Immediately beyond this steamer lay a big wooden ship evidently waterlogged; for she lay so low that the whole of her hull, save a bit of her stern, was hidden from me by the steamer, and the most of her that showed was her broken masts. And beyond her again was a jam of wrecks so confused that I could not make out clearly any one of them from the rest. Taken all together, they made a sort of promontory that jutted out from what I may call the main-land of wreckage; and to the right and left of the promontory there went off in long receding lines the coast of that country of despair.
At last the sun sunk away to the horizon, and as it fell off westward pink tones began to show in the clouds there and then to be reflected in the haze; and these tones grew warmer and deeper until I saw just such another blood-red sunset as I had seen in what I had fancied was my dream. And under the crimson haze lay the dead wrecks, looming large in it, with gleams of crimson light striking here and there on spars and masts and giving them the look of being on fire. And then the light faded slowly, through shades of purple and soft pink and warm gray, until at last the blessed darkness came and shut off everything from my tired eyes.
Indeed, I was glad when the darkness fell; for as I sat there looking and looking and feeling the bitter hopelessness of it all, I was well on my way to going crazy with sorrow. But somehow, not seeing any longer the ruin which was so near to me, and of which I knew myself to be a part, it seemed less real to me—and so less dreadful. And being thus eased a little I realized that I was hungry again, and that commonplace natural feeling did me good too.
I went below to the pantry, striking a match to see my way by; and when I had lighted the big lamp that was hanging there—the glass chimney of which, in some wonderful way, had pulled through the crash which had sent the mizzen-mast flying—the place seemed so cheerful that my desire for supper increased prodigiously, and tended still farther to down my sorrowful thoughts. I even had a notion of trying to light a fire in the galley and cooking over it some of the beef or mutton that I had found in the cold-room; but I gave that up, just then, because I really was too hungry to wait until I could carry through so large a plan.
But there was a plenty of good food in tins easily to be got at; and what was still better I felt quite strong enough to eat a lot of it without hurting myself. I even went at my meal a little daintily, spreading a napkin—that I got from a locker filled with table linen—on the pantry dresser, and setting out on it a tin of chicken and a bunch of cheese and some bread which was pretty stale and hard and a pot of jam to end off with; and from the wine-room I brought a bottle of good Bordeaux.
As I ate my supper, greatly relishing it, the oddness of what I was doing did not occur to me; but often since I have thought how strange was that meal of mine—in that brightly lighted cosey little room, and myself really cheerful over it—in its contrast with the utterly desperate strait in which I was. And I think that the contrast was still sharper, my supper being ended, when I fetched a steamer-chair that I had noticed lying on the floor of the cabin and settled myself in it easily—facing toward the stern, so that the slope of the deck only made the slope of the chair still easier—and so sat there in the brightness smoking a very good cigar.
And after a while—what with my comfort of body, and the good meal in my stomach, and the good wine there too—a soothing drowsiness stole over me, and I had the feeling that in another moment or two I should fall away into a delicious doze. And then, all of a sudden, I was roused wide awake again by hearing faintly, but quite distinctly, a long and piercingly shrill cry.
I fairly jumped from my chair, so greatly was I startled; and for a good while I stood quite still, drawing my breath softly, in waiting wonder for that strange cry to come again. But it did not come again—and as the silence continued I fell to doubting if I had not been asleep, and that this sound which had seemed so real to me had not been only a part of a dream.