But see the grampus hurl himself like some flying elephant into the “brown” of a school of scared porpoises. In vain do they flee at headlong speed anywhither. The enemy pursues, he overtakes, he swallows at a gulp, even as do his victims the lesser creatures upon which they fatten in their turn. So with the huge mackerel, which seamen call the albacore, although as far as one can see there is no difference between him and the tunny of the Mediterranean but in size. What havoc he makes among a school of his congeners the bonito! A hungry lion leaping into the midst of a flock of deer will seize one, and retire to devour it quietly. But this monster clashes his jaws continually as he rushes to and fro among the panic-stricken hosts, scattering their palpitating fragments around him in showers. In like manner do his victims play the destroyers’ part in their turn. Yonder flight of silvery creatures whose myriads cast a dense shade over the bright sea are fleeing for life, for beneath them, agape for their inevitable return, are the serried ranks of their ravenous pursuers. Birds intercept the aerial course of the fugitives, who are in evil case indeed whithersoever they flee. But descending the scale, we shall find the persecuted Exoceta also on the warpath in their thousands after still smaller prey.
Time would fail to tell of the ravages of the swordfish, also a mackerel of great size and ferocity, who launches himself torpedo-like at the bulky whale, the scavenger-shark, or a comrade, with strict impartiality. And of the “killer” whale, eater of the tongue only of the mysticetus; the thresher-shark, aider and abettor of the killer; or the saw-fish, who disembowels his prey that his feeble teeth may have tender food. Their warfare knows no armistice; they live but to eat and be eaten in their turn, and as to eat they must fight, the battle rages evermore. The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty, but they are peaceful compared with the sombre depths of the sea.
XI
AN EFFECT OF REFRACTION
All hands were asleep. The conduct of the watch on deck, though undoubtedly culpable, had just this excuse, that the ship was far out of the track of other vessels, and lying lapped in a profound calm, still as a ship can ever be upon the ocean’s never-resting bosom. It was my trick at the wheel, and although I had certainly been asleep like the rest of my shipmates, I presently found myself wide awake, as if an unfelt breath had in an instant swept my brain clear of those bewildering mist-wreaths that usually hinder the mind on its return to tangible things from its wanderings in the realms of the unknown. Instinctively I glanced aloft, where the sails hung flatly motionless, except for an occasional rippling flap, soft-sounding as the wing of a mousing owl, as the vessel swayed dreamily over the caressing swell. Overhead, the bright eye of Aldebaran looked down with a friendly gaze, but not an air even of the faintest was there to stir the slumbering keel. On the companion, a few feet away, the shapeless form of the mate was dimly discernible, as in some incomprehensible tangle of limbs he lay oblivious of his surroundings. Through the open after-leaf of the cabin skylight came the close, greasy-smelling reek of the little den below. The useless compass answered my inquiring peep with a vacant stolidity, as if it were glued to the bottom of its bowl. Only the clock seemed alive and watchful, telling me that for still another hour I must remain at my post, although my presence there was the merest formality.
So I turned my thoughts listlessly in the direction of the sailor’s usual solace during long spells of lonely watch—the building of airy visions of shore delights, when, the long voyage over, I should be free once more for a short time with a little handful of fast-disappearing gold wherewith to buy such pleasures as I could compass. As I thus dreamed, the heavy minutes crawled away on leaden-shod feet, while the palpable silence enwrapped me, almost making audible the regular rhythm of my heart. But gradually out of this serene outward and inward quiet there stole over me a nameless sense of fear, why or of what I had no idea. Nay, I hardly recognised this benumbing stealthy change in the calm normal flow of my being as fear. It was an indefinite alteration of all my faculties from healthy restful regularity to a creeping stagnation, as of some subtle poison disintegrating my blood and turning it into chilly dust. All the moisture of my body seemed evaporating, my skin grew tighter, and my breath came in burning gasps that scorched my nostrils and throat. Yet, while this disabling of all my physical constituents was progressing, my mind was actively rebelling against the mysterious paralysis of its usually willing co-operators. Eagerly, fiercely, it demanded a reason, urged to instant action of some kind. Then, still in the same fateful, hasteless manner, my terror took a more definite shape. It, whatever was thus sapping my most vital forces, was behind me, I felt it; I realised it; but what or who or how it was I could not or dared not imagine. Dimly I dwelt upon what I felt ought to be certain, that only about six feet of clear deck separated me from the vacant plane of the sea, but that certainty would not appear sure, as it ought to have done.
At last, by what seemed to me a superhuman effort of will, I summoned all my resources and turned my body round. There lay the sleeping sea, besprinkled all over with reflections of innumerable stars that shone scarcely less brilliant on the smooth face of the deep than they did in the inscrutable dome above. But among those simulated coruscations lay what looked like the long straight folds of a shroud. Broadening as it neared me, it faded away before its skirts reached the ship. My dry, aching eyeballs followed its pallid outlines horizonwards until at that indefinable limit where sea and sky seem to meet my fear took shape. There in the blue-black heaven, its chin resting on the sea margin, glared a gigantic skull, perfect in all its ghastly details, and glowing with that unearthly light that only emanates from things dead. Yet the cavernous openings of that awful visage, deep within their darkness, showed a lurid suggestion of red that burned and faded as if fed from some hidden furnace beyond. This horrible apparition, so utterly at variance with the placid loveliness of its setting, completed my undoing. I actually felt thankful for its appalling hideousness as the sense that my endurance limit was reached came upon me. With a feeling of unspeakable gratitude and relief, I felt my parched-up bones melt, my whole framework collapsed, and I sank slowly to the deck, all knowledge fading like the last flicker of an exhausted lamp. But with the last gleam of sight I saw the Thing, elongated out of all proportion, suddenly snap the unseen ligament that bound it to the horizon. And immediately, some distance above, the sweet cool face of the lovely moon shone full-orbed, to commence her triumphal march across the sky. Then for an age I died.
By slow, painful stages life returned to me, as if the bewildered spirit must creep and grovel through obscene tunnels and tortuous grooves of interminable length before it could again reanimate the helpless tabernacle awaiting it. But so great had been the shock, so complete the disorganisation of all my powers, that for what seemed hours after I became fully conscious again, I was unable to raise an eyelash. The same profound peace still reigned, not a sound, hardly a movement of the vessel. Slowly my eyes unclosed. I lay in a lake of moonlight streaming from the radiant globe sailing up the blue, now well advanced in her stately progress among the paling stars. As I looked up at the splendid satellite I wondered vaguely how I could ever have connected such a well-beloved object with the brain-withering terror of the immediate past. The problem was beyond me, never an acute reasoner at the best of times, but now mentally palsied by what I had undergone. While I still lay in sentient inability to move I heard the mate rise to his feet with a resounding yawn. The familiar noise broke the spell that held me. I rose to my feet involuntarily and peered in at the clock, which was on the stroke of four. “Eight bells, sir,” I said, but in a voice so harsh and strange that the officer could not believe his ears. “What’s that?” he queried wonderingly. I repeated the words. He rose and struck the bell, but came aft immediately he had done so and peered into my face as if to see who it was. “Ain’t ye well?” he asked. “Y’ look like a cawpse.” I made some incoherent reply, upon which he said quickly, “Here, go for’ard ’n turn in, ’relse I’m damned if ye won’t be sick.” Listlessly I answered “Ay, ay, sir,” and shambled forward to my stuffy bunk. My shipmates, heavy with sleep, took no notice of me, and I turned in, to lie tossing feverishly, every sinew in my body vibrating with pain so as to be almost unbearable. A long spell of what I suppose was brain fever followed, during which the terrible vision of that middle watch was re-enacted a thousand times with innumerable fantastic additions. Out of that weary waste of life I emerged transformed from a ruddy, full-faced youth into a haggard, prematurely old man, while nothing but my stalwart physique enabled me to survive. For the rest of the voyage my shipmates looked upon me with awe, as upon one who had made a fearsome voyage into the unseen world lying all around us, and been permitted to return wise beyond the power of mortal speech to express. But my silence upon the subject was only because I really had nothing to tell. Whence came that marrow-freezing fear I shall never know, or why. What I saw was simply such a grotesque distortion of the moon’s disc as is often witnessed in low latitudes, when either sun or moon rising appears to have the lower limb glued to the horizon for quite an appreciable time, while fragments of mist or cloud passing over the luminous and elongated face cause strange patterns to appear upon it. And when suddenly the connection seems to break, the luminary apparently springs several degrees at a bound into the clear sky above. Just an effect of refraction—nothing more.