Now, it is perfectly simple in theory to sit on a raft and allow a ship to sink under you. The ship sinks, and the raft, retaining its buoyancy, floats. Quite simple, in theory. In practice, however, many factors tend to vitiate the simplicity of it. Indeed, it becomes so difficult that only by the mercy of God could anybody attempt it and survive. The foredeck of the Polynesian was like the foredeck of most ships, cluttered up with hatch-combings, winches, ventilator-cowls, steampipes, masts, derricks, bollards, snatch-blocks, dead-eyes, ladders, and wire-rope drums. Look forward from the promenade next time you make a trip, and conceive it. As the Polynesian subsided, she wallowed. Her centre of gravity was changing every second, and the raft, with its three serious passengers, was charging to and fro as if it were alive and trying to escape. It carried away a ventilator, and then, for one horrible instant, was caught in the standing rigging and canted over. A rush to starboard released it, and the next moment it was free. Only the windlass on the forecastlehead was now above water forward.
They saw nothing more of her. Not that she vanished all at once, but the sucking whirlpools in which the raft was turning over and reeling back on them kept them fully occupied. And when at last they had coughed up the seawater and wiped their eyes and looked at each other as they floated in the gentle swell of a smiling summer sea, she was gone. Only one thing destroyed their peace and stood up before them like a spectre: she was lying at the bottom, with her telegraph at Stand by. The deathless sporting spirit of the race was expressed in these words: ‘You know, if it hadn’t been for that, it was a joke, man!’
The moon rides high over Pelusium as we go back to the ship. Tommy and I will keep the morning watch together for once and talk over old times. Tomorrow I shall go through the hot white dust of the Rue el Nil and be paid off in the consul’s office for my two years’ labor. There is a mail-boat next week, and perhaps I shall board her, passenger-fashion, and go across the blue Mediterranean, through sunny France, across the English Channel, where the Polynesian stands by forever, up through Sussex orchards and over Surrey downs. And perhaps, as I idle away the autumn in the dim beauty of the Essex fenland, and as we drive in the pony-cart through the lanes, we shall stop and the children will say, ‘If you stand up, you can see the sea.’
Perhaps. Who knows?
ATLANTIC READINGS
Teachers everywhere are cordially welcoming our series of Atlantic Readings; for material not otherwise available is here published for classroom use in convenient and inexpensive form. In most cases the selections reprinted have been suggested by teachers in schools and colleges where a need for a particular essay or story has been urgently felt. Supplied for one institution, the reprint has created an immediate market elsewhere.
The Atlantic Monthly Press most warmly invites conference and correspondence that will suggest additions to this growing list. It is of course apparent from the titles below that the material is chosen only in part from the files of the Atlantic Monthly.
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