and it soworked in me that again and again I caught myself looking first forward,then aft, as though, Heaven help me! my secret instincts foreboded thatat any moment I should behold some form from the forecastle, or one ofthose figures in the cabin, stalking in, and coming to my side andsilently seating himself. I pshaw'd and pish'd, and querulously asked ofmyself what manner of English sailor was I to suffer such womanlyterrors to visit me; but it would not do; I could not smoke; a coldnessof the heart fell upon me, and set me trembling above any sort ofshivers which the frost of the air had chased through me; and presentlya hollow creak sounding out of the hold, caused by some movement of thebed of ice on which the vessel lay, I was seized with a panic terror andsprang to my feet, and, lanthorn in hand, made for the companion-ladder,with a prayer in me for the sight of a star!
I durst not look at the figures, but, setting the light down at thefoot of the ladder, squeezed through the companion-door on to the deck.My fear was a fever in its way, and I did not feel the cold. There wasno star to be seen, but the whiteness of the ice was flung out in a wildstrange glare by the blackness of the sky, and made a light of its own.It was the most savage and terrible picture of solitude the invention ofman could reach to, yet I blessed it for the relief it gave to myghost-enkindled imagination. No squall was then passing; the rocks roseup on either hand in a ghastly glimmer to the ebony of the heavens; thegale swept overhead in a wild, mad blending of whistlings, roarings, andcryings in many keys, falling on a sudden into a doleful wailing, thenrising in a breath to the full fury of its concert; the sea thunderedlike the cannonading of an electric storm, and you would have said thatthe rending and crackling noises of the ice were responses to thecrashing blows of the balls of shadow-hidden ordnance. But the scene,the uproar, the voices of the wind were real--a better cordial to myspirits than a gallon of the mellowest vintage below; and presently,when the cold was beginning to pierce me, my courage was so much thebetter for this excursion into the hoarse and black and gleamingrealities of the night, that my heart beat at its usual measure as Ipassed through the hatch and went again to the cook-room.
I was, however, sure that if I sat here long, listening and thinking,fear would return. A small fire still burned; I put a saucepan on it,and popped in a piece of the fresh-water ice, but on handling thebrandy I found it hard set. The heat of the oven was not sufficientlygreat to thaw me a dram; so to save further trouble in this way I tookthe chopper and at one blow split open the jar, and then there laybefore me the solid body of the brandy, from which I chipped off as muchas I needed, and thus procured a hot and animating draught.
Raking out the fire, I picked
up the lanthorn and was about to go, thenhalted, considering whether I should not stow the frozen provisionsaway. It was a natural thought, seeing how precious food was to me. But,alas! it mattered not where they lay; they were as secure here as ifthey were snugly hidden in the bottom of the hold. It was the whiterealm of death; if ever a rat had crawled in this ship, it was, in itshiding-place, as stiff and idle as the frozen vessel. So I let the lumpof brandy, the ice, ham, and so forth, rest where they were, and went tothe cabin I had chosen, involuntarily peeping at the figures as Ipassed, and hurrying the faster because of the grim and terrifyingliveliness put into the man who sat starting from the table by the swingof the lanthorn in my hand.
I shut the door and hung the lanthorn near the cot, having the flint andbox in my pocket. There was indeed an abundance of candles in thevessel; nevertheless, it was my business to husband them with the utmostniggardliness. How long I was to be imprisoned here, if indeed I wasever to be delivered, Providence alone knew; and to run short ofcandles would add to the terrors of my existence, by forcing me eitherto open the hatches and ports for light, and so filling the ship withthe deadly air outside, or living in darkness. There were a cloak and acoat in the cot, but they would not suffice. The fine cloak I had takenfrom the man on the rocks was on deck, and till now I had forgotten it;there was, however, plenty of apparel in the corner to serve as wraps,and having chosen enough to smother me I vaulted into the cot, and socovered myself that the clothes were above the level of the sides of thecot.
I left the lanthorn burning whilst I made sure my bed was all right, andlay musing, feeling extremely melancholy; the hardest part was thethought of those two men watching in the cabin. The most fantasticalarms possessed me. Suppose their ghosts came to the ship at midnight,and, entering their bodies, quickened them into walking? Suppose theywere in the condition of cataleptics, sensible of what passed aroundthem, but paralyzed to the motionlessness and seeming insensibility ofdeath? Then the very garments under which I lay were of a proper kind tokeep a man in my situation quaking. My imagination went to work to tellme to whom they had belonged, the bloody ends their owners had met atthe hands of the miscreants who despoiled them. I caught myselflistening--and there was enough to hear, too, what with the subduedroaring of the wind, the splintering of ice, the occasionalcreaking--not unlike a heavy booted tread--of the fabric of theschooner--to the blasts of the gale against her masts, or to a movementin the bed on which she reposed.
But plain sense came to my rescue at last. I resolved to have no more ofthese night fears, so, blowing out the candle, I put my head on the coatthat formed my pillow, resolutely kept my eyes shut, and after awhilefell asleep.