Something of this depression is upon him now as he sends his little craft skimming over the oily sea, a mere speck at this great distance out. Once before, he and his companion had been visited from outside, but had been able to hide in the thickest recesses of their island home in time—a glance at the ferocious-looking savages who constituted the intruders having convinced them that they might as well fall again into the hands of those from whom they had originally fled as into the power of such as these.
Soon hardly the fringe of palms upon the coast he has left is visible above the mirage-like horizon; the shore itself no longer is. Yet to him this matters nothing. He is at home on this blue, mysterious sea. Even the triangular shark fins gliding here and there make no appeal to his imagination. They are just so many incidents, and that is all, for he is thoroughly accustomed to that sort of thing by this time.
And now the sun is drooping, and the cloudless sky takes on that molten, sickly murk so frequently attendant on the sunset in tropical seas. Night will be here directly, with a sudden rush; but that concerns him in no wise, for he has a supply of water, well covered with wet matting, within his canoe, also food of a kind—and he has learnt to do with very little food of late. There is no need to exert himself with further paddling.
With a dewy rush the night falls, and alone beneath the misty stars, alone on the great deep, its silence only broken by the splash and hollow “sough” of some sea-monster, his thoughts wing themselves back to the home which, in all likelihood, he will never see again, and with the idea comes another as though in a flash. This living death prolonged for years—why not end it now? Not in yielding up life—oh no—but only in risking it. Gravely risking it, true; but still, is not some risk, even grave risk justifiable under the circumstances? Why not keep on his way, paddle straight out to sea, on the off chance of falling in with a passing ship? How far he would have to paddle he had no idea. He had been thrown upon the coast in an unconscious state, but it could not have been very distant if his captors had pulled him off the hulk in their canoes—and the hulk had been in the path of shipping. But was it the same part of the coast as that from which he had now put forth, or was it, perhaps, some hundreds of miles farther off, and, in the trend of the coast-line, standing out much farther into the ocean? Anyhow, he made up his mind to chance it. His canoe was a mere cockleshell, out here in the ocean waste; but, then, the seas were placid, and, beyond a ripple, only too smooth.
What of his companion, apparently deserted? Even though a savage, would not that companion feel his loss? No. The utter lack of imagination of the savage would not allow room for sentimental qualms; while, as for the loss of the canoe, that could be remedied in half a day. So, his resolution fixed, he started forth—truly in the very sublimity of desperation—for, should he fail, death was the alternative, grim death from hunger and thirst amid the awful solitude of the boundless sea.
Hour followed upon hour, and still in the darkness this man urges his craft forward in search of his one chance of life, well knowing that against that one chance there are a hundred—nay, a thousand. Still, he takes it.
He feels neither hunger nor thirst. The heavy moisture of the night dews are effective against the latter; while, as for the first, the hard training he has been through has got him into the way of doing with very little. As hour after hour goes by he begins to strain his eyes over the pathless deep for a distant light, his ears for the throb of an approaching propeller. Then drowsiness overtakes him and he falls asleep, and the canoe drifts at the mercy of the currents—drifts farther and farther away from land.
Now he dreams, and his dreaming is strange. He is at Hilversea once more, at dear old Hilversea, amid the waving of summer woods and rustle of ripening corn, and all the glad sights and sounds of the fairest of English landscapes, and all is as it has been. Yes; all as it has been. This fearful experience is as a thing of the past—a nightmare out of which he has awakened; and yet—and yet—there is still a want—a strange, uneasy, restless want of something, or somebody, which is not altogether sad, or, if sad, is leavened by a confused sweetness. The dream fades into more confusion, then blank. Then the dreamer awakes, and—Great Heaven!
Half of the great lurid orb of day has lifted itself above the horizon, gleaming along the smooth folds of the waste of waters, and on these he is no longer alone. About a quarter of a mile distant lies a ship.
A ship? A wreck. Two jagged stumps of masts rise from the submerged hull, over whose main bulwarks the water is lazily washing, leaving the poop and the forecastle but a few feet above the surface. He has seen it before—not once, but twice. Great Heaven! it is the Red Derelict—the Red Derelict again.