Stories by English Authors: The Sea
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Various >> Stories by English Authors: The Sea
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I sat down under the bends of the ship for the shadow it threw,
and gazed at the sea. Perhaps I ought to have felt grateful for
the miraculous creation of this spot of land, when, but for it, I
must have miserably perished in the life-buoy, dying a most dreadful,
slow, tormenting death, if some shark had not quickly despatched
me; but the solitude was so frightful, my doom seemed so assured,
I was threatened with such dire sufferings ere my end came, that,
in the madness and despair of my heart, I could have cursed the
intervention of this rock, which promised nothing but the prolongation
of my misery. There was but one live spark amid the ashes of my
hopes; namely, that the island lay in the highway of ships, and
that it was impossible a vessel could sight so unusual an object
without deviating from her course to examine it. That was all the
hope I had; but God knows there was nothing in it to keep me alive
when I set off against it the consideration that there was no water
on the island, no food; that a ship would have to sail close to
remark so flat and little a point as this rock; and that days, ay,
and weeks might elapse before the rim of yonder boundless surface,
stretching in airy leagues of deep blue to the azure sky at the
horizon, should be broken by the star-like shining of a sail.
Happily, the wondrous incrusted bulk was at hand to draw my thoughts
away from my hideous condition; for I verily believe, had my eye
found nothing to rest upon but the honeycombed pumice, my brain would
have given way. I stood up and took a long view of the petrified
shell-covered structure, feeling a sort of awe in me while I looked,
for it was a kind of illustration of the saying of the sea giving
up its dead, and the thing stirred me almost as though it had been
a corpse that had risen to the sun, after having been a secret of
the deep for three hundred years.
It occurred to me that if I could board her she might furnish me
with a shelter from the dew of the night. She had channels with
long plates, all looking as if they were formed of shells; and
stepping round to the side toward which she leaned, I found the
fore channel-plates to be within reach of my hands. The shells were
slippery and cutting; but I was a sailor, and there would have been
nothing in a harder climb than this to daunt me. So, after a bit
of a struggle, I succeeded in hauling myself into the chains, and
thence easily dragged myself over the rail on to the deck.
The sight between the bulwarks was far more lovely and surprising
than the spectacle presented by the ship's sides. For the decks
seemed not only formed of shells of a hundred different hues;
there was a great abundance of branching corals, white as milk,
and marine plants of kinds for which I could not find names, of
several brilliant colours; so that, what with the delicate velvet
of the moss, the dark shades of seaweed of figurations as dainty
as those of ferns, and the different sorts of shells, big and
little, all lying as solid as if they had been set in concrete,
the appearance of the ship submitted was something incredibly
fantastic and admirable. Whether the hatches were on or not I could
not tell, so thickly coated were the decks; but whether or not, the
deposits and marine growths rendered the surface as impenetrable
as iron, and I believe it would have kept a small army of labourers
plying their pickaxes for a whole week to have made openings into
the hold through that shelly coating of mail.
My eye was taken by a peculiar sort of protuberance at the foot
of the mainmast. It stood as high as I did, and had something of
the shape of a man, and, indeed, after staring at it for some time,
I perceived that it had been a man; that is to say, it was a human
skeleton, filled up to the bulk of a living being by the shells and
barnacles which covered it. Ashore, it might have passed for some
odd imitation in shells of the human figure; but, viewing it as I
did, in the midst of that great ocean, amid the frightful solitude
of the great dome of heaven, in a ship that was like the handiwork
of the sea-gods at the bottom of the deep--I say, looking at it as
I did, and knowing the thing had had life in centuries past, and
had risen thus wildly garnished out of the unfathomable secret
heart of the ocean, it awed me to an extent I cannot express, and
I gazed as though fascinated. In all probability, this was a man
who, when the ship foundered, had been securely lashed to the mast
for safety or for punishment.
I turned away at last with a shudder, and walked aft. The wreck
was unquestionably some Spanish or Portuguese carrack or galleon
as old as I have stated; for you saw her shape when you stood on
her deck, and her castellated stern rising into a tower from her
poop and poop-royal, as it was called, proved her age as convincingly
as if the date of her launch had been scored upon her.
What was in her hold? Thousands of pounds' worth of precious ore in
gold and silver bars and ingots, for all I knew; but had she been
flush to her upper decks with doubloons and ducats, I have exchanged
them all for the sight of a ship, or for a rill of fresh water. I
searched the horizon with feverish eyes; there was nothing in sight.
The afternoon was advancing; the sun was burning unbearably midway
down the western sky, and my thirst tormented me. I dropped over
the side and cut another steak of fish; but though the moisture
temporarily relieved me, the salt of the water flowing upon it dried
into my throat and increased my sufferings. There was a light air
blowing, and the sea trembled to it into a deeper hue of blue, and
met in a glorious stream of twinkling rubies under the setting sun.
I counted half a score of wet black fins round about the island,
and understood that the sharks had recovered from their scare, and
had returned to see if the earthquake had cast up anything to eat.
When the sun sank, the night came along in a stride; the curl of the
moon looked wanly down upon me, and the sky flashed with starshine,
so rich and magnificent was the glow of the nearer luminaries.
I reentered the ship and stepped to the cabin front, over which
extended a "break" or penthouse, under which I might find some
shelter from the dew that was already falling like rain, and squatted
down, lascar-fashion, with my back against the shell-armoured
bulkhead. Great Father! never had I known what solitude was till
then. There was no sound save the quiet foaming of waters draining
from the wreck, and the purring of the very light swell softly
moving upon the beach, and the faint, scarce audible whispering
of the dew-laden draught of air stirring in the stony, fossilised
shrouds. My throat felt like hot brass; I tried to pray, but could
not. Imagination grew a little delirious, and I would sometimes
fancy that the terrible shape at the foot of the mainmast moved
as if seeking to free itself and approach me. There was a constant
glancing of shooting stars on high, swift sparklings and trailings
of luminous dust, and, as on the previous night, here and there
upon the horizon a dim violet play of sheet-lightning. It was like
being at the bottom of the sea, alive there, to be in this black,
shelly, weed-smelling ship. Whether my thoughts came to me waking
or sleeping I cannot tell, but I know some mad fancies possessed
me, and upon the sable canvas of the night, imagination, like
a magic lantern, flung a dozen febriletinctured pictures, and
I particularly recollect conceiving that I was my own soul at the
bottom of the ocean in the ship; that, in the green twilight of
the valley in which I was, I saw many forms of dead men standing or
lying or sitting, preserving the postures in which they had come
floating down into the darkly gleaming profound--figures of sailors
of different centuries clad in the garb of their times, intermixed
with old ordnance making coarse and rusty streaks upon the sand,
the glitter of minted money, the gleam of jewels, and fish brightly
apparelled and of shapes unknown to man floating round about like
fragments of rainbow. My dreams always wound up with imaginations
of babbling drinks, and then I'd wake with the froth upon my lips.
However, I got some ease by leaving my handkerchief to soak in the
dew and then sucking it.
Several times during the night I had got on to the upper poop--the
deck above the poop anciently termed the poop-royal--and looked
around me. But there was nothing to see, not a shadow to catch the
eye. The breeze freshened somewhat about midnight, and the air
was made pleasant by the musical noises of running waters. I fell
asleep an hour before dawn, and when I awoke the early ashen line
was brightening in the east. The birth of the day is rapid in those
parallels, and the light of the morning was soon all over sea and
sky. I turned to search the ocean, and the first thing I saw was a
brig not above half a mile from the island. She had studding sails
set, and was going north, creeping along before the breeze. The
instant I saw her I rushed on to the poop, where my figure would be
best seen, and fell to flourishing my handkerchief like a maniac.
I sought to shout, but my voice was even weaker than it had been
after I fell overboard. I have no power to describe my feelings
while I waited to see what the brig would do. I cursed myself for
not having kept a lookout, so that I might have had plenty of time
to signal to her as she approached. If she abandoned me I knew I
must perish, as every instant assured me that I had neither mental
nor physical power to undergo another day and night without drink
and without hope upon the island.
On a sudden she hauled up the lee clew of her mainsail, boom-ended
her studding sails, and put her helm over. I knew what this signified,
and, clasping my hands, I looked up to God.
Presently a boat was lowered and pulled toward the island. I dropped
over the side, tumbling down upon my nose in my weakness, and made
with trembling legs to the beach, standing, in my eagerness, in
the very curl of the wash there. There were three men in the boat,
and they eyed me, as they rowed, over their shoulders as if I had
been a spectre.
"Who are you, mate, and what country is this?" exclaimed the man
who pulled stroke, standing up to stretch his hand to me.
I pointed to my throat, and gasped, "Water!" I could barely
articulate.
Nothing in this wide world moves sailors like a cry to them for
water. In an instant the three men had dragged me into the boat,
and were straining like horses at their oars, as they sent the boat
flashing through the rippling water. We dashed alongside.
"He's dying of thirst!" was the cry.
I was bundled on deck; the captain ran below, and returned with a
small draught of wine and water.
"Start with that," said he. "You'll be fitter for a longer pull
later on."
The drink gave me back my voice; yet for a while I could scarce
speak, for the tears that swelled my heart.
"Are there any more of ye?" said the captain.
I answered, "No."
"But what land's this?" he inquired.
"An island uphove by an earthquake," said I.
"Great thunder!" he cried. "And what's that arrangement in shells
and weeds atop of it?"
"A vessel that's probably been three hundred years at the bottom,"
I answered.
"The quake rose it, hey?"
"Just as it is," said I.
"Well, boil me," cried the worthy fellow, "if it don't seem too good
to be true! Mr. Fletcher, trim sail, sir. Best shove along--shove
along. Come, sir, step below with me for a rest and a bite, and
give me your tale."
A warily eaten meal with another sup of wine and water made me a
new man. We sat below a long while, I telling my story, he making
notes and talking of the credit he would get for bringing home a
report of a new country, when suddenly the mate put his head into
the skylight.
"Captain!"
"Hillo!"
"The island's gone, sir."
"What d' ye mean? that we've sunk it?"
"No, by the Lord; but that it's sunk itself."
We ran on deck, and where the island should have been was all clear
sea.
The captain stared at the water, with his mouth wide open.
"Nothing to report after all!" he cried.
"I saw it founder!" exclaimed the mate. "I had my eye on it when
it sank. I've seen some foundering in my day; but this beats all
my going a-fishing!"
"Well," said the captain to me, "we didn't come too soon, sir."
I hid my face in my hands.
The Susan Gray was the name of the brig that rescued me. The
Hercules saw the first of the island, and the Susan Gray the last
of it. Hence, as I said at the start, it was reported by two vessels
only.
QUARANTINE ISLAND
BY SIR WALTER BESANT
"No!" he cried, passionately. "You drew me on; you led me to believe
that you cared for me; you encouraged me! What! can a girl go on
as you have done without meaning anything? Does a girl allow a
man to press her hand--to keep her hand--without meaning anything?
Unless these things mean nothing, you are the most heartless girl
in the whole world; yes--I say the coldest, the most treacherous,
the most heartless!" It was evening, and moonlight; a soft and
delicious night in September. The waves lapped gently at their
feet, the warm breeze played upon their faces, the moon shone upon
them--an evening wholly unfit for such a royal rage as this young
gentleman (two and twenty is still young) exhibited. He walked
about on the parade, which was deserted except for this solitary
pair, gesticulating, waving his arms, mad with the madness of
wounded love.
She sat on one of the seaside benches, her hands clasped, her head
bent, overwhelmed and frightened and remorseful. He went on: he
recalled the day when first they met; he reminded her of the many,
many ways in which she had led him on to believe that she cared
for him; he accused her of making him love her in order to laugh
at him. When he could find nothing more to say, he flung himself
upon the bench,--but on the other end of it,--and crossed his arms,
and dropped his head upon them. So that there were two on the bench,
one at either end, and both with their heads dropped--a pretty
picture in the moonlight of a lovers' quarrel. But this was worse
than a lovers' quarrel. It was the end of everything, for the girl
was engaged to another man.
She rose. If he had been looking up, he would have seen that there
were tears in her eyes and on her cheek.
"Mr. Fernie," she stammered, timidly, "I suppose there is nothing
more to say. I am no doubt all that you have called me. I am
heartless; I have led you on. Well, but I did not know--how could
I tell that you were taking things so seriously? How can you be so
angry just because I can't marry you? One girl is no better than
another. There are plenty of girls in the world. I thought you
liked me, and I--but what is the use of talking? I am heartless
and cold; I am treacherous and vain and cruel, and--and--won't you
shake hands with me once more, Claude, before we part?"
"No! I will never shake hands with you again; never--never! By
heavens! nothing that could happen now would ever make me shake
hands with you again. I hate you, I loathe you, I shudder at the
sight of you, I could not forgive you--never! You have ruined my
life. Shake hands with you! Who but a heartless and worthless woman
could propose such a thing?"
She shivered and shook at his wild words. She could not, as she
said, understand the vehemence of the passion that held the man.
He was more than half mad, and she was only half sorry. Forgive
the girl. She was only seventeen, just fresh from her governess.
She was quite innocent and ignorant. She knew nothing about the
reality and vehemence of passion; she thought that they had been
very happy together. Claude, to be sure, was ridiculously fond of
taking her hand; once he kissed her head to show the depth of his
friendship. He was such a good companion; they had had such a
pleasant time; it was a dreadful pity that he should be so angry.
Besides, it was not as if she liked the other man, who was old and
horrid.
"Good-bye, then, Claude," she said. "Perhaps when we meet again you
will be more ready to forgive me. Oh," she laughed, "it is so silly
that a man like you--a great, strong, clever, handsome man--should
be so foolish over a girl! Besides, you ought to know that a girl
can't have things her own way always. Good-bye, Claude. Won't you
shake hands?" She laid her hand upon his shoulder,--just touched
it,--turned, and fled.
She had not far to go. The villa where she lived was within
five minutes' walk. She ran in, and found her mother alone in the
drawing-room.
"My dear," the mother said, irritably, "I wish to goodness you
wouldn't run out after dinner. Where have you been?"
"Only into the garden, and to look at the sea."
"There's Sir William in the dining-room still."
"Let him stay there, mother dear. He'll drink up all the wine and
go to sleep, perhaps, and then we shall be rid of him."
"Go in, Florence, and bring him out. It isn't good for him, at his
age, to drink so much."
"Let the servants go," the girl replied, rebellious.
"My dear, your own accepted lover! Have you no right feeling? O
Florence! and when I am so ill, and you know--I told you--"
"A woman should not marry her grandfather. I've had more than
enough of him to-day already. You made me promise to marry him.
Until I do marry he may amuse himself. As soon as we are married,
I shall fill up all the decanters, and keep them full, and encourage
him to drink as much as ever he possibly can."
"My dear, are you mad?"
"Oh no! I believe I have only just come to my senses. Mad? No.
I have been mad. Now, when it is too late, I am sane. When it is
too late--when I have just understood what I have done."
"Nonsense, child! What do you mean by being too late? Besides, you
are doing what every girl does. You have accepted the hand of an
old man who can give you a fine position and a great income and
every kind of luxury. What moree can a girl desire? When I die--you
know already--there will be nothing--nothing at all for you. Marriage
is your only chance."
At this moment the door opened, and Sir William himself appeared.
He was not, although a man so rich, and therefore so desirable,
quite a nice old man to look at--not quite such an old man as a
girl would fall in love with at first sight; but perhaps under the
surface there lay unsuspected virtues by the dozen. He was short
and fat; his hair was white; his face was red; he had great white
eyebrows; he had thick lips; his eyes rolled unsteadily, and his
shoulders lurched; he had taken much more wine than is good for a
man of seventy.
He held out both hands and lurched forward. "Florenshe," he said,
thickly, "letsh sit down together somewhere. Letsh talk, my dear."
The girl slipped from the proffered hands and fled from the room.
"Whatsh matter with the girl?" said Sir William.
Out at sea, all by itself, somewhere about thirty miles from a
certain good-sized island in a certain ocean, there lies another
little island--an eyot--about a mile long and half a mile broad. It
is a coral islet. The coral reef stretches out all round it, except
in one or two places, where the rock shelves suddenly, making it
possible for a ship to anchor there. The islet is flat, but all
round it runs a kind of natural sea-wall, about ten feet high and
as many broad; behind it, on the side which the wall protects from
the prevailing wind, is a little grove of low, stunted trees, the
name and kind of which the successive tenants of the island have
never been curious to ascertain. I am therefore unable to tell you
what they are. The area protected by the sea-wall, as low as the
sea-level, was covered all over with long, rank grass. At the
north end of the islet a curious round rock, exactly like a martello
tower, but rather higher, rose out of the water, separated from
the sea-wall by twenty or thirty feet of deep water, dark blue,
transparent; sometimes rolling and rushing and tearing at the sides
of the rock, sometimes gently lifting the seaweed that clung to
the sides. Round the top of the rock flew, screaming all the year
round, the sea-birds. Far away on the horizon, like a blue cloud,
one could see land; it was the larger island, to which this place
belonged. At the south end was a lighthouse, built just like all
lighthouses, with low white buildings at its foot, and a flagstaff,
and an enclosure which was a feeble attempt at a flower-garden.
You may see a lighthouse exactly like it at Broadstairs. In fact,
it is a British lighthouse. Half a mile from the lighthouse, where
the sea-wall broadened into a wide, level space, there was a wooden
house of four rooms--dining-room, salon, and two bedrooms. It was
a low house, provided with a veranda on either side. The windows
had no glass in them, but there were thick shutters in case
of hurricanes. There were doors to the rooms, but they were never
shut. Nothing was shut or locked up or protected. On the inner or
land side there was a garden, in which roses (a small red rose)
grew in quantities, and a few English flowers. The elephant-creeper,
with its immense leaves, clambered up the veranda poles and over
the roof. There was a small plot of ground planted pineapples, and
a solitary banana-tree stood under the protection of the house,
its leaves blown to shreds, its head bowed down,
Beyond the garden was a collection of three or four huts, where
lived the Indian servants and their families.
The residents of this retreat--this secluded earthly paradise--were
these Indian servants with their wives and children; the three
lighthouse men, who messed together; and the captain, governor, or
commander-in-chief, who lived in the house all by himself because
he had no wife or family.
Now the remarkable thing about this island is that, although it
is so far removed from any other inhabited place, and although it
is so small, the human occupants number many thousands. With the
exception of the people above named, these thousands want nothing:
neither the light of the the day or the warmth of the sun; neither
food nor drink. They lie side by oide under the rank grass, without
headstones or even graves to mark their place, without a register
or record of their departure, without even coffins! There they
lie,--sailors, soldiers, coolies, negroes,--forgotten and lost as
much as if they had never been born. And if their work lives after
them, nobody knows what that work is. They belong to the vast army
of the Anonymous. Poor Anonymous! They do all the work. They grow
our corn and breed our sheep; they make and mend for us; they build
up our lives for us. We never know them, nor thank them, nor think
of them. All over the world, they work for their far-off brethren;
and when one dies, we know not, because another takes his place.
And at the last a mound of green grass, or even nothing but an
undistinguished strip of ground!
Here lay, side by side, the Anonymous--thousands of them. Did
I say they were forgotten? Not quite; they are remembered by the
two or three Indian women, wives of the Indian servants, who live
there. At sunset they and their children retreat to their huts,
and stay in them till sunrise next morning. They dare not so much
as look outside the door, because the place is crowded with white,
shivering, sheeted ghosts! Speak to one of these women; she will
point out to you, trembling, one, two, half a dozen ghosts. It
is true that the dull eye of the Englishman can see nothing. She
sees them--distinguishes them one from the other. She can see them
every night; yet she can never overcome her terror. The governor,
or captain, or commander-in-chief, for his part, sees nothing.
He sleeps in his house quite alone, with his cat and dog, windows
and doors wide open, and has no fear of any ghosts. If he felt any
fear, of course he would be surrounded and pestered to death every
night with multitudes of ghosts; but he fears nothing. He is a
doctor, you see; and no doctor ever yet was afraid of ghosts.
How did they come here--this huge regiment of dead men? In several
ways. Cholera accounts for most, yellow fever for some, other
fevers for some, but for the most cholera has been the destroyer.
Because, you see, this is Quarantine Island. If a ship has cholera
or any other infectious disease on board, it cannot touch at the
island close by, which is a great place for trade, and has every
year a quantity of ships calling; the infected ship has to betake
herself to Quarantine Island, where her people are landed, and
where they stay until she has a clear bill; and that sometimes is
not until the greater part of her people have changed their berths
on board for permanent lodgings ashore. Now you understand. The
place is a great cemetery. It lies under the hot sun of the tropics.
The sky is always blue; the sun is always hot. It is girdled by
the sea. It is always silent; for the Indian children do not laugh
or shout, and the Indian women are too much awed by the presence
of the dead to wrangle; always silent, save for the crying of the
sea-birds on the rock. There are no letters, no newspapers, no
friends, no duties--none save when a ship puts in; and then, for
the doctor, farewell rest, farewell sleep, until the bill of health
is clean. Once a fortnight or so, if the weather permits and if the
communications are open,--that is, if there is no ship there,--a boat
arrives from the big island with rations and letters and supplies.
Sometimes a visitor comes, but not often, because, should an
infected ship put in, he would have to stay as long as the ship.
A quiet, peaceful, monotonous life for one who is weary of the
world, or for a hermit; and as good as the top of a pillar for
silence and for meditation.
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