Kitabı oku: «The Boy Tar», sayfa 12

Chapter Thirty Four.
A Novel Drinking-Cup

Notwithstanding that it was all a dream, and that no crab could possibly have crept up my arm – notwithstanding that I was now awake, and knew I had been only dreaming about it – I could not help fancying that a crab actually had been crawling over me– a crab or some other creature. I felt that peculiar tingling sensation along my arm and upon my breast, which was quite open and bare, that might be produced by the claws of some small animal creeping over one, and I could not help thinking that there had been something!

So convinced was I of this, that on awaking I flung out my arms mechanically, and groped all over the spread broadcloth, and around the edges of my lurking-place, expecting to lay them upon some living creature!

Half asleep, I still believed it was a crab; but as my senses became clearer, I reasoned upon the improbability of there being one in such a place. And yet, why not? A crab might very well find lodgment in the hold of a ship: it might have been brought aboard in some strange way – among the ballast – or possibly carried aboard by some of the sailors, out of curiosity; it may have been abandoned to its fate, and left to hide itself among the numerous corners and crevices which are found among the timbers of a vessel’s hold? It might procure sustenance in the bilge-water, or in the ballast rubbish, or perhaps, like the chameleon, crabs could exist on air?

I had such thoughts, but only for a few moments after awaking; and as I reasoned further on the matter, I abandoned them. It could only be my dream that had made me think of crabs at all. But for that, the thought of such a creature would not have entered my mind. There could have been no crab, else I should have laid my hands upon it; for I had lost no time in groping over the surface of my cloth carpeting – every inch of it – and I found nothing there. There were but two crevices leading out of my cell, by which a crab of any considerable size could have entered or escaped; and I had felt these places at the very first moment. So slow a traveller could not have passed through either of them in so short a time! No, there could have been no crab; and yet there was something, certainly – something had crawled over me. I could not be convinced of the contrary.

I lay for a long time pondering over the subject of my dream. The unpleasant feeling which it had occasioned me soon passed away. It was very natural I should have dreamt what I did, since it was almost the same thing I had been thinking of during the continuance of the storm.

On examining my watch, I found that I had considerably overslept myself, having been unconscious for nearly sixteen hours! This prolonged slumber was the result of my having been kept so long awake by the storm, and the sickness that it had occasioned me.

I now felt more hungry than I had done for days, and at once set about satisfying that appetite. Strive as I would, I could not resist the temptation of eating more than my allotted ration, and I did not leave off till I had eaten four of my precious biscuits. I had been told that nothing creates so keen an appetite as a turn of sea-sickness, and I found this to be truth. Indeed, I felt as if I could have consumed the whole of my stock, and the four biscuits I ate scarcely took the edge well off my hunger. Nothing but the dread of running short hindered me from eating three times as many.

I was also in great thirst, and swallowed far more than my allowance of water; but I was not so careful of this, as I believed it would be quite sure to last me to the end of the voyage. One thing about the water troubled me not a little. Each time that I went to take a drink, a considerable waste took place, in consequence of my having no vessel to draw it in; and, moreover, to drink from the hole I had made was altogether an unsatisfactory way of quenching my thirst. As soon as the peg was drawn out, a strong jet would shoot forth, to which I applied my mouth. But I could not swallow it as fast as it came, and it was sure – after taking away my breath, and half choking me – to squirt all over my face, wetting my clothes and everything else about me, before I could get the stopper back into its place.

If I only had had a vessel to draw it in – a cup or anything?

I thought of using one of my buskins, for I had no need for them otherwise; but I felt some qualms about making this use of them.

I should not have hesitated to have drunk out of them, or any other vessel, when pressed by thirst previous to my having tapped the butt; but now that I had water in plenty, the case was different. Still, I could get one of them sufficiently clean for the purpose. Better, thought I, to waste a little water in washing one of them, than lose a large quantity every time I went to drink.

I was about to put this design into execution, when a better idea came into my head – that was to make a drinking-cup out of a piece of broadcloth. This was altogether better. I had already observed that the cloth was waterproof – at least, the water that was spilt from the butt appeared to lie upon it without passing through – for I had been obliged to shake it off on each occasion. A piece of the cloth, therefore, formed into a cup shape, would be likely enough to serve my purpose; and accordingly I resolved to make me such a vessel.

It needed only to cut a broad strip with my knife, roll it up, as if I was intending it for a funnel – taking care to fold it of several thicknesses of the cloth. When rolled, I bound it in its place with a fragment of the thong from my buskins, and I thus succeeded in making me a drinking-vessel, which would, and did, serve me as well as if it had been of best china or glass. I was henceforth enabled to take a drink more to my satisfaction, and without wasting the precious fluid upon which my life depended.

Chapter Thirty Five.
Mysterious Disappearance

As I had eaten so many biscuits for breakfast, I intended to make breakfast serve me for that day; but, hungering as I was, I could not carry out my good intent. About mid-day, I found myself groping at the box, and the result was, that I abstracted another biscuit. I resolved, however, to eat only half of it for dinner, and keep the other half for supper. Following out this resolution, I broke the biscuit across the middle, and laid one half aside. The other I ate, washing it down with a little more water.

You may think it strange that I did not fancy a little brandy along with it, which I might have had without any trouble, since there were at least a hundred gallons of it within reach. The brandy, however, was nothing to me; and the great cask might as well have contained vitriol, for aught I cared for it. There were several reasons why I did not meddle with it. First, because I did not relish it; second, because it made me feel sick, and nauseated both my palate and stomach. I suppose it had been of an inferior kind, intended, not as an article of commerce, but for the use of the sailors, as casks of very bad brandy and rum are carried in most ships for the use of the crew. A third reason why I kept clear of the brandy was, that I had already drunk of it – only about one wine-glassful – and it had the effect of making me so thirsty that I drank nearly half a gallon of water before I succeeded in fully quenching my thirst again. I reasoned, therefore, that if I touched the brandy, it would cause me, either great suffering from thirst, or that I should have to use more water than I could spare. Therefore it was, that I determined to abstain altogether from this alcoholic spirit.

When my watch warned me that it was my usual hour to go to sleep, I resolved to eat the odd half biscuit, which I had reserved for supper; and then “retire for the night.”

This operation consisted simply in stretching myself in a new position, and drawing a fold or two of the broadcloth over me, to keep me from getting chilled while asleep.

For the first week after leaving port, I had found it very cold, for it was the winter season when we left home. The cloth, however, after it was discovered, enabled me to wrap up snugly enough, and I no longer cared for the cold. After a time, however, I began to perceive that the cold had quite taken its departure, and each day and night the atmosphere in the hold of the ship appeared to be growing warmer. On the night after the storm had passed, it did not feel at all cold, and the slightest covering sufficed.

At first, I was surprised by this sudden change in the state of the atmosphere; but when I reflected a little, I was able to explain it to my satisfaction. “Beyond a doubt,” thought I, “we have been all the while sailing southward, and we are getting into the hot latitudes of the torrid zone.”

I knew but little of what that meant, but I had heard that the torrid zone – or the tropics, as it was also called – lay to the south of England; and that there the climate was hotter than the hottest summer day at home. I had also heard that Peru was a southern country, and therefore we must be going in a southerly direction to reach it.

This was a very good explanation of the warm weather that had set in. The ship had now been sailing for nearly two weeks; and allowing her to have made two hundred miles a day (and ships, I knew, often go faster than that), she would at this time be a long way from England, and in a different climate altogether.

Thus reasoning with myself, I contrived to pass that afternoon and evening, and as I felt the hands of my watch indicating the hour of ten, I resolved, as already stated, to eat the half biscuit, and then go to sleep.

I first drew a cup of water, so that the biscuit might not be eaten dry; and, this done, I stretched forth my hand for the bread. I knew the exact spot where it lay, for I had a little corner, just alongside the great beam, where I kept my knife and cup, and wooden almanack – a sort of little shelf, raised by a roll of the cloth above the common level of my cell. There I had placed the half biscuit, and there, of course, I could lay my hand upon it as well without a light as with one. So perfectly had I become acquainted with every corner of my apartment, and every crevice leading from it, that I could place my finger on any given spot of the size of a crown-piece, without the slightest deviation.

I reached forth my hand, then, to clutch the precious morsel. Judge my astonishment when I touched the spot where I supposed it to be lying, and found it was not there!

At first, I fancied I might be mistaken – that perhaps I had not left it in the usual place on my shelf. There it certainly was not.

I felt the cloth cup, for that was in my hand full of water. The knife was in its place – so, too, the little notched stick, and the pieces of the string which I had used in measuring the butt – but no half biscuit!

Could I have put it anywhere else? I thought not; and yet, to make sure, I felt all over the bottom of my cell, and among the folds and wrinkles of the cloth, and even in the pockets both of my jacket and trousers. I felt in my buskins too, for these were not upon my feet, as I no longer needed them, but lying idle in a corner. I left not an inch of the place that I did not examine – and minutely too – yet still no half biscuit could be found!

I looked carefully for it, not so much on account of its value; but that its disappearance from the shelf was something rather strange – stranger still that I could nowhere lay my hand upon it.

Had I eaten it?

I began to fancy that I had done so. Perhaps, during a period of absent-mindedness, I might have swallowed it up, without ever thinking of what I was doing. Certainly, I had no remembrance of having tasted food since I ate its counterpart – the other half; and if I had eaten it also, it must have done me very little good. I had neither enjoyed the meal, nor yet did my stomach appear to have received much benefit from it, since I was just as hungry as if I had not tasted food that day.

I recollected perfectly having placed it alongside the knife and cup; and how could it part from the place, unless it had been taken away by my own hand? I could not have thrown it accidentally from the little shelf, for I did not remember making a movement in that direction. But even so, it would still have been somewhere about me? It could not get underneath the butt, for the crevice there was closed up, regularly caulked with pieces of the cloth. I had done this for the purpose of making a level surface to rest upon.

Certainly the half biscuit was not to be found. It was gone – whether down my throat or in some other way, I could not decide – but if the former, I thought to myself, what a pity I had eaten it without knowing what I was about, for certainly my absence of mind had deprived me of all enjoyment of the meal.

I wavered for a long while, as to whether I should take another biscuit out of the box, or go to bed supperless. But the dread of the future decided me to abstain; and, summoning all my resolution, I drank off the cold water, placed my cup upon the shelf, and laid myself down for the night.

Chapter Thirty Six.
An Ugly Intruder

For a long while I did not sleep, but lay thinking over the mysterious disappearance of the half biscuit. I say mysterious, for I was more than half convinced that I had not eaten it, but that it had gone in some other way; though how, I could not even guess, since I was perfectly alone, the only living thing, as I supposed, in that vessel’s hold which could have touched it. Ah! now I thought of my dream – of the crab! Perhaps, after all, there might have been a crab? – and though it was but a dream that I was drowned, yet the rest might be true enough, and a crab might actually have crawled over me? It might have eaten the biscuit?

It would not be its natural food, I knew; but shut up in a ship’s hold, where it could have no choice, it would be likely enough to eat such a thing rather than suffer starvation. There might be a crab after all?

Partly by such a train of reflections, and partly by the hungry craving of my stomach, I was kept awake for hours. At length I found myself going off, not into a regular sleep, but a half sleep or doze, from which every two or three minutes I awoke again.

In one of these intervals, during which I lay awake, I fancied that I heard a noise, different from the sounds that habitually fell upon my ear. The ship was running smoothly, and I could distinguish this unusual sound above the soft sighing of the waves. This last was now so slight, that the ticking of my watch appeared louder and more distinct than I had ever observed it.

The sound which had attracted my attention, and which was something new to me, appeared like a gentle scratching. It came from the corner where my buskins lay empty and idle. Something was scratching at my buskins!

“The crab, to a certainty!” I said to myself. The thought at once drove away all ideas of sleep; and I placed myself in an attitude to listen, and, if possible, lay my hands on the thievish intruder; for I now felt certain that, crab or no crab, whatever creature was making the scratching noise was the same that had stolen my supper.

Once more I heard the scraping and scratching noise. Certainly it proceeded from my buskins?

Slowly and silently I raised myself into a half-upright position, so that I could reach the buskins with a single effort, and in this attitude I again listened for a repetition of the sound.

But though I remained patient for a considerable time, I did not hear it again; and I then passed my hands over the buskins, and around the place where they were lying, but felt nothing there. They appeared to be just as they had been left, and nothing amiss. I also groped over all the floor of my cell, but with like result. Nothing was there that ought not to have been.

I was not a little perplexed, and lay for a good while awake and listening, without hearing anything more of the mysterious noise. Sleep once more began to steal upon me, and I dropped off into a series of dozing fits as before.

Once again the scraping and scratching noise falling upon my ear disturbed me, and caused me to lie listening. Most surely it came from the buskins; but when I moved to get within reach of them, the noise instantly ceased, as if I had frightened the creature that was making it; and, just as before, I groped everywhere and found nothing!

“Ha!” muttered I to myself, “I now know what has been causing all this disturbance: no crab at all – for a crab could not possibly crawl so quickly out of the way. The intruder is a mouse. Nothing more nor less. Strange I did not think of this before! I might have guessed that it was a mouse, and not have made myself so uneasy about it. It could only be a mouse; and, but for my dream, I should, perhaps, never have thought of its being a crab.”

With this reflection I lay down again, intending to go to sleep at once, and not trouble myself any more about the mouse or its movements.

But I had scarcely settled my cheek upon the pillow, when the scratching began afresh, and it now occurred to me that the mouse was gnawing at my buskins, and probably doing them a serious damage. Although they were of no service to me just then, I could not permit them to be eaten up in this way; and, raising myself once more, I made a dash to catch the mouse.

In this I was unsuccessful. I did not even touch the animal; but I thought I heard it scampering through the crevice that led out between the brandy-cask and the timbers of the ship.

On handling the buskins, I discovered to my chagrin that half of the upper leather of one of them was eaten away! The mouse must have been busy to have made so much ruin in so short a time, for it was but a few hours before that I had had the buskins in my hands, and I had then noticed nothing wrong with them. Perhaps several mice had been at work? This was likely enough.

Partly to save the buskins from total destruction, and partly to hinder myself from being disturbed again, I took them out of the corner, and placing them near my head, covered them up with a fold of the broadcloth. This done, I once more laid myself out for a sleep.

After awhile the dozing fit came on me, but I was again awakened by a singular sensation, as of something crawling over me! It appeared as if some creature had just crept over my legs with great rapidity.

The feeling startled me into complete wakefulness, I did not move, however, but lay quietly waiting to see if the thing should come again.

Of course, I concluded that it was still my mouse, now running about in search of the buskins. I was getting annoyed by its intrusion, and I knew it would be no use to grope for it, as it would easily escape through one of the crevices, as soon as it found me moving. I determined, therefore, to lie quite still, and let it again crawl upon me as before, and I could then easily seize upon it. It was not my intention to kill the little creature; but I intended to give it a good squeeze, or pinch its ear sharply, so that it would not come troubling me any more.

I lay a long while without hearing or feeling it. At last, however, my patience was likely to be rewarded. I could tell by a slight movement, in the piece of cloth that covered my limbs, that something was running upon it, and I even fancied that I heard the pattering of little feet. Nearer still the cloth appeared to move, until I could distinctly feel a creature crawling on my ankles, and then upward to my thighs. It appeared heavy for a mouse; but I did not stay to reflect about this, for now or never was the time to seize upon it.

Down came my hands, with fingers outstretched to cover it; but, oh, horror! what a mistake I had made.

Instead of the little tiny mouse, which I intended to clutch, my hand rested upon the body of an animal almost as large as a kitten! There was no mistaking what it was. Beyond doubt, it was a great, horrid rat!