Summer Cruising in the South Seas

by Charles Warren Stoddard

The scenic effect, as I then considered, was unnecessarily vivid; as I now recall it, it seems to me strictly in keeping and thoroughly dramatic. At any rate, you might have told us a dreadful story with almost fatal success.

I had still one letter left, one bearing this suggestive legend: "To be read in the saddest hour." Now, if there is a sadder hour in all time than the hour of hopeless and friendless death, I care not to know of it. I broke the seal of my letter, feeling that something charitable and cheering would give me strength. A few dried leaves were stored within it. The faint fragrance of summer bowers reassured me: somewhere in the blank world of waters there was land, and there Nature was kind and fruitful; out over the fearful deluge this leaf was borne to me in the return of the invisible dove my heart had sent forth in its extremity. A song was written therein, perhaps a song of triumph. I could now silence the clamorous tongue of our sea-monster, who was glutting us with tales of horror, for a jubilee was at hand, and here was the first note of its trumpets.

I read:—

"Beyond the parting and the meeting,
I shall be soon;
Beyond the farewell and the greeting,
Beyond the pulse's fever-beating,
I shall be soon."

I paused. A night black with croaking ravens, brooding over a slimy hulk, through whose warped timbers the sea oozed,—that was the sort of picture that rose before me. I looked further for a crumb of comfort:—

"Beyond the gathering and the strewing,
I shall be soon;
Beyond the ebbing and the flowing,
Beyond the coming and the going,
I shall be soon."

A tide of ice-water seemed rippling up and down my spinal column; the marrow congealed within my bones. But I recovered. When a man has supped full of horror and there is no immediate climax, he can collect himself and be comparatively brave. A reaction restored my soul.

Once more the melancholy chronicler of the ill-fated "Petrel" resumed his lugubrious narrative. I resolved to listen, while the skipper eyed the barometer, and we all rocked back and forth in search of the centre of gravity, looking like a troupe of mechanical blockheads nodding in idiotic unison. All this time the little craft drifted helplessly, "hove to" in the teeth of the gale.

The sea-dog's yarn was something like this: He once knew a lonesome man who floated about in a water-logged hulk for three months; who saw all his comrades starve and die, one after another, and at last kept watch alone, craving and beseeching death. It was the staunch French brig "Mouette," bound south into the equatorial seas. She had seen rough weather from the first: day after day the winds increased, and finally a cyclone burst upon her with insupportable fury. The brig was thrown upon her beam-ends, and began to fill rapidly. With much difficulty her masts were cut away, she righted, and lay in the trough of the sea rolling like a log. Gradually the gale subsided, but the hull of the brig was swept continually by the tremendous swell, and the men were driven into the foretop cross-trees, where they rigged a tent for shelter, and gathered what few stores were left them from the wreck. A dozen wretched souls lay in their stormy nest for three whole days in silence and despair. By this time their scanty stores were exhausted, and not a drop of water remained; then their tongues were loosened, and they railed at the Almighty. Some wept like children, some cursed their fate. One man alone was speechless—a Spaniard, with a wicked light in his eye, and a repulsive manner that had made trouble in the forecastle more than once.

When hunger had driven them nearly to madness they were fed in an almost miraculous manner. Several enormous sharks had been swimming about the brig for some hours, and the hungry sailors were planning various projects for the capture of them. Tough as a shark is, they would willingly have risked life for a few raw mouthfuls of the same. Somehow, though the sea was still and the wind light, the brig gave a sudden lurch and dipped up one of the monsters, who was quite secure in the shallow aquarium between the gunwales. He was soon despatched, and divided equally among the crew. Some ate a little, and reserved the rest for another day; some ate till they were sick, and had little left for the next meal. The Spaniard with the evil eye greedily devoured his portion, and then grew moody again, refusing to speak with the others, who were striving to be cheerful, though it was sad enough work.