In my loneliness I gave myself up utterly to despair. Without hope, without companionship, and, above all, without news regarding the result of the expedition that had been sent against the Caribas; weakened by poor food and driven to semi-madness by want of care, I passed as much of my time as possible in troubled sleep, in which I dreamed dreams and saw visions. I suffered a great deal from thirst, also, because the water with which I was supplied was evidently the product of the rainstorms, with an occasional ration of distilled water, brought, as I afterward ascertained, from the ship on which was the boiler of the old locomotive.
The water supply was the greatest of all the problems to the Sargassons. Fortunately, rains were frequent and the seasons of drought far apart. But there were times when the consumption of an extra pint of the fluid aboard each ship in one day would have meant suffering for weeks. The Kantoon of each vessel always kept the water butt in his own cabin, and guarded it more carefully than any of his other possessions.
On the fifth day after my capture the Kantoon of the Happy Shark presented himself at the door of my prison, opened it with a quick jerk, and asked me to come out. I was so weakened by my imprisonment that I was slow to obey.
When I did face him I saw that a fillet of fresh seaweed was bound about his temples, below one corner of which showed a ghastly wound, still fresh and bleeding.
With a wave of his hand he motioned me to follow him to the upper deck, where, recognizing my enfeebled condition, he directed me, still in the curious polyglottic language of his, to seat myself, while he, as before, climbed into his barrel of water. After a few preliminary remarks, and, indeed, a thoughtful expression of regret that during the period of excitement through which he had just passed my comfort had been neglected, he told me the terrible story of the capture of the Caribas.
In a prefatory way, I may state that the boats used by this strange people are made of grass matting, stretched over a light framework of wood (in shape like the birch bark canoe of the American aborigine), covered inside and out with a gum made of fish scales and wholly impervious to water. Each boat will carry only two people, one in the bow and one in the stern, and is propelled with paddles shaped like tennis bats, strung with thongs made from the intestines of fish, interlaced so closely together as to afford resistance to the water. These boats are so light that a man can readily carry one upon his shoulder, and so quick are they in answering the paddle that the little cockle shells can be turned in their own length. In these the Sargassons surmount the heaviest waves; but in the canals of Sargasso nothing rougher than an ocean swell ever exists. If the sea runs “mountain high” outside, its force is broken by the great blanket of sod that for thousands of miles rests upon its surface. So light and buoyant are these small canoes, rarely exceeding nine feet in length, that if one of them is swamped, the two rowers, treading water at the bow and at the stern, lift the boat, bottom upward, above the surface, reverse it, and while one of the crew holds an end of the little craft, the other member climbs into his seat, and, paddle in hand, steadies the boat until his companion resumes his place. The Sargassons have no fear of an upset. Their paddles are lashed to the canoe with long thongs, as are all portable articles that they carry.
Having explained the character of the boats in which the expedition set out, I may now reproduce, in my own words, the Kantoon’s narrative:
The flashing of the Sacred Light in the sky—the blood-red spot under the canopy of heaven that they had been expecting since morning—told the Sargassons the will of their Chief. They all understood that the Congress of the Kantoons had decided that the Caribas must be captured.
The ship was to be literally overrun with men, fully armed; and, after its capture, the Caribas was to be added to our commune.
From the treacherous passenger, Gray, who was the cause of all my misfortune, the exact number of officers and crew had been learned.