In the Sargasso Sea / A Novel

by Thomas A. Janvier

The look of one of them, and she was one of the nearest, was so familiar as I began to make her out clearly that I was sure that I had got back again to the Hurst Castle; for she was just about the size of the Hurst Castle, and was lying with her bow down in the water and her stern high in the air—and the delight of this discovery threw me into such a ferment that I quite forgot how tired I was and fairly ran across the last half dozen vessels that I had to traverse before I came under her tall side. However, when I got close to her I saw that she was not the Hurst Castle after all, but only another unlucky vessel that had broken her nose in collision and so had filled forward and gone sagging down by the bows.

As it happened, the wreck from which I had to board her was a little water-logged brig, close under her quarter, so low-lying that the tilted-up stern of the steamer fairly towered above the brig like a three-story house; and at first it seemed to me that I was about as likely to climb up a house-front as I was to climb up that high smooth wall of iron. But a part of the brig's foremast still was standing, and from it a yard jutted out to within jumping distance of the steamer's rail; and while that was not a way that I fancied—nor a way that ever I should have dared to take, I suppose, had there been any choice in the matter—up it I had to go. Hot as I was though with eagerness, I was a badly scared man as I slowly got to my feet and steadied myself for a moment on the end of the yard and then jumped for it; and a very thankful man, an instant later, when I struck the steamer's rail and fell floundering inboard on her deck—though I bruised myself in my fall pretty badly, and got an unexpected crack on the back of my head as my bag of jewels flew up and hit me with a bang.

However, no real harm was done; and I was so keen to look about me that in a moment I was on my legs again and went forward, limping a little, that I might get up on the bridge: for my strongest desire—stronger even than my longing to go in search, of the water that I did not doubt I would find in the steamer's tanks—was to gaze out over the open ocean, across which I had to go in some way if ever again I was to be free.

The sun was close down on the horizon, a red ball of fire glowing through the mist, and in the mist above and over the surface of the sea below a red light shone. But as I stood on the bridge looking at this strange splendor all my hope died away slowly within me and a chill settled upon my heart. As far as ever I could see the water was covered thickly with tangled and matted weed, broken only here and there by hummocks of wreckage and by a few hulks drifting in slowly to take their places in the ranks of the dead. The almost imperceptible progress of these hulks showed how dense was the mass through which they were drifting; and showed, too, how utterly impossible it would be for me to force my way in a boat driven by oars or sails to the clear water lying far, far off. Even a steamer scarcely could have pushed through that tangle; and could not have gone twice her own length without hopelessly fouling her screw. And it seemed to me that I might better have died on one of the old rotten hulks among which I had been for so long a time wandering—where hope was not, and where I was well in the mood for dying—rather than thus to have got clear of them, and have hope come back to me, only to bring up short against the wall of my sea-prison and so find myself held fast there for all the remainder of my days. And I was the more savagely bitter because I had no right whatever to be disappointed. What I saw was not new to me, and I had known what I was coming to—though I had kept down my thoughts about it—all along.

XXXI

HOW HOPE DIED OUT OF MY HEART

The steamer that I had come aboard of proved to be French; and that she had not long been abandoned I knew by finding an abundance of ice in her cold-room and a great deal of fresh meat there too. Had she been manned by a stiff-necked crew she would not have been abandoned at all. She had been in collision, and her bow-compartment was full of water; but the water had not got aft of her foremast, and except that she was down by the head a little she was not much the worse for her bang. That her captain had tried to carry on after the accident was shown by the sail that had been set in place very snugly over her smashed bows; and I greatly wondered why he had given up the fight, until I found—getting a look at her stern from one of the wrecks lying near her—that her screw was gone. This second accident evidently had been too much for her people and they had taken to the boats and left her. But I think that an English or an American crew would have stood by her, and would have succeeded in getting her towed into port—or even would have brought her in under her own sails. She was called the Ville de Saint Remy, and was a fine boat of about five thousand tons.

All that I had hoped to find aboard of her in the way of comforts and luxuries was there, and more too. Indeed, if a good bed, and the best of food, and excellent wines and tobacco, had been all that I wanted I very well might have settled myself on the Ville de Saint Remy for the balance of my days. But I almost resented the luck which had brought me all these things—for which I had been longing so keenly but a few hours before—because I did not find with them what I desired still more earnestly: the means that would enable me to get away seaward and leave them all behind. What such means would be, it is only fair to add, I could not imagine; at least, I could not imagine anything at all reasonable—for the only thing I could think of that would carry me out across that weed-covered ocean to open water was a balloon.

And so, although I fed daintily and drank of the best, and had good tobacco to cheer me after my meals, my first day aboard the Ville de Saint Remy was as sad a one as any that I had passed since I had come into my sea-prison; for while the daylight lasted, and I wandered about her decks looking always at the barrier of weed which held me there, I had clearly before me the impossibility of ever getting away. Only when darkness came, hiding my prison walls from me, did I become a little more cheerful—as the very human disposition to make light of difficulties when they no longer are visible began to assert itself in my mind.

Down in the comfortable cabin, well lighted and airy, I had a capital dinner—and a bottle of sound Bordeaux with it that no doubt added a good deal to my sanguine cheerfulness; and to end with I made myself some delicious coffee—over a spirit-lamp that I found in the pantry—and had with it a glass of Benedictine and a very choice cigar. And all of these luxurious refreshments of the flesh—which set me to smiling a little as I thought of the contrast that they made to my surroundings—so comforted my spirit that my gloomy thoughts left me, and I began to plan airily how I would start off in a boat well loaded with provisions and somehow or another push my way through the weed. I even got along to details: deciding that it would be quite an easy matter to open a way through the tangle over the bows of my boat with an oar—or with an axe, if need be—and then press forward by poling against the weed on each side; which seemed so feasible a method that I concluded I could accomplish readily at least a mile a day. And so, with these fine fancies dancing in my brain, I settled myself into a delightful bed; and as I drowsed off deliciously I had the comforting conviction that in a little while longer all my difficulties would be conquered and all my troubles at an end.