Why am I removing the cloth from the brandy-cask? Why not let it remain there? Why try to go through the cask at all?
Certainly there was no reason why I should proceed in that direction. There had been, at an earlier period—while I was only searching for food, and not thinking of the object I now desired and hoped to accomplish—but for my newly-conceived enterprise there was no necessity to cut through the cask at all. On the contrary, it would be the worst direction I could take. It did not lie in the line which would lead to the hatchway, and that was the line in which my tunnel ought to point. I was pretty certain as to the direction of the hatch, for I remembered how I passed from it to the water-butt when I first came into the hold.
I had struck sharply to the right, and gone in a nearly direct line for the end of the butt. All these little points I distinctly remembered, and I was confident that my position was somewhere near the middle of the ship, on the side which sailors would call the “starboard beam.” To go through the cask, therefore, would lead me too far aft of the main-hatchway, which was that by which I had come down. Moreover, there was still the difficulty of broaching the side of the cask—greatly exaggerated, of course, by the dangerous atmosphere I should be compelled to breathe while effecting it.
Why, then, should I attempt it at all? Why not return, and proceed once more in the direction of the boxes? Circumstances were changed since I was last there. I could now find vent for my “back-water,” since the empty cask would serve for that, in one case as well as the other. Besides, it would be much easier to cut through the deal board than the hard oak; and, moreover, I had made some progress in that—the right—direction already. Therefore, considering all things—the danger as well as the difficulty—I came to the conclusion that, by tunnelling through the cask, I would be heading the wrong way; and, in this belief, I turned right about, determined to take the other.
Before proceeding to the boxes, I repacked the cloth into the cask, and added more, placing it piece by piece, with sufficient care, and afterwards wedging it in as tightly as my strength would permit.
I was considerate, also, to return my nine rats to the bag, and draw the string; for I suspected that I had not killed all the rats in the ship, and I feared that the comrades of the defunct nine might take a fancy to eat their old shipmates. This I had been told was not an uncommon habit of the hideous brutes, and I determined to guard against it, so far as my victims were concerned.
When these arrangements were completed, I swallowed a fresh cup of water, and crawled once more into one of the empty boxes.