About Face!
The aspect of my affairs had now undergone a complete change for the better. My larder was replenished with store enough to last me for ten days, at the least; for I made a sort of resolution that my future ration should be one rat per diem. In ten days what might I not effect? Surely I should be able to accomplish the great feat which I ought to have attempted at the first, but which, as ill fortune would have it, I had hitherto considered impossible—that is, to cut my way to the deck.
A rat a day, reflected I, will not only keep me alive, but restore some of my spent strength; and labouring constantly for ten days, I should be almost certain to reach the topmost tier of the cargo. Perhaps in less time? If less, all the better; but certainly in ten days I might get through them all, even though there should be ten tiers of boxes between me and the upper deck.
Such were the new hopes with which the successful rat-catching had inspired me, and my mind was restored to a state of confidence and equanimity that had long been stranger to it.
I had one apprehension that still slightly troubled me, and that was about getting through the cask. It was not the fear of the time it might take, for I no longer believed that I should be pinched for time; but I was still in dread lest the fumes of the brandy (which inside the cask were as strong as ever) might again overcome my senses, despite all my resolution to guard against a too long exposure to them. Even when I had entered the cask on the second occasion, it was as much as I could do to drag myself out of it again.
I resolved, however, to steel myself against the seductions of the potent spirit that dwelt within the great barrel, and retreat before I felt its influence too strong to be resisted.
Notwithstanding that I was now more confident as regarded time, I had no thought of wasting it in idleness; and as soon as my dinner was washed down by a copious libation from the water-butt, I possessed myself once more of my knife, and proceeded towards the empty cask, to take a new spell at enlarging the bung-hole.
Ha! the cask was not empty. It was full of cloth. In the excitement of trapping the “vermin,” I had forgotten the circumstance of my having placed the cloth within the empty barrel.
Of course, thought I, I must remove it again, in order to make room for my work; and laying aside the knife, I commenced pulling out the pieces.
While thus engaged, a new reflection arose, and I asked myself some questions, to the following effect:—