With the return of daylight, giving me an outlook over the weed-covered water again, most of my hopefulness left me along with most of my faith in my airily-made plan; but even in this colder mood it did seem to me that there was at least a chance of my pulling through—and my slim courage was strengthened by the feeling within me that unless I threw myself with all my energy into work of some sort I presently would find myself going melancholy mad. And so, but only half-heartedly, I mustered up resolution to make a trial of my poor project for getting away.
On board the Ville de Saint Remy there was nothing to be done. The corner-stone of my undertaking was finding a boat and launching it, and the Frenchmen—in their panic-stricken scamper from a danger that was mainly in their own lively imaginations—had carried all their boats away. It was necessary, therefore, that I should go on a cruise among the other wrecks lying around me in search of a boat still in a condition to swim; but I was very careful this time—profiting by my rough experience—to make sure before I started of my safe return. Fortunately the stern of the steamer was so high out of the water that it rose conspicuously above the wrecks lying thereabouts; but to make her still more conspicuous I roused out a couple of French flags and an American flag from her signal-chest and set them at her three mastheads—giving to our own colors the place of honor on the mainmast—and so made her quite unmistakable from as far off as I could see her through the haze. And as a still farther precaution against losing myself I hunted up a hatchet to take along with me to blaze my way. All of which matters being attended to, I made a rope fast to the rail—knotting it at intervals, so that I could climb it again easily—and so slipped down the steamer's side.
My business was only with the wrecks lying along the extreme outer edge of the pack—from which alone it would be possible for me to launch a boat in the event of my finding one—but in order to get from one to the other of them I had to make so many long detours that my progress was very slow. Indeed, by the time that noon came, and I stopped to eat my dinner—which I had brought along with me, that I need not have to hunt for it—I had made less than half a mile in a straight line. And in none of the vessels that I had crossed—except on one lying so far in the pack as to be of no use to me—had I found a single boat that would swim. Nor had I any better luck when I went on with my search again in the afternoon. As it had been in the case of the Hurst Castle so it had been, I suppose, in the case of all the wrecks which I examined that day: either their boats had been staved-in or washed overboard by tempest, or else had served to carry away their crews. But what had become of them, so far as I was concerned, made no difference—the essential matter was that they were gone. And so, toward evening, I turned backward from my fruitless journey and headed for the Ville de Saint Remy again—for I had found no other ship so comfortable in the course of my explorations—and got safe aboard of her just as the sun was going down.
That night I had not much comfort in the good dinner that I set out for myself—though I was glad enough to get it, being both hungry and tired—and I only half plucked up my spirits over my coffee and cigar. But still, as the needs of my body were gratified, my mind got so far soothed and refreshed that I held to my purpose—which had been pretty much given over when I came back tired and hungry after my vain search—and I went to bed resolute to begin again my explorations on the following day.
But when the morning came and I set off—though I had a good breakfast inside of me, and such a store of food by me as fairly would have set me dancing with delight only a week before—I was in low spirits and went at my work rather because I was resolved to push through with it than because I had any strong hope that it would give me what I desired.
This time—having already examined the wrecks for near a mile northward along the edge of the pack—I set my course for the south; and again, until late in the afternoon, I worked my way from ship to ship—with long detours inland from time to time in order to get around some break in the coast-line—and on all of them the result was the same: not a boat did I find anywhere that was not so riven and shattered as to be beyond all hope of repair. And at nightfall I came back once more to the Ville de Saint Remy wearied out in body and utterly dispirited in mind.
Even after I had eaten my dinner and was smoking at my ease in the cheerfully lighted cabin, sitting restfully in a big arm-chair and with every sort of material comfort at hand, I could not whip myself up to hoping again. It was true that I had not exhausted the possibilities of finding the boat that I desired so eagerly, for my search along the coast-line had extended for only about a mile each way; but in my down-hearted state it seemed to me that my search had gone far enough to settle definitely that what I wanted was not to be found. And this brought down on me heavily the conviction that my prison—though it was the biggest, I suppose, that ever a man was shut up in—must hold me fast always: and with that feeling in it there no longer was room for hope also in my heart.
XXXII
I FALL IN WITH A FELLOW-PRISONER
When I had finished my breakfast the next morning I faced the worst thing which I had been forced to face since I had been cast prisoner into the Sargasso Sea: a whole day of idleness without hope. Until then there had not been an hour—save when I was asleep—that I had not been doing something which in some way I had hoped would better my condition temporarily, or would tend toward my deliverance. But that morning I was without such spurs to effort and there was absolutely nothing for me to do. My condition could not be improved by making my home on another vessel; it was doubtful, indeed, if in all the wreck-pack I could find a home so comfortable and so abundantly stocked with the best provisions as I had found aboard of the Ville de Saint Remy. As for working farther for my deliverance, I had set that behind me after my experience during the two preceding days. And so I brought a steamer-chair out on the deck and sat in it smoking, idle and hopeless, gazing straight out before me with a dull steadfastness over the very gently undulating surface of the weed-covered sea.