the open boat英文
湖北荆州长江大学-人民币大写符号
I
NONE of them knew the color of
the sky. Their eyes glanced level,
and were
fastened upon the waves that swept toward them.
These waves
were of the hue of slate, save for
the tops, which were of foaming white,
and all
of the men knew the colors of the sea. The horizon
narrowed and
widened, and dipped and rose, and
at all times its edge was jagged with
waves
that seemed thrust up in points like rocks.
Many a man ought to have a bath-tub larger than
the boat which here
rode upon the sea. These
waves were most wrongfully and barbarously
abrupt and tall, and each froth-top was a
problem in small boat
navigation.
The
cook squatted in the bottom and looked with both
eyes at the six
inches of gunwale which
separated him from the ocean. His sleeves were
rolled over his fat forearms, and the two
flaps of his unbuttoned vest
dangled as he
bent to bail out the boat. Often he said:
narrow he remarked it he invariably gazed
eastward over the
broken sea.
The
oiler, steering with one of the two oars in the
boat, sometimes
raised himself suddenly to
keep clear of water that swirled in over the
stern. It was a thin little oar and it seemed
often ready to snap.
The correspondent,
pulling at the other oar, watched the waves and
wondered why he was there.
The
injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this
time buried in that
profound dejection and
indifference which comes, temporarily at least, to
even the bravest and most enduring when, willy
nilly, the firm fails, the
army loses, the
ship goes down. The mind of the master of a vessel
is
rooted deep in the timbers of her, though
he command for a day or a
decade, and this
captain had on him the stern impression of a scene
in the
grays of dawn of seven turned faces,
and later a stump of a top-mast with
a white
ball on it that slashed to and fro at the waves,
went low and lower,
and down. Thereafter there
was something strange in his voice. Although
steady, it was deep with mourning, and of a
quality beyond oration or
tears.
A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat
upon a bucking broncho, and,
by the same
token, a broncho is not much smaller. The craft
pranced and
reared, and plunged like an
animal. As each wave came, and she rose for
it, she seemed like a horse making at a fence
outrageously high. The
manner of her scramble
over these walls of water is a mystic thing, and,
moreover, at the top of them were ordinarily
these problems in white
water, the foam racing
down from the summit of each wave, requiring a
new leap, and a leap from the air. Then, after
scornfully bumping a crest,
she would
slide, and race, and splash down a long incline
and arrive
bobbing and nodding in front of the
next menace.
A singular disadvantage of the
sea lies in the fact that after
successfully
surmounting one wave you discover that there is
another
behind it just as important and just
as nervously anxious to do something
effective
in the way of swamping boats. In a ten-foot dingey
one can get
an idea of the resources of the
sea in the line of waves that is not probable
to the average experience, which is never at
sea in a dingey. As each slaty
wall of water
approached, it shut all else from the view of the
men in the
boat, and it was not difficult to
imagine that this particular wave
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was the final
outburst of the ocean, the last effort of the grim
water. There
was a terrible grace in the move
of the waves, and they came in silence,
save
for the snarling of the crests.
In the wan
light, the faces of the men must have been gray.
Their eyes
must have glinted in strange ways
as they gazed steadily astern. Viewed
from a
balcony, the whole thing would doubtlessly have
been weirdly
picturesque. But the men
in the boat had no time to see it, and if they had
had leisure there were other things to occupy
their minds. The sun swung
steadily up the
sky, and they knew it was broad day because the
color of
the sea changed from slate to
emerald-green, streaked with amber lights,
and
the foam was like tumbling snow. The process of
the breaking day
was unknown to them. They
were aware only of this effect upon the color
of the waves that rolled toward them.
In disjointed sentences the cook and the
correspondent argued as to
the difference
between a life-saving station and a house of
refuge. The
cook had said:
Light, and as
soon as they see us, they'll come off in their
boat and pick
us up.
of
refuge don't have crews,said the correspondent. I
understand them, they are only places where
clothes and grub are stored
for the benefit of
shipwrecked people. They don't carry crews.
said the cook, it's not a
house of refuge that I'm
thinking of as being
near Mosquito Inlet Light. Perhaps it's a life-
saving
station.
II
As
the boat bounced from the top of each wave, the
wind tore through
the hair of the hatless men,
and as the craft plopped her stern down again
the spray slashed past them. The crest of each
of these waves was a hill,
from the top of
which the men surveyed, for a moment, a broad
tumultuous expanse; shining and wind-riven. It
was probably splendid. It
was probably
glorious, this play of the free sea, wild with
lights of
emerald and white and amber.
would we be? Wouldn't have a show.
The busy oiler nodded his assent.
Then the
captain, in the bow, chuckled in a way that
expressed humor,
contempt, tragedy, all in
one.
now, boys?
Whereupon the three were
silent, save for a trifle of hemming and
hawing. To express any particular optimism at
this time they felt to be
childish and stupid,
but they all doubtless possessed this sense of the
situation in their mind. A young man thinks
doggedly at such times. On
the other
hand, the ethics of their condition was decidedly
against any
open suggestion of hopelessness.
So they were silent.
all right.
But there was that in his tone which made them
think, so the oiler
quoth:
The cook was
bailing:
Canton flannel gulls flew near and
far. Sometimes they sat down on
the sea, near
patches of brown sea-weed that rolled over the
waves with a
movement like carpets on line in
a gale. The birds sat comfortably in
groups,
and they were envied by some in the dingey, for
the wrath of the
sea was no more to them than
it was to a covey of prairie chickens a
thousand miles inland. Often they came very
close and stared at the men
with black bead-
like eyes. At these times they were uncanny and
sinister
in their unblinking scrutiny, and the
men hooted angrily at them, telling
them to be
gone. One came, and evidently decided to alight on
the top of
the captain's head. The bird flew
parallel to the boat and did not circle,
but
made short sidelong jumps in the air in chicken-
fashion. His black
eyes were wistfully
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fixed upon the captain's head. brute,said the
oiler to the bird.
look as if you were made
with a cook and the
correspondent swore
darkly at the creature. The captain naturally
wished
to knock it away with the end of the
heavy painter, but he did not dare do
it,
because anything resembling an emphatic gesture
would have capsized
this freighted boat, and
so with his open hand, the captain gently and
carefully waved the gull away. After it had
been discouraged from the
pursuit the captain
breathed easier on account of his hair, and others
breathed easier because the bird struck their
minds at this time as being
somehow grewsome
and ominous.
In the meantime the oiler and
the correspondent rowed. And also they
rowed.
They sat together in the same seat, and
each rowed an oar. Then the
oiler took both
oars; then the correspondent took both oars; then
the oiler;
then the correspondent. They rowed
and they rowed. The very ticklish
part of the
business was when the time came for the reclining
one in the
stern to take his turn at the oars.
By the very last star of truth, it is easier
to steal eggs from under a hen than it was to
change seats in the dingey.
First the man in
the stern slid his hand along the thwart and moved
with
care, as if he were of Sevres.
Then the man in the rowing seat slid his
hand
along the other thwart. It was all done with the
most extraordinary
care. As the two sidled
past each other, the whole party kept watchful
eyes on the coming wave, and the captain
cried:
there!
The brown mats of sea-weed
that appeared from time to time were
like
islands, bits of earth. They were travelling,
apparently, neither one
way nor the other.
They were, to all intents stationary. They
informed the
men in the boat that it was
making progress slowly toward the land.
The
captain, rearing cautiously in the bow, after the
dingey soared on
a great swell, said that he
had seen the lighthouse at Mosquito Inlet.
Presently the cook remarked that he had seen
it. The correspondent was at
the oars, then,
and for some reason he too wished to look at the
lighthouse,
but his back was toward the far
shore and the waves were important, and
for
some time he could not seize an opportunity to
turn his head. But at
last there came a wave
more gentle than the others, and when at the crest
of it he swiftly scoured the western horizon.
again,said the captain. He
pointed. exactly in that
direction.
At
the top of another wave, the correspondent did as
he was bid, and
this time his eyes
chanced on a small still thing on the edge of the
swaying horizon. It was precisely like the
point of a pin. It took an
anxious eye to find
a lighthouse so tiny.
said the
captain.
The little boat, lifted by each
towering sea, and splashed viciously by
the
crests, made progress that in the absence of sea-
weed was not
apparent to those in her. She
seemed just a wee thing wallowing,
miraculously, top-up, at the mercy of five
oceans. Occasionally, a great
spread of water,
like white flames, swarmed into her.
III
IT would be difficult to describe
the subtle brotherhood of men that
was here
established on the seas. No one said that it was
so. No one
mentioned it. But it dwelt in the
boat, and each man felt it warm him.
They were
a captain, an oiler, a cook, and a correspondent,
and they were
friends, friends in a more
curiously iron-bound degree than may be
common. The hurt captain, lying against the
water-jar in the bow, spoke
always in a low
voice and calmly, but he could never command a
more
ready and swiftly obedient crew
than the motley three of the dingey. It
was
more than a mere recognition of what was best for
the common
safety. There was surely in it a
quality that was personal and heartfelt.
And
after this devotion to the commander of the boat
there was this
comradeship that the
correspondent, for instance, who had been taught
to
be cynical of men, knew even at the time
was the best
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experience of his life. But no one said
that it was so. No one mentioned it.
wish
we had a sail,remarked the captain. might try my
overcoat on the end of an oar and give you two
boys a chance to rest.
the cook and the
correspondent held the mast and spread wide the
overcoat. The oiler steered, and the little
boat made good way with her
new rig. Sometimes
the oiler had to scull sharply to keep a sea from
breaking into the boat, but otherwise sailing
was a success.
Meanwhile the light-house
had been growing slowly larger. It had
now
almost assumed color, and appeared like a little
gray shadow on the
sky. The man at the oars
could not be prevented from turning his head
rather often to try for a glimpse of
this little gray shadow.
At last, from the
top of each wave the men in the tossing boat could
see land. Even as the light-house was an
upright shadow on the sky, this
land seemed
but a long black shadow on the sea. It certainly
was thinner
than paper. must be about opposite
New Smyrna,said the cook,
who had coasted this
shore often in schooners. by the way, I
believe they abandoned that life-saving
station there about a year ago.
The
wind slowly died away. The cook and the
correspondent were not
now obliged to slave in
order to hold high the oar. But the waves
continued their old impetuous swooping at the
dingey, and the little craft,
no longer under
way, struggled woundily over them. The oiler or
the
correspondent took the oars again.
Shipwrecks are apropos of nothing. If men could
only train for them
and have them occur when
the men had reached pink condition, there
would be less drowning at sea. Of the four in
the dingey none had slept
any time worth
mentioning for two days and two nights previous to
embarking in the dingey, and in the excitement
of clambering about the
deck of a foundering
ship they had also forgotten to eat heartily.
For these reasons, and for others, neither the
oiler nor the
correspondent was fond of rowing
at this time. The correspondent
wondered
ingenuously how in the name of all that was sane
could there
be people who thought it
amusing to row a boat. It was not an amusement;
it was a diabolical punishment, and even a
genius of mental aberrations
could never
conclude that it was anything but a horror to the
muscles and
a crime against the back. He
mentioned to the boat in general how the
amusement of rowing struck him, and the weary-
faced oiler smiled in full
sympathy.
Previously to the foundering, by the way, the
oiler had worked
double-watch in the engine-
room of the ship.
If we have to run a
surf you'll need all your strength, because we'll
sure
have to swim for it. Take your time.
Slowly the land arose from the sea. From a black
line it became a line
of black and a line of
white, trees, and sand. Finally, the captain said
that
he could make out a house on the shore.
the house of refuge,
sure,
The distant
light-house reared high.
make us out now, if
he's looking through a glass,
notify the life-
saving people.
wreck,said the oiler, in
a low voice. the life-boat would be out
hunting us.
Slowly and beautifully the
land loomed out of the sea. The wind came
again. It had veered from the northeast to the
southeast. Finally, a new
sound struck
the ears of the men in the boat. It was the low
thunder of the
surf on the shore.
the
captain.
Whereupon the little boat
turned her nose once more down the wind,
and
all but the oarsman watched the shore grow. Under
the influence of
this expansion doubt and
direful apprehension was leaving the minds of
the men. The management of the boat was still
most absorbing, but it
could not prevent a
quiet cheerfulness. In an hour, perhaps, they
would be
ashore.
Their back-bones had
become thoroughly
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used to balancing in the boat and
they now rode this wild colt of a dingey
like
circus men. The correspondent thought that he had
been drenched to
the skin, but happening to
feel in the top pocket of his coat, he found
therein eight cigars. Four of them were soaked
with sea-water; four were
perfectly
scatheless. After a search, somebody produced
three dry
matches, and thereupon the
four waifs rode in their little boat, and with an
assurance of an impending rescue shining in
their eyes, puffed at the big
cigars and
judged well and ill of all men. Everybody took a
drink of
water.
IV
life about
your house of refuge.
A broad stretch
of lowly coast lay before the eyes of the men. It
was
of low dunes topped with dark vegetation.
The roar of the surf was plain,
and sometimes
they could see the white lip of a wave as it spun
up the
beach. A tiny house was blocked out
black upon the sky. Southward, the
slim light-
house lifted its little gray length.
Tide,
wind, and waves were swinging the dingey
northward.
they don't see us,
The surf's
roar was here dulled, but its tone was,
nevertheless,
thunderous and mighty. As the
boat swam over the great rollers, the men
sat
listening to this roar.
It is fair to say
here that there was not a life-saving station
within
twenty miles in either direction, but
the men did not know this fact and in
consequence they made dark and opprobrious
remarks concerning the
eyesight of the
nation's life-savers. Four scowling men sat in the
dingey
and surpassed records in the invention
of epithets.
The light-heartedness
of a former time had completely faded. To their
sharpened minds it was easy to conjure
pictures of all kinds of
incompetency and
blindness and indeed, cowardice. There was the
shore
of the populous land, and it was bitter
and bitter to them that from it came
no sign.
try for ourselves. If we stay out here
too long, we'll none of us have
strength left
to swim after the boat swamps.
And so the
oiler, who was at the oars, turned the boat
straight for the
shore. There was a sudden
tightening of muscles. There was some
thinking.
we don't all get ashore --
said the captain. we don't all get
ashore, I
suppose you fellows know where to send news of my
finish?
They then briefly exchanged some
addresses and admonitions. As for
the
reflections of the men, there was a great deal of
rage in them.
Perchance they might be
formulated thus:
if I am going to be drowned
-- if I am going to be drowned, why, in the
name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea,
was I allowed to come thus
far and contemplate
sand and trees? Was I brought here merely to have
my nose dragged away as I was about to
nibble the sacred cheese of life?
It is
preposterous. If this old ninny-woman, Fate,
cannot do better than
this, she should be
deprived of the management of men's fortunes. She
is
an old hen who knows not her intention. If
she has decided to drown me,
why did she not
do it in the beginning and save me all this
trouble. The
whole affair is absurd. . . .
But, no, she cannot mean to drown me. She
dare
not drown me. She cannot drown me. Not after all
this work.
Afterward the man might have had an
impulse to shake his fist at the
clouds:
The billows that came at this time were more
formidable. They
seemed always just about to
break and roll over the little boat in a turmoil
of foam. There was a preparatory and long
growl in the speech of them.
No mind unused to
the sea would have concluded that the dingey could
ascend these sheer heights in time. The shore
was still afar. The oiler was
a wily surfman.
he said, swiftly, won't live three minutes
more and we're too far out to swim. Shall I
take her to sea again,
captain?
This oiler, by a series of quick miracles, and
fast and steady
oarsmanship, turned
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the boat
in the middle of the surf and took her safely to
sea again.
There was a considerable
silence as the boat bumped over the
furrowed
sea to deeper water. Then somebody in gloom spoke.
anyhow, they must have seen us from the shore
by now.
The gulls went in slanting flight up
the wind toward the gray desolate
east. A
squall, marked by dingy clouds, and clouds brick-
red, like smoke
from a burning building,
appeared from the southeast.
fishin'. Maybe they think we're damned
fools.
It was a long afternoon. A changed
tide tried to force them southward,
but wind
and wave said northward. Far ahead, where coast-
line, sea, and
sky formed their mighty angle,
there were little dots which seemed to
indicate a city on the shore.
The captain shook his head.
And the oiler
rowed, and then the correspondent rowed. Then the
oiler rowed. It was a weary business.
The human back can become the
seat of more
aches and pains than are registered in books for
the
composite anatomy of a regiment. It is a
limited area, but it can become
the theatre of
innumerable muscular conflicts, tangles, wrenches,
knots,
and other comforts.
When one exchanged the rowing-seat for a place in
the bottom of the
boat, he suffered a bodily
depression that caused him to be careless of
everything save an obligation to wiggle one
finger. There was cold
sea-water swashing to
and fro in the boat, and he lay in it. His head,
pillowed on a thwart, was within an inch of
the swirl of a wave crest, and
sometimes a
particularly obstreperous sea came in-board and
drenched
him once more. But these matters did
not annoy him. It is almost certain
that if
the boat had capsized he would have tumbled
comfortably out
upon the ocean as if he felt
sure it was a great soft mattress.
here for us in half an hour.
The
remote beach seemed lower than the sea, and it
required a
searching glance to discern the
little black figure. The captain saw a
floating stick and they rowed to it. A bath-
towel was by some weird
chance in the boat,
and, tying this on the stick, the captain waved
it. The
oarsman did not dare turn his head, so
he was obliged to ask questions.
standing still again. He's looking, I think. . . .
There he goes
again. Toward the house. . . .
Now he's stopped again.
he's on a bicycle. Now he's met the
other man. They're both
waving at us.
Look!
shore on a wagon.
hotel omnibuses.
suppose they
are doing with an omnibus? Maybe they are going
around
collecting the life-crew, hey?
it, likely. Look! There's a fellow waving a little
black flag.
He's standing on the steps of the
omnibus.
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There come those other two fellows. Now
they're all talking together.
Look at the
fellow with the flag. Maybe he ain't waving it.
it is. It's his coat. He's
taken it off and is waving it around his
head.
But would you look at him swing it.
resort hotel omnibus that has brought over
some of the boarders to see us
drown.
life-saving station up there.
there, Willie.
you suppose he
means?
wait, or go north, or go
south, or go to hell -- there would be some reason
in it. But look at him. He just stands there
and keeps his coat revolving
like a wheel. The
ass!
must
think we like to see him do that. Why don't he
quit it. It
don't mean anything.
there's a life-saving station there
somewhere.
ever since he caught
sight of us. He's an idiot. Why aren't they
getting
men to bring a boat out. A fishing
boat -- one of those big yawls -- could
come
out here all right. Why don't he do something?
have a boat out here for us in less than no
time, now that
they've seen us.
A faint
yellow tone came into the sky over the low land.
The shadows
on the sea slowly deepened. The
wind bore coldness with it, and the men
began
to shiver.
smoke!said one, allowing his
voice to express his impious
mood,
here
all night!
seen us now, and it won't be
long before they'll come chasing out after
us.
The shore grew dusky. The man waving
a coat blended gradually into
this
gloom, and it swallowed in the same manner the
omnibus and the
group of people. The spray,
when it dashed uproariously over the side,
made the voyagers shrink and swear like men
who were being branded.
him one, just
for luck.
In the meantime the
oiler rowed, and then the correspondent rowed,
and then the oiler rowed. Gray-faced and bowed
forward, they
mechanically, turn by turn,
plied the leaden oars. The form of the
light-
house had vanished from the southern horizon, but
finally a pale star
appeared, just lifting
from the sea. The streaked saffron in the west
passed
before the all-merging darkness, and
the sea to the east was black. The
land had
vanished, and was expressed only by the low and
drear thunder
of the surf.
going to
be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad
gods, who rule
the sea, was I allowed to come
thus far and contemplate sand and trees?
Was I
brought here merely to have my nose dragged away
as I was about
to nibble the sacred cheese of
life?
The patient captain, drooped over the
water-jar, was sometimes
obliged to speak to
the oarsman.
This was
surely a quiet evening. All save the oarsman lay
heavily and
listlessly in the boat's bottom.
As for him, his eyes
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were just capable of noting the tall
black waves that swept forward in a
most
sinister silence, save for an occasional subdued
growl of a crest.
The cook's head was on a
thwart, and he looked without interest at the
water under his nose. He was deep in other
scenes. Finally he spoke.
V
said
the oiler and the correspondent, agitatedly. talk
about those things, blast you!
--
A night on the sea in an open boat is a
long night. As darkness settled
finally, the shine of the light,
lifting from the sea in the south, changed to
full gold. On the northern horizon a new light
appeared, a small bluish
gleam on the edge of
the waters. These two lights were the furniture of
the world. Otherwise there was nothing but
waves.
Two men huddled in the stern, and
distances were so magnificent in
the dingey
that the rower was enabled to keep his feet partly
warmed by
thrusting them under his companions.
Their legs indeed extended far
under the
rowing-seat until they touched the feet of the
captain forward.
Sometimes, despite the
efforts of the tired oarsman, a wave came piling
into the boat, an icy wave of the night, and
the chilling water soaked them
anew. They
would twist their bodies for a moment and groan,
and sleep
the dead sleep once more, while the
water in the boat gurgled about them
as the
craft rocked.
The plan of the oiler and the
correspondent was for one to row until
he lost
the ability, and then arouse the other from his
sea-water couch in
the bottom of the boat.
The oiler plied the oars until his head
drooped forward, and the
overpowering sleep
blinded him. And he rowed yet afterward. Then he
touched a man in the bottom of the boat, and
called his name.
spell me for a little
while?
Billie,said the correspondent,
awakening and dragging
himself to a sitting
position. They exchanged places carefully, and the
oiler, cuddling down to the sea-water
at the cook's side, seemed to go to
sleep
instantly.
The particular violence of the
sea had ceased. The waves came
without
snarling. The obligation of the man at the oars
was to keep the
boat headed so that the tilt
of the rollers would not capsize her, and to
preserve her from filling when the crests
rushed past. The black waves
were silent and
hard to be seen in the darkness. Often one was
almost
upon the boat before the oarsman was
aware.
In a low voice the correspondent
addressed the captain. He was not
sure that
the captain was awake, although this iron man
seemed to be
always awake.
The same
steady voice answered him.
off the port
bow.
The cook had tied a life-belt around
himself in order to get even the
warmth which
this clumsy cork contrivance could donate, and he
seemed
almost stove-like when a rower, whose
teeth invariably chattered wildly
as soon as
he ceased his labor, dropped down to sleep.
The correspondent, as he rowed, looked down at the
two men
sleeping under foot. The cook's arm
was around the oiler's shoulders, and,
with
their fragmentary clothing and haggard faces, they
were the babes of
the sea, a grotesque
rendering of the old babes in the wood.
Later he must have grown stupid at his work, for
suddenly there was a
growling of water,
and a crest came with a roar and a swash into the
boat,
and it was a wonder that it did not set
the cook afloat in his life-belt. The
cook
continued to sleep, but the oiler sat up, blinking
his eyes and
shaking with the new cold.
asleep.
Presently it seemed that
even the captain dozed, and the
correspondent
thought that he was the one man afloat on all the
oceans.
The wind had a voice as it came over
the waves, and it was sadder than
the end.
There was a long, loud swishing astern of
the boat, and a gleaming
trail of
phosphorescence, like blue flame, was furrowed
-736-
on the
black waters. It might have been made by a
monstrous knife.
Then there came a
stillness, while the correspondent breathed with
the
open mouth and looked at the sea.
Suddenly there was another swish and
another long flash of bluish
light, and this
time it was alongside the boat, and might almost
have been
reached with an oar. The
correspondent saw an enormous fin speed like a
shadow through the water, hurling the
crystalline spray and leaving the
long glowing
trail.
The correspondent looked over his
shoulder at the captain. His face
was hidden,
and he seemed to be asleep. He looked at the babes
of the sea.
They certainly were asleep. So,
being bereft of sympathy, he leaned a
little
way to one side and swore softly into the sea.
But the thing did not then leave the
vicinity of the boat. Ahead or
astern, on one
side or the other, at intervals long or short,
fled the long
sparkling streak, and there was
to be heard the whiroo of the dark fin. The
speed and power of the thing was greatly to be
admired. It cut the water
like a gigantic and
keen projectile.
The presence of this
biding thing did not affect the man with the same
horror that it would if he had been a
picnicker. He simply looked at the
sea dully
and swore in an undertone.
Nevertheless, it
is true that he did not wish to be alone with the
thing.
He wished one of his companions to
awaken by chance and keep him
company with it.
But the captain hung motionless over the water-jar
and
the oiler and the cook in the bottom of
the boat were plunged in slumber.
VI
going to be drowned, why, in the
name of the seven mad gods, who rule
the sea,
was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate
sand and trees?
During this dismal night, it
may be remarked that a man would
conclude that
it was really the intention of the seven mad gods
to drown
him, despite the abominable injustice
of it. For it was certainly an
abominable
injustice to drown a man who had worked so hard,
so hard.
The man felt it would be a crime most
unnatural. Other people had
drowned at sea
since galleys swarmed with painted sails, but
still --
When it occurs to a man that
nature does not regard him as important,
and
that she feels she would not maim the universe by
disposing of him,
he at first wishes to throw
bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the
fact that there are no bricks and no temples.
Any visible expression of
nature would surely
be pelleted with his jeers.
Then, if there
be no tangible thing to hoot he feels, perhaps,
the desire
to confront a personification and
indulge in pleas, bowed to one knee, and
with
hands supplicant, saying:
A high cold star
on a winter's night is the word he feels that she
says
to him. Thereafter he knows the pathos of
his situation.
The men in the dingey had
not discussed these matters, but each had,
no
doubt, reflected upon them in silence and
according to his mind. There
was seldom any
expression upon their faces save the general one
of
complete weariness. Speech was
devoted to the business of the boat.
To
chime the notes of his emotion, a verse
mysteriously entered the
correspondent's head.
He had even forgotten that he had forgotten this
verse, but it suddenly was in his mind.
A soldier of the Legion lay dying in
Algiers,
There was lack of woman's nursing,
there was dearth of woman's tears;
But a
comrade stood beside him, and he took that
comrade's hand
And he said:
In his childhood, the correspondent had been made
acquainted with
the fact that a soldier of the
Legion lay dying in Algiers, but he had never
regarded the fact as important. Myriads of his
school-fellows had
informed him of the
soldier's plight, but the dinning had naturally
ended
by making him perfectly indifferent. He
had never considered it his affair
that a
soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, nor
had it appeared to
him as a matter for sorrow.
It was less to him than breaking of a pencil's
point.
-737-
Now, however, it quaintly came to
him as a human, living thing. It
was no longer
merely a picture of a few throes in the breast of
a poet,
meanwhile drinking tea and warming his
feet at the grate; it was an
actuality --
stern, mournful, and fine.
The
correspondent plainly saw the soldier. He lay on
the sand with his
feet out straight and still.
While his pale left hand was upon his chest in
an attempt to thwart the going of his life,
the blood came between his
fingers. In the far
Algerian distance, a city of low square forms was
set
against a sky that was faint with the last
sunset hues. The correspondent,
plying the
oars and dreaming of the slow and slower movements
of the
lips of the soldier, was moved by a
profound and perfectly impersonal
comprehension. He was sorry for the soldier of
the Legion who lay dying
in Algiers.
The thing which had followed the boat and waited
had evidently
grown bored at the delay. There
was no longer to be heard the slash of the
cut-water, and there was no longer the flame
of the long trail. The light in
the north
still glimmered, but it was apparently no nearer
to the boat.
Sometimes the boom of the surf
rang in the correspondent's ears, and he
turned the craft seaward then and rowed
harder. Southward, someone had
evidently built
a watch-fire on the beach. It was too low and too
far to be
seen, but it made a shimmering,
roseate reflection upon the bluff back of
it,
and this could be discerned from the boat. The
wind came stronger, and
sometimes a wave
suddenly raged out like a mountain-cat and there
was
to be seen the sheen and sparkle of a
broken crest.
The captain, in the bow,
moved on his water-jar and sat erect.
long
night,he observed to the correspondent. He looked
at the shore.
Later the correspondent spoke into the bottom of
the boat.
you spell me?
As
soon as the correspondent touched the cold
comfortable sea-water
in the bottom of the
boat, and had huddled close to the cook's life-
belt he
was deep in sleep, despite the fact
that his teeth played all the popular airs.
This sleep was so good to him that it was but
a moment before he heard a
voice call his name
in a tone that demonstrated the last stages of
exhaustion.
The light in
the north had mysteriously vanished, but the
correspondent took his course from the wide-
awake captain.
Later in the night they took
the boat farther out to sea, and the captain
directed the cook to take one oar at the stern
and keep the boat facing the
seas. He was to
call out if he should hear the thunder of the
surf. This
plan enabled the oiler and the
correspondent to get respite together.
give
those boys a chance to get into shape
again,
curled down and, after a few preliminary
chatterings and trembles, slept
once more the
dead sleep. Neither knew they had bequeathed to
the cook
the company of another shark, or
perhaps the same shark.
As the boat
caroused on the waves, spray occasionally bumped
over
the side and gave them a fresh soaking,
but this had no power to break
their repose.
The ominous slash of the wind and the water
affected them
as it would have affected
mummies.
again.
As he was
rowing, the captain gave him some whiskey and
water, and
this steadied the chills out of
him. I ever get ashore and anybody
shows me
even a photograph of an oar --
At last
there was a short conversation.
VII
WHEN the correspondent again opened
his eyes, the sea and the sky
were each of the
gray hue of the dawning. Later, carmine
-738-
and gold was
painted upon the waters. The morning appeared
finally, in
its splendor with a sky of pure
blue, and the sunlight flamed on the tips of
the waves.
On the distant dunes were
set many little black cottages, and a tall
white wind-mill reared above them. No man, nor
dog, nor bicycle
appeared on the beach. The
cottages might have formed a deserted
village.
The voyagers scanned the shore. A
conference was held in the boat.
through
the surf right away. If we stay out here much
longer we will be
too weak to do
anything for ourselves at others silently
acquiesced in this reasoning. The boat was
headed for the beach. The
correspondent
wondered if none ever ascended the tall wind-
tower, and if
then they never looked seaward.
This tower was a giant, standing with its
back
to the plight of the ants. It represented in a
degree, to the
correspondent, the serenity of
nature amid the struggles of the individual
--
nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of
men. She did not seem
cruel to him, nor
beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise. But she was
indifferent, flatly indifferent. It is,
perhaps, plausible that a man in this
situation, impressed with the unconcern of the
universe, should see the
innumerable flaws of
his life and have them taste wickedly in his mind
and wish for another chance. A distinction
between right and wrong
seems absurdly clear
to him, then, in this new ignorance of the
grave-edge, and he understands that if he were
given another opportunity
he would mend his
conduct and his words, and be better and brighter
during an introduction, or at a tea.
can do is to work her in as far as possible,
and then when she swamps,
pile out and
scramble for the beach. Keep cool now and don't
jump until
she swamps sure.
The oiler
took the oars. Over his shoulders he scanned the
surf.
he said, think I'd better bring her
about, and keep her
head-on to the seas
and back her in.
boat then and, seated
in the stern, the cook and the correspondent were
obliged to look over their shoulders to
contemplate the lonely and
indifferent shore.
The monstrous inshore rollers heaved the
boat high until the men
were again enabled to
see the white sheets of water scudding up the
slanted beach.
man could wrest his
attention from the rollers, he turned his glance
toward the shore, and in the expression of the
eyes during this
contemplation there was a
singular quality. The correspondent, observing
the others, knew that they were not afraid,
but the full meaning of their
glances was
shrouded.
As for himself, he was too tired
to grapple fundamentally with the
fact. He
tried to coerce his mind into thinking of it, but
the mind was
dominated at this time by the
muscles, and the muscles said they did not
care. It merely occurred to him that if he
should drown it would be a
shame.
There
were no hurried words, no pallor, no plain
agitation. The men
simply looked at the shore.
when you jump,
Seaward the crest of a
roller suddenly fell with a thunderous crash,
and the long white comber came roaring
down upon the boat.
now,said the captain.
The men were silent. They turned
their eyes
from the shore to the comber and waited. The boat
slid up the
incline, leaped at the furious
top, bounced over it, and swung down the
long
back of the waves. Some water had been shipped and
the cook
bailed it out.
But the next
crest crashed also. The tumbling boiling flood of
white
water caught the boat and whirled it
almost perpendicular. Water
swarmed in from
all sides. The correspondent had his hands on the
gunwale at this time, and when the water
entered at that place he swiftly
withdrew his
fingers, as if he objected to wetting them.
The little boat, drunken with this weight of
water, reeled and snuggled
deeper into the
sea.
-739-
us, sure,
The third wave moved forward, huge, furious,
implacable. It fairly
swallowed the dingey,
and almost simultaneously the men tumbled into
the sea. A piece of life-belt had lain in the
bottom of the boat, and as the
correspondent
went overboard he held this to his chest with his
left hand.
The January water was icy, and
he reflected immediately that it was
colder
than he had expected to find it off the coast of
Florida. This
appeared to his dazed mind as a
fact important enough to be noted at the
time.
The coldness of the water was sad; it was tragic.
This fact was
somehow mixed and confused with
his opinion of his own situation that it
seemed almost a proper reason for tears. The
water was cold.
When he came to the surface
he was conscious of little but the noisy
water. Afterward he saw his companions in the
sea. The oiler was ahead
in the race. He was
swimming strongly and rapidly. Off to the
correspondent's left, the cook's great white
and corked back bulged out of
the water, and
in the rear the captain was hanging with his one
good hand
to the keel of the overturned
dingey.
There is a certain immovable
quality to a shore, and the correspondent
wondered at it amid the confusion of the sea.
It seemed also very attractive, but the
correspondent knew that it was
a long journey,
and he paddled leisurely. The piece of life-
preserver lay
under him, and sometimes he
whirled down the incline of a wave as if he
were on a hand-sled.
But finally
he arrived at a place in the sea where travel was
beset with
difficulty. He did not pause
swimming to inquire what manner of current
had
caught him, but there his progress ceased. The
shore was set before
him like a bit of scenery
on a stage, and he looked at it and understood
with his eyes each detail of it.
As the
cook passed, much farther to the left, the captain
was calling to
him,
oar.
oar,
went ahead as if he were a canoe.
Presently
the boat also passed to the left of the
correspondent with the
captain clinging with
one hand to the keel. He would have appeared like
a
man raising himself to look over a board
fence, if it were not for the
extraordinary
gymnastics of the boat. The correspondent
marvelled that
the captain could still hold to
it.
They passed on, nearer to shore -- the
oiler, the cook, the captain --
and following
them went the water-jar, bouncing gayly over the
seas.
The correspondent remained in the
grip of this strange new enemy -- a
current.
The shore, with its white slope of sand and its
green bluff, topped
with little silent
cottages, was spread like a picture before him. It
was
very near to him then, but he was
impressed as one who in a gallery looks
at a scene from Brittany or Algiers.
He thought: am going to drown? Can it be
possible? Can it be
possible? Can it be
possible?Perhaps an individual must consider his
own death to be the final phenomenon of
nature.
But later a wave perhaps whirled
him out of this small deadly current,
for he
found suddenly that he could again make progress
toward the shore.
Later still, he was aware
that the captain, clinging with one hand to the
keel of the dingey, had his face turned away
from the shore and toward
him, and was calling
his name.
In his struggle to reach the
captain and the boat, he reflected that
when
one gets properly wearied, drowning must really be
a comfortable
arrangement, a cessation of
hostilities accompanied by a large degree of
relief, and he was glad of it, for the main
thing in his mind for some
moments had been
horror of the temporary agony. He did not wish to
be
hurt.
Presently he saw a man running
along the shore. He was undressing
with most
remarkable speed. Coat, trousers, shirt,
everything flew
magically off him.
let himself down to bottom and leave the boat.
Then the correspondent
performed his one
little marvel of the voyage. A large wave caught
him
and flung him with ease and supreme
speed completely over the boat and
far beyond
it. It struck him even then as an event in
gymnastics, and a
true miracle of the sea. An
overturned boat in the surf is not a plaything to
a swimming man.
-740-
The correspondent arrived in
water that reached only to his waist, but
his
condition did not enable him to stand for more
than a moment. Each
wave knocked him into a
heap, and the under-tow pulled at him.
Then
he saw the man who had been running and
undressing, and
undressing and running, come
bounding into the water. He dragged
ashore the
cook, and then waded toward the captain, but the
captain
waved him away, and sent him to the
correspondent. He was naked,
naked as a tree
in winter, but a halo was about his head, and he
shone like
a saint. He gave a strong pull, and
a long drag, and a bully heave at the
correspondent's hand. The correspondent,
schooled in the minor formulae,
said:
pointed a swift finger. The correspondent
said:
In the shallows, face
downward, lay the oiler. His forehead touched
sand that was periodically, between each wave,
clear of the sea.
The correspondent did not
know all that transpired afterward. When
he
achieved safe ground he fell, striking the sand
with each particular part
of his body. It was
as if he had dropped from a roof, but the thud was
grateful to him.
It seems that
instantly the beach was populated with men with
blankets, clothes, and flasks, and women with
coffee-pots and all the
remedies sacred to
their minds. The welcome of the land to the men
from
the sea was warm and generous, but a
still and dripping shape was carried
slowly up
the beach, and the land's welcome for it could
only be the
different and sinister hospitality
of the grave.
When it came night, the white
waves paced to and fro in the
moonlight, and
the wind brought the sound of the great sea's
voice to the
men on shore, and they felt that
they could then be interpreters.