"Go on—go on!" said several; yet no man moved, for there was a deathlike silence in and around her.
Her main-hatch was battened down; but we could see that the companion aft and the fore-hatch were partly open. Her long-boat was turned keel upmost on deck, aft the foremast; and by other indications it had doubtless formed a species of round-house. Various large white bones, fragments of broken casks, coils of old bleached ropes, and rusty harpoons were strewn about, and served to indicate that she had been a whale-ship.
Urged by curiosity, I proceeded towards her cabin, my eleven shipmates following closely at my heels.
The skylight was covered with snow; yet through a broken pane I could perceive the figures of men below: then I turned to descend into her dark, gloomy, and slimy cabin, on entering which I beheld a wondrous scene of horror, such as can never be forgotten by me, nor was it by those who accompanied me.
The red glow of the sun, now setting beyond the distant waste of ice, shone from the west through her two square stern windows, pouring athwart her cabin a sombre and dusky light. Its sides were covered by a damp mould, which was green and thick as moss. Nearly three feet of snow, which had drifted down the companion-hatch, was lying upon its floor; half buried among it and huddled close together in a corner, lay the bodies of three emaciated men, with fur caps tied under their wasted jaws.
A blue and ghastly hand that hung over one of the cabin berths announced that a dead man lay there; and seated at the table was another, whose arms, head, and back were half covered by the snow, that had drifted over him after he had sunk into the sleep of death. His coat was old in fashion, with large brass buttons and square pocket-flaps. Amid the snow that covered the table, and amid which his face was hidden, there appeared the necks of one or two square case-bottles—empty.
A quill was also standing amid the snow, and seemed to indicate that the dead man had been writing, for it was still in the pewter inkhorn, and near it stood a lamp, used by him probably to keep his ink from freezing. Close by appeared the corner of a book, which I drew with difficulty from amid the frozen snow, and then impelled by a horror, of that cold dark floating grave, like frightened schoolboys we rushed up the cabin-stairs, and regained the deck, just as the last segment of the sun's red disc went down beyond the frozen sea.
We stood in a group near the mouldering mainmast, gazing at each other awe-struck, for we had looked on the faces of men who had been dead for years—how many, we knew not.
"There is something moving in the forehold!" exclaimed Tom Hammer, the carpenter, while his teeth chattered alike with cold and fear.
"Something?" I reiterated.