Читать книгу Idylls of the Sea, and Other Marine Sketches - Frank Thomas Bullen - Страница 6

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For six weeks we had simmered in unwinking sunblaze by day, and by night had stared with ever-fresh wonder at the blue-black immensity above, bejewelled with stars as the sand on the sea-shore for multitude. Among the glorious host of heaven the dazzling moon sailed on her stately way, the radiant splendour of her rays almost unbearable in their penetrating power. Beneath us the waveless ocean lay like another sky, its levelled surface unruffled by the faintest zephyr. On moonless nights it was often hard to divest oneself of the idea that we were floating in mid-air, so little difference was there between below and above. Our passage, already over long, seemed to have ended here, a thousand miles from land, and far out of the track of other ships. For some time this wondrous restfulness of all the elements fell upon our souls like the soothing touch of a mother’s hand upon the fevered head of her child. In the night watches voices were hushed, and whispered converse came gently from lips unaccustomed to such topics, upon subjects exalted and solemn. Even during the day, while engaged in severe toil—for our careful captain was utilising this unwelcome opportunity in a general refit—it seemed as if all hands were under a deep impression of gravity, as though conscious of contact with the eternities. But this feeling of awe, which was almost involuntary worship, gradually gave place as the days passed in changeless procession to an increasing sense of indefinite fear. Each man looked askance at his fellow’s face, fearfully seeking sight of that shadow he felt upon his own. One unspoken question trembled on every lip, one overmastering idea blended with and tinctured all others. A change, unusual as unwholesome, came over the bright blue of the sea. No longer did it reflect, as in a limpid mirror, the splendour of the sun, the sweet silvery glow of the moon, or the coruscating clusters of countless stars. Like the ashen-grey hue that bedims the countenance of the dying, a filmy greasy skin appeared to overspread the recent loveliness of the ocean’s surface. The sea was sick, stagnant, and foul. From its turbid waters arose a miasmatic vapour like a breath of decay, which clung clammily to the palate and dulled all the senses. Drawn by some strange force from the unfathomable depths below, eerie shapes sought the surface, blinking glassily at the unfamiliar glare they had exchanged for their native gloom,—uncouth creatures bedight with tasselled fringes like weed-growths waving around them, fathom-long medusæ with coloured spots like eyes clustering all over their transparent substance, wriggling worm-like forms of such elusive matter that the smallest exposure to the sun melted them, and they were not. Lower down, vast pale shadows crept sluggishly along, happily undistinguishable as yet, but adding a half-familiar flavour to the strange, faint smell that hung about us. Of the ordinary fish which attend a vessel under healthful conditions few were to be seen. Such stragglers as occasionally came near were languid and purposeless in their movements, as if infected by the universal malaise that only fostered foul and fermenting growths. The sole exceptions were the sharks, who came and went as stealthily, but as eagerly as ever.

Such a morbific, unwholesome condition of our environment as this utter cessation of the revivifying motion of the aerial ocean, with its beneficent reaction upon the watery world beneath, could not fail sooner or later to affect the health of the crew. Doubtless the heavy toil in which all hands were continually engaged during the day put off the coming disaster longer than would otherwise have been the case. But the ship was ill found, the meat was partially decayed, and the bread honeycombed by various vermin. The water alone was comparatively sweet, although somewhat flavoured with tar, for we had caught it as it fell from the surcharged skies. There was no change of dietary, no fresh provisions, except when, as a great banquet once in two months, an allowance of soup and bouilli was served out, which only suggested a change, hardly supplied it. Men grew listless and uncompanionable. Each aloof from his fellows took to hanging moodily over the bulwarks and staring steadfastly at the unpleasant surface of the once beautiful sea. And the livid impalpabilities that, gigantic and gruesome, pursued their shadowy, stealthy glidings beneath seemed to be daily growing more definite and terrible. The watchers glared at them until their overburdened imagination could support the sight no longer, and they sought relief by hoarse cries from the undefinable terror. One by one the seamen fell sick, apparently with scurvy, that most loathsome ailment, that seems to combine in itself half a dozen other diseases and reproduces old and long-forgotten wounds. It was accompanied, too, by partial blindness, as of moon-stroke, rendering the sufferers utterly unable to see anything at night, even though by day their sight was still fairly good. Already short-handed, this new distress added greatly to the physical sufferings of the patient mariners, who endured with a fortitude seldom seen among merchant seamen the slowly accumulating burden of their sorrows. The questioning look before noted as visible in every man’s eyes now took another meaning. As a recent and a most powerful writer, Joseph Conrad, has noticed, one of the strongest superstitions current among seamen is the notion that such an abnormal condition of the elements calls for a human victim. Life must be paid that the majority may live. Whose would it be? No word was spoken on the subject, but the sequel showed how deeply seated was the idea.

At last from among the brooding men one figure detached itself and became prominent with an unearthly significance. He was an old and feeble man named Peter Burn, unfitted in any case to endure much longer the ordinary stress of a sailor’s life. But suddenly his frailty seemed to obtrude itself persistently upon our notice until his worn-out frame became almost transparent. Towards the close of this moribund state of the elements Peter’s mind grew retrospective. His present surroundings seemed to fade from his knowledge, becoming, as far as he was concerned, non-existent. Hour after hour he would lie yarning incessantly of bygone exploits in long-forgotten ships on many seas. In the long, quiet evenings all hands that were able would gather round with pipes aglow and listen silently to his babbling, flowing like a placid stream of sound, contrasting curiously with the lurid language in which he revived the scenes of riot, bloodshed, and license of his distant youth. He still relished a pipe, although he hardly seemed aware whether it was alight or not. But there was always some one ready to catch it as it fell from his trembling jaws, or to support it tenderly with one hand while a light was applied with the other. Day by day his detachment from present things increased. He lived only in the misty past, his immediate environment became a perfect blank, and he called his shipmates by strange names. Of any want of the consolations of religion he manifested no sign, and as there was none to offer them, the pathos of that dreadful indifference passed unnoticed.

At last, one evening, when a sticky haze rose sluggishly from the fermenting sea, peopling the immediate vicinity of the ship with fantastic shapes, Peter raised his voice in an astonishing volume of sound, commanding his attendants to carry him on deck. They instantly obeyed. Very tenderly and cautiously they bore him to the top-gallant forecastle, whence a clear view could be obtained all around. Through the hedge of mist the moon was rising, a vast blood-red disc, across the face of which passed in weird procession formless phantoms of indefinite and ever-varying suggestiveness. Overhead, the lustreless stars looked down wearily out of a sky that had paled from its deep azure to a neutral tint of green. From beneath, the foul effluvia ascended like the air of a charnel-house. Even the gleaming phosphorescence in the wake of the living things below glared pale and slow. The heavy silence around was only broken at long intervals by the melancholy wail of a weary sea-bird that feared to rest on the glairy sea. On board the voice of our ancient shipmate prattled on in tones scarcely human and in language unintelligible to any of us. As the moon, rising clear of the steaming vapours, resumed her normal appearance, she shot a pallid beam across us where, like a group of ghosts, we crouched around Peter’s prone form. When the cold ray touched his face it suddenly changed, and became beautiful, but only for a moment. Then the withered, toothless jaw dropped, the dim eyeballs settled in their sockets, and Peter passed from among us. Like a voice from heaven came the command, breaking the heavy stillness, “Square away the main-yard.” As men in a dream we obeyed. But the sweet breeze aroused us as it swept away the fœtid mist in reluctant rolls and eddies. A joyful sound like the musical murmur of a brooklet arose from beneath the forefoot as the good ship resumed her long-hindered journey through the reviving sea, and the long calm was over.

Then when sail had been trimmed, and gear coiled up again, came the sailmaker softly, a roll of worn canvas under his arm, and his palm and needle ready. In ten minutes a long white bundle was borne reverently aft and laid on a hatch, where a mass of sandstone was secured to its smaller end. The skipper produced a worn Prayer-book, from which, like one determined to do his duty at all cost, he doggedly read the Order for the Burial of the Dead right through. All hands stood round in the moonlight with bare heads and set faces until the skipper’s voice ceased. Then at a sign from the mate four of us lifted the hatch to the rail, slowly raised its inner end and held it steadily, while, with a slow hiss, its burden slid into the sea and disappeared beneath a shining column of emerald green.