Dick Cheveley: His Adventures and Misadventures

by William Henry Giles Kingston

I am afraid that I could boast of very few good qualities, but I possessed at all events that of perseverance. Perhaps I had gained it during my experience as a fisherman, when I used to sit for hours by the side of a pond waiting for a bite, and seldom failed to get one at last. I therefore again hung up my knife. I can’t tell how often it fell, but at last I caught one rat much as I had done the first, though at the expense of a bite on the thumb. By this time I was again hungry, and very soon had the rat’s flesh between my teeth.

To those who have not suffered as I had, my proceeding must appear very disgusting, but I would only advise any fellow who thinks so to try what he would do after going without food for three or four days. I certainly, during that time, had had nothing but two buns and unlimited draught of cold water. The cold water and the long spells of sleep I had enjoyed. I believe in reality that I was much longer than four days after I had finished the last bun, but I will not be positive, lest people should doubt the fact. The greater part of the time, however, was spent in sleep. My rat-dream, as I call it, might have occupied several hours, for I have not put down half of what I heard said, nor described the curious antics I saw, as I supposed, of the rats’ play. I have since recollected that the words with which the president began his speech were those used by Mark Antony at the commencement of his oration over the dead body of Caesar, which I learnt at school.

After eating the second rat I felt greatly revived, and resolved to continue my explorations, but a drowsiness came over me before I made my way to the further end of the hold. I returned to my couch and lay down to sleep.

It would be a good opportunity of sounding the praises of sleep, and if I were a poet I might indulge my fancy and produce something wonderfully novel; but as I never wrote a line in my life worthy of being called poetry, I will not inflict anything of this sort on my friends.

I was becoming wonderfully accustomed to my solitary life. Having rolled myself in the old sail, I closed my eyes with as much sense of security as I should have done in my own bed at home. I had ceased to think of my friends there, or of Aunt Deb and Mr Butterfield. I could not go on for ever troubling myself with thoughts of the anxiety my disappearance must have caused them. An intensely selfish feeling—for such I knew that it was—possessed me. My only thought was how I could get out of my prison, and if I could not succeed, how I might provide myself with food. I had no longer any fear of the rats. I had become their master. I looked upon them as the owner of an estate does on his hares and rabbits. The hold was my preserve, and I considered that I had a right to as many as I could catch.

I must proceed faster in my narrative than I have hitherto been going, and must omit some of my wakings and sleepings and hunts for rats and searches for more palatable food. The rats, after I had killed four or five, had become cautious. They are at all times cunning fellows, and must have discovered my mode of trapping them. The ship all this time was gliding on with tolerable smoothness, and on some occasions, by putting my ear down to the planks, I could hear the rippling of the water. At other times, I guessed by the dashing of the sea against the sides, that there was a strong breeze. I knew also, by the steadiness of the movement, that the ocean was tolerably calm. I should have liked to have known where we had got to. I could only guess that we were bound for South America, and that we were holding a southerly course.

I had made several exploring expeditions in search of food, when I discovered close to the bulkhead what seemed to me like a strong crate. By some chance or other I had not before put my hands upon it. I now moved them all over it, and at one place came to a space into which I could thrust my fingers. The board seemed loose. I tugged and tugged away till off it came with a crackling sound, and down I came. I picked myself up, happily not the worse for my tumble, and eagerly inserted my hand into the crate. There appeared to be several articles within, but what they were I could not make out. I had to take off another board before I could get hold of them. This I did, fixing my foot firmly so as not to fall back again, and after exerting myself for some time, the board gave way.

The first thing I laid hold of was a small keg. It seemed too heavy to contain biscuits, but I was nearly sure that there was something eatable within. I tried to open it with my knife, but nearly broke the blade in the attempt. That would have been an irreparable misfortune. My hands next came in contact with a thick glass bottle with a large mouth to it. I was too eager to ascertain the contents of the keg and bottle to continue my search. I therefore carried them down to my sleeping-place, where I had left the handspike, and there soon broke in the head of the cask. It contained some small, round, hard and greasy fruit, I eagerly tasted one. They were olives. I knew this because Mr Butterfield a few days before gave me some at dessert. I then thought them very bitter and nasty, but as I saw him eating them I nibbled at two or three. In the end I liked them rather better than at first, or rather, I didn’t dislike them so much.

Having eaten half-a-dozen, I was very glad that I had found them. They were at all events a change from rat’s flesh. I next took the bottle in hand, and with my knife scraped away the sealing-wax with which it was covered. Instead of trying to force out the cork I cut into it until I had made a hole big enough to insert my fingers, when I pulled it out. The bottle contained pickles. These, though they would not satisfy hunger would render the food I was doomed to live upon more palatable and wholesome. Having put them away in the most secure place I could think of, I returned to the crate.

By tearing off another plank I found that I could creep inside. It contained all sorts of things, apparently thrown in before the vessel began to be loaded to be out of the way, and afterwards forgotten. I came across two or three old brooms or scrubbing-brushes, a kettle with the spout broken, several large empty bottles, and other things I cannot enumerate. At last, when I thought I had turned everything over, my hand came against another cask, considerably larger than the first. I dragged it out. It was not so heavy as I should have supposed it would be from its size. It was too big to carry, so I rolled it along before me. From the first I fancied it must contain biscuits, but I was almost afraid to too soon congratulate myself on my good fortune. A few blows with the handspike shattered the top, and eagerly plunging in my hand, to my intense satisfaction I drew forth a captain’s biscuit. I ate it at once and thought it deliciously sweet, though it was in reality musty and mouldy. I had now a store of food to last me for days, and even weeks, should I not obtain my liberation, provided I used the strictest economy. All I wanted was fresh air. To obtain that, supposing I could not work my way out or make myself heard, was now my chief object.