The weather, by this time, had improved very considerably; the wind had been slowly but steadily moderating, and the sea, although still tremendously high, was not now breaking dangerously; the sky also had cleared and was without a cloud; there was therefore every prospect of a fine night, with a further steady improvement of the weather; the boat was no longer dangerously pressed by the amount of canvas that she was carrying, and I felt that I need be under no immediate apprehension regarding the future. Moreover my clothes had by this time dried upon my body, and I felt quite warm and comfortable. But I was both hungry and thirsty, for the so-called dinner that I had snatched aboard the Dolphin had been a very hasty and meagre meal. I therefore hove the boat to, by lashing the tiller hard down and hauling the staysail sheet to windward, and then, finding that she rode quite comfortably and was taking care of herself, I proceeded to rummage among my stock of provisions, and soon had a hearty meal set out before me on the after thwart.
By the time that I had finished my supper night had fallen, the stars were shining with the brilliance that they only display in the tropics, and I was beginning to feel the need of sleep; I therefore took a final look round, satisfied myself that all was right and that nothing was in sight, and then, heartily commending myself to the care of my Maker, I stretched myself out on the bottom-boards, and was almost instantly asleep.
To say that I slept soundly that night would scarcely be speaking the truth; for, although I had pretty well satisfied myself before I lay down, that the weather was improving and that therefore I had little or no cause for immediate apprehension, a sailor quickly acquires the trick of maintaining a certain alertness, even in the midst of his slumbers, since he knows that the weather is his most formidable and treacherous enemy, against which he has always to be on his guard; and this faculty of alertness is of course especially active when, as in my own case, he has only himself to depend upon. Consequently I never completely lost consciousness throughout that night, the rush of the wind, the hiss of the sea, the occasional sprinkling of spray were all mechanically noted, and whenever the heel of the boat appreciably exceeded its normal angle I at once became momentarily awake; yet, notwithstanding this, when on the following morning—the first rays of the newly risen sun smote upon my closed eyelids, informing me of the arrival of a new day, I at once arose, refreshed and vigorous, and ready to face any emergency that the day might bring.
My first act was to kneel down and return thanks for my preservation through the night and seek the protection and guidance of God throughout the day; after which I leaned over the boat’s gunwale and freely laved my head, face, and hands in the clear salt-water. Then I set about preparing for myself the most appetising breakfast that my resources would permit; and while I was doing this and discussing the meal I carefully reviewed the entire situation, with a view to my arrival at an immediate decision as to my future proceedings.
The chart which I had with me showed the position of the Dolphin at the moment when my last observations were taken; and from this information I was able to deduce the approximate position of the spot where the vessel had foundered. This spot, I found, was, in round figures, one thousand miles from Sierra Leone, and fourteen hundred miles from the island of Barbadoes; but whereas Sierra Leone was almost dead to windward, Barbadoes was as directly dead to leeward; and a little calculation convinced me that while it would take me about thirty-six days to beat to windward the shorter distance, I might cover the longer, running pleasantly before the wind, in about twenty-four days, allowing, in both cases, for the boat being hove-to throughout the night to enable me to obtain necessary rest. Fortunately, I had with me not only the chart of the North Atlantic, but also a chronometer, sextant, nautical almanac, and boat compass; I was therefore equipped with every requisite for the efficient navigation of the boat, and had no fear of losing my way. I could consequently without hesitation choose what I considered to be the most desirable course, and it did not need any very profound reflection to convince me that this was to make the best of my way back to Barbadoes. I accordingly put up my helm, kept away before the wind, shook out all my reefs, and went sliding away to the westward, easily and comfortably, at a speed of some six knots per hour.
The weather had by this time reverted to quite its normal condition; the trade-wind was blowing steadily, the sea had gone down, and I had nothing worse than a somewhat heavy swell to contend with; I therefore felt that, unless I should be so unfortunate as to fall in with another gale, there was no reason at all why I should not reach my destination safely, and without very much discomfort. My only trouble was that, running, as the boat now was, with the wind so far over the starboard quarter, I dared not release my hold upon the tiller for an instant, lest she should broach-to and, possibly, capsize. Whenever, therefore, it became necessary for me to quit the helm for the purpose of taking an astronomical observation, or otherwise, I had to heave-to, and, occasionally, to shorten sail while doing so, which kept me pretty actively employed, off and on, all day. Thus, about nine o’clock in the morning, I had to heave-to and leave the boat to take care of herself while I secured observations of the sun for the determination of the longitude; the same procedure had to be adopted again at noon when I took the sun’s altitude for the determination of the latitude; and the preparation of a meal involved a further repetition of the manoeuvre. Thus I had no time to feel lonely, at least during the hours of daylight; but after nightfall, surrounded and hemmed in by the gloom and mystery of the darkness, with no companionship save that of the multitudinous stars—which, to my mind, never betray their immeasurable distance so clearly as when one is in mid-ocean—with the sough and moan of the night wind and the soft, seething hiss of the sea whispering in one’s ears, the feeling of loneliness becomes almost an obsession, the sense of all-pervading mystery persistently obtrudes itself, and one quickly falls into a condition of readiness to believe the most incredible of the countless weird stories that sailors love to relate to each other, especially when this condition of credulity is helped, as it sometimes is, by the sudden irruption of some strange, unaccountable sound, or succession of sounds, upon the peaceful quietude and serenity of the night. These sounds are occasionally of the weirdest and most hair-raising quality; and while the startled listener may possibly have heard it asserted, time and again, by superior persons, that they emanate from sea birds, or from fish, he is perfectly satisfied that neither sea birds nor fish have ever been known to emit such sounds in the daytime, and the strain of superstition within him awakes and whispers all sorts of uncanny suggestions, the sea bird and fish theory being rejected with scorn. Moreover, those harrowingly mysterious sounds seem never to make themselves audible save when the accompanying circumstances are such as to conduce to the most startling and thrilling effect; thus, although I had now been knocking about at sea for more than three years, and had met with many queer experiences, I had never, thus far, heard a sound that I could not reasonably account for and attribute to some known source; yet on this particular night—my second night alone in the longboat—I was sitting comfortably enough in the stern-sheets, steering by a star—for I had no lantern wherewith to illuminate my compass—and thinking of nothing in particular, when suddenly a most unearthly cry came pealing out of the darkness on the starboard beam, seemingly not half a dozen yards away, and was twice repeated.
I felt the hair of my scalp bristle, and a violent shudder thrilled through me as those dreadful cries smote upon my ear, for they seemed to be the utterance of some human being in the very last extremity of both physical and mental anguish, the protest of a lost soul being wrenched violently out of its sinful human tenement, cries of such utter, unimaginable despair as the finite mind of man is unable to find a cause for. Yet, despite the agony of horror that froze my blood, I instinctively thrust my helm hard down and flattened in the sheets fore and aft; for the thought came to me that, perchance, a few fathoms out there, veiled from sight in the soft, velvet blackness of the night, some poor wretch—a victim, like myself, to the fury of the late gale—clinging desperately to a fragment of wreckage, might have caught a glimpse of the longboat’s sails, sliding blackly along against the stars, and have emitted those terrible cries as a last despairing appeal for help and succour. Accordingly, as the boat swept round and came to the wind, careening gunwale-to as she felt the full strength of the night breeze in her dew-sodden canvas, I sprang to my feet and, clapping both hands funnel-wise to my mouth, sent forth a hail:
“Ahoy, there! where are you? Keep up your courage, for help is at hand. Where are you, I say? Let me but know where to look for you and I’ll soon be alongside. Shout again; for I can see no sign of you. Ahoy, there! Ahoy!! Ahoy!!!”
The sound of my own voice, coming immediately after that terrible thrice-repeated cry, seemed somehow comforting and reassuring, and I now awaited a reply to my hail with a feeling in which there was more of curiosity than horror. But no reply came; and I once more lifted up my voice in tones of appeal and encouragement. Then, since I failed to evoke any response, I put the boat’s helm down, and tacked, the conviction being strong within me that I could hit off, to an inch, the exact spot from which those dreadful sounds had come. So firmly convinced, indeed, was I of my ability to do this that when the boat came round I left the staysail sheet fast to windward, eased off the fore sheet, and stood by, leaning over the lee gunwale, in readiness to seize and haul inboard the drowning wretch who, I was fully persuaded, must be now almost under the boat’s bilge. But, although the starlight was sufficiently brilliant to have betrayed, at a distance of seven or eight yards, the presence of such an object as a man clinging to a piece of floating wreckage, I could see nothing, no, not even so much as a scrap of floating weed. That I was bitterly disappointed—and also somewhat frightened—I freely admit; for I had somehow succeeded in convincing myself that those terrifying sounds had issued from the throat of a human being so close at hand that I could not possibly fail to find him; yet I had not found him; had failed, indeed, to find the slightest suggestion of his presence; and if those sounds had not a human origin, whence came they? It was the mystery of the thing, as well as the weird, unearthly character of the cries, that sent a thrill of horror through the marrow, and made me almost madly anxious to find an explanation. I worked the boat to and fro athwart those few square yards of ocean for a full hour or more, and shouted myself hoarse, until I at length most unwillingly abandoned the search, and squared away to place as many miles as possible between myself and that unhallowed spot ere I attempted to sleep.
It must have been past midnight before I had so far thrown off the feeling of horror induced by the uncanny experience that I have related as to admit of my contemplating seriously the idea of securing some rest; and even when at length I did so, and had completed all my preparations, such as shortening sail and heaving-to, it was still some time before oblivion came to me. But when it did, it was complete, for the weather was fine and had a settled appearance, the boat lay-to most admirably and took perfect care of herself, and altogether I felt so absolutely safe that there seemed to be no need at all for that peculiar attitude of alertness during sleep to which I have already alluded; my need of sound, refreshing slumber was great, and I lay down, determined to satisfy that need while the opportunity presented itself, and let myself go completely.