In the Sargasso Sea

  XXI

  MY THIRST IS QUENCHED, AND I FIND A COMPASS

  It was a long while before the pale pink gleam to the eastward spreadup into the sky far enough to thin the shadows which hung over my deadfleet heavily, and longer still before I had light enough to ventureto begin my scrambling walk from ship to ship again. It seemed to me,indeed, that the mist lay lower and was a good deal thicker than onthe preceding evening; and this, with the fiery glow that was in itwhen the sunrise came, gave me hope that a douse of rain might becoming--which chance of getting the water that I longed for heartenedme even more than did the up-coming of the sun.

  My throat was hurting me a good deal because of its dryness, and myitching thirst was all the stronger because the last food I hadeaten--being the mess left in the pan by the two men who had killedeach other--had been a salt-meat stew. Of hunger I did not feel much,save for gripes in my inside now and then; but I was weak because ofmy emptiness--as I discovered when I got on my legs, and found myselfstaggering a little and the things around me swimming before my eyes.And what was worse than that was a dull stupidity which so possessedme that I could not think clearly; and so for a while kept mewandering about the deck of the brig aimlessly, while my wits wentwool-gathering instead of trying to work out some plan--even a foolishplan--which would cheer me up with hopes of pulling through.

  I might have gone on all day that way, very likely, if I had not beenaroused suddenly by feeling a big drop of rain on my face; and only amoment later--the thick mist, I suppose, being surcharged with water,and some little waft of wind in its upper region having loosened itsvent-peg--I was in the thick of a dashing shower. So violent was thedownpour that in less than a minute the deck was streaming, and I hadonly to plug with my shirt one of the scuppers amidships to have inanother minute or two a little lake of fresh sweet water fromwhich--lying on my belly, with the rain pelting down on me--I drankand drank until at last I was full. And the feel of the rain on mybody was almost as good as the drinking of it, for it was deliciouslycool and yet not chill.

  When I got at last to my legs again, with the dryness gone from mythroat and only a little pain there because of the swollen glands, Ifound that I walked steadily and that my head was clear too; and forthe moment I was so entirely filled with water that I was not hungryat all. Presently the rain stopped, and that set me to thinking offinding some better way to keep a store of water by me than leaving itin a pool on the open deck; where, indeed, it would not stay long, butwould ooze out through the scupper and be sopped up by therotten planks.

  And so, though I did not at all fancy going below on the old brig, Iwent down the companion-way into the cabin to search for a vessel ofsome sort that would be water-tight; and shivered a little as Ientered that dusky place, and did not venture to move about thereuntil my eyes got accustomed to the half darkness for fear that Ishould go stumbling over dead men's bones.

  As it turned out, the cabin was bare enough of dead people, and ofpretty much everything else; from which I inferred that in the longpast time when the brig had been wrecked her crew had got safe awayfrom her, and had been able in part to strip her before they left heralone upon the sea. What I wanted, however, they had not taken away.In a locker I found a case made to hold six big bottles, in which theskipper had carried his private stock of liquors very likely; and twoof the bottles, no doubt being empty when the cabin was cleared, hadbeen left behind. They served my turn exactly, and I brought them ondeck and filled them from my pool of rain-water--and so was safeagainst thirst for at least another day.

  Being thus freshened by my good drink, and cheered by the certainty ofhaving water by me, I sat down for a while on the cabin-scuttle that Imight puzzle out a plan for getting to some ship so recentlystorm-slain that aboard of her still would be eatable food. As forrummaging in the hold of the brig, I knew that no good could come ofit--she having lain there, as I judged, for a good deal more than halfa century; and for the same reason I knew that I only would waste timein searching the other old wrecks about me for stores. All that wasopen to me was to press toward the edge of the wreck-pack, for therealone could I hope to find what I was after--and there it prettycertainly would be. But after my miserable experience of the precedingday it was plain that before I started on my hunting expedition I musthit upon some way of laying a course and holding it; or else, mostlikely, go rambling from wreck to wreck until I grew so weak fromstarvation that on one or another of them I should fall down atlast and die.

  Close beside me, as I sat on the hatch, was the brig's binnacle, andin it I could see the shrivelled remnant of what had been thecompass-card; and the sight of this put into my head presently thethought--that might have got there sooner had my wits beensharper--to look for a compass still in working order and by means ofit to steer some sort of a steady course. The argument against thisplan was plain enough, and it was a strong one: that in holding aswell as I could to any straight line I might only get deeper anddeeper into my maze--for I was turned around completely, and while Iknew that I could not be very far from the edge of my island offlotsam I had not the faintest notion in which direction thatnear edge lay.

  For some minutes longer I sat on the hatch thinking the matter overand trying to hit on something that would open to me a better prospectof success; and all the while I had a hungry pain in my stomach thatmade clear thinking difficult, and that at the same time urged me todo quickly anything that gave even the least promise of getting food.And so the upshot of the matter was that I slung my two bottles ofwater over my shoulders with a bit of line that I found in the brig'scabin--making the slings short, that the bottles might hang closeunder my arms and be pretty safe against breaking--and then away Iwent on my cruise after a compass still on speaking terms with thenorth pole.

  That I would find one seemed for a good while unlikely; for I searcheda score and more of wrecks, and on every one of them the binnacleeither was empty or the needle entirely rusted away. But at last Icame to a barque that had a newer look about her than that of thecraft amidst which she was lying, and that also had her binnaclecovered with a tarred canvas hood such as is used when vessels arelying in port. How the hood came to be where it was on that brokenwreck was more than I could account for; but by reason of its being inplace the binnacle had been well protected from the weather, and Ifound to my delight that the compass inside was in working trim.

  It was an awkward thing to carry, being an old-fashioned big squarebox heavily and clumsily made; but I was so glad to get it that I wasnot for quarrelling with it, though it did for a little put me to apuzzle as to how I should pack it along. What I came to was to slingit on my back knapsack-fashion, which was a poor way to have it, sinceevery time that I looked at it I had to unsling it and then to slingit again; yet there was no other way for me to manage it, because inmy scrambling from one wreck to another I needs must have both handsfree. But what with this big box strapped to my shoulders, and the twobig bottles dangling close up under my arm-pits, I must havelooked--only there was nobody to look at me--nothing less than afigure of fun.

  As I knew not which way I ought to go, and so had all ways open to me,I laid my course for the head of the compass; and was the moredisposed thus to go due north because that way, as far as I could seefor the mist and the mast-tangle, the wrecks lay packed so closetogether that passing from one to another would be easy for me--whichwas a matter to be considered in view of the load that I had tocarry along.

  But just as I was ready to start another notion struck me. I hadnoticed the modern look of the barque, as compared with the ancientbuild of the hulks amidst which she was lying, when I first cameaboard of her; and as I was about to leave her--my eye being caught bythe soundness of a bit of line made fast to a belaying-pin on herrail--the thought occurred to me that I might find on her something orother still fit to be called food. And when this thought came to me Iunslung my compass and my water-bottles in a hurry--for I was asravenous as a man well could be.