________________________________________________
_ THE mirthfulness which at times reigned among us was in strange and
shocking contrast with the situation of some of the invalids. Thus at
least did it seem to me, though not to others.
But an event occurred about this period, which, in removing by far the
most pitiable cases of suffering, tended to make less grating to my
feelings the subsequent conduct of the crew.
We had been at sea about twenty days, when two of the sick who had
rapidly grown worse, died one night within an hour of each other.
One occupied a bunk right next to mine, and for several days had not
risen from it. During this period he was often delirious, starting
up and glaring around him, and sometimes wildly tossing his arms.
On the night of his decease, I retired shortly after the middle watch
began, and waking from a vague dream of horrors, felt something
clammy resting on me. It was the sick man's hand. Two or three times
during the evening previous, he had thrust it into my bunk, and I had
quietly removed it; but now I started and flung it from me. The arm
fell stark and stiff, and I knew that he was dead.
Waking the men, the corpse was immediately rolled up in the strips of
blanketing upon which it lay, and carried on deck. The mate was then
called, and preparations made for an instantaneous' burial. Laying
the body out on the forehatch, it was stitched up in one of the
hammocks, some "kentledge" being placed at the feet instead of shot.
This done, it was borne to the gangway, and placed on a plank laid
across the bulwarks. Two men supported the inside end. By way of
solemnity, the ship's headway was then stopped by hauling aback the
main-top-sail.
The mate, who was far from being sober, then staggered up, and holding
on to a shroud, gave the word. As the plank tipped, the body slid off
slowly, and fell with a splash into the sea. A bubble or two, and
nothing more was seen.
"Brace forward!" The main-yard swung round to its place, and the ship
glided on, whilst the corpse, perhaps, was still sinking.
We had tossed a shipmate to the sharks, but no one would have thought
it, to have gone among the crew immediately after. The dead man had
been a churlish, unsocial fellow, while alive, and no favourite; and
now that he was no more, little thought was bestowed upon him. All
that was said was concerning the disposal of his chest, which, having
been always kept locked, was supposed to contain money. Someone
volunteered to break it open, and distribute its contents, clothing
and all, before the captain should demand it.
While myself and others were endeavouring to dissuade them from this,
all started at a cry from the forecastle. There could be no one there
but two of the sick, unable to crawl on deck. We went below, and
found one of them dying on a chest. He had fallen out of his hammock
in a fit, and was insensible. The eyes were open and fixed, and his
breath coming and going convulsively. The men shrunk from him; but
the doctor, taking his hand, held it a few moments in his, and
suddenly letting it fall, exclaimed, "He's gone!" The body was
instantly borne up the ladder.
Another hammock was soon prepared, and the dead sailor stitched up as
before. Some additional ceremony, however, was now insisted upon,
and a Bible was called for. But none was to be had, not even a Prayer
Book. When this was made known, Antone, a Portuguese, from the
Cape-de-Verd Islands, stepped up, muttering something over the corpse
of his countryman, and, with his finger, described upon the back of
the hammock the figure of a large cross; whereupon it received the
death-launch.
These two men both perished from the proverbial indiscretions of
seamen, heightened by circumstances apparent; but had either of them
been ashore under proper treatment, lie would, in all human
probability, have recovered.
Behold here the fate of a sailor! They give him the last toss, and no
one asks whose child he was.
For the rest of that night there was no more sleep. Many stayed on
deck until broad morning, relating to each other those marvellous
tales of the sea which the occasion was calculated to call forth.
Little as I believed in such things, I could not listen to some of
these stories unaffected. Above all was I struck by one of the
carpenter's.
On a voyage to India, they had a fever aboard, which carried off
nearly half the crew in the space of a few days. After this the men
never went aloft in the night-time, except in couples. When topsails
were to be reefed, phantoms were seen at the yard-arm ends; and in
tacking ship, voices called aloud from the tops. The carpenter
himself, going with another man to furl the main-top-gallant-sail in a
squall, was nearly pushed from the rigging by an unseen hand; and his
shipmate swore that a wet hammock was flirted in his face.
Stories like these were related as gospel truths, by those who
declared themselves eye-witnesses.
It is a circumstance not generally known, perhaps, that among ignorant
seamen, Philanders, or Finns, as they are more commonly called, are
regarded with peculiar superstition. For some reason or other, which
I never could get at, they are supposed to possess the gift of second
sight, and the power to wreak supernatural vengeance upon those who
offend them. On this account they have great influence among sailors,
and two or three with whom I have sailed at different times were
persons well calculated to produce this sort of impression, at least
upon minds disposed to believe in such things.
Now, we had one of these sea-prophets aboard; an old, yellow-haired
fellow, who always wore a rude seal-skin cap of his own make, and
carried his tobacco in a large pouch made of the same stuff. Van, as
we called him, was a quiet, inoffensive man, to look at, and, among
such a set, his occasional peculiarities had hitherto passed for
nothing. At this time, however, he came out with a prediction, which
was none the less remarkable from its absolute fulfilment, though not
exactly in the spirit in which it was given out.
The night of the burial he laid his hand on the old horseshoe nailed
as a charm to the foremast, and solemnly told us that, in less than
three weeks, not one quarter of our number would remain aboard the
ship--by that time they would have left her for ever.
Some laughed; Flash Jack called him an old fool; but among the men
generally it produced a marked effect. For several days a degree of
quiet reigned among us, and allusions of such a kind were made to
recent events, as could be attributed to no other cause than the
Finn's omen.
For my own part, what had lately come to pass was not without its
influence. It forcibly brought to mind our really critical condition.
Doctor Long Ghost, too, frequently revealed his apprehensions, and
once assured me that he would give much to be safely landed upon any
island around us.
Where we were, exactly, no one but the mate seemed to know, nor
whither we were going. The captain--a mere cipher--was an invalid in
his cabin; to say nothing more of so many of his men languishing in
the forecastle.
Our keeping the sea under these circumstances, a matter strange enough
at first, now seemed wholly unwarranted; and added to all was the
thought that our fate was absolutely in the hand of the reckless
Jermin. Were anything to happen to him, we would be left without a
navigator, for, according to Jermin himself, he had, from the
commencement of the voyage, always kept the ship's reckoning, the
captain's nautical knowledge being insufficient.
But considerations like these, strange as it may seem, seldom or never
occurred to the crew. They were alive only to superstitious fears;
and when, in apparent contradiction to the Finn's prophecy, the sick
men rallied a little, they began to recover their former spirits, and
the recollection of what had occurred insensibly faded from their
minds. In a week's time, the unworthiness of Little Jule as a sea
vessel, always a subject of jest, now became more so than ever. In the
forecastle, Flash Jack, with his knife, often dug into the dank,
rotten planks ribbed between us and death, and flung away the
splinters with some sea joke.
As to the remaining invalids, they were hardly ill enough to occasion
any serious apprehension, at least for the present, in the breasts of
such thoughtless beings as themselves. And even those who suffered
the most, studiously refrained from any expression of pain.
The truth is, that among sailors as a class, sickness at sea is so
heartily detested, and the sick so little cared for, that the
greatest invalid generally strives to mask his sufferings. He has
given no sympathy to others, and he expects none in return. Their
conduct, in this respect, so opposed to their generous-hearted
behaviour ashore, painfully affects the landsman on his first
intercourse with them as a sailor.
Sometimes, but seldom, our invalids inveighed against their being kept
at sea, where they could be of no service, when they ought to be
ashore and in the way of recovery. But--"Oh! cheer up--cheer up, my
hearties!"--the mate would say. And after this fashion he put a stop
to their murmurings.
But there was one circumstance, to which heretofore I have but barely
alluded, that tended more than anything else to reconcile many to
their situation. This was the receiving regularly, twice every day, a
certain portion of Pisco, which was served out at the capstan, by the
steward, in little tin measures called "tots."
The lively affection seamen have for strong drink is well known; but
in the South Seas, where it is so seldom to be had, a thoroughbred
sailor deems scarcely any price too dear which will purchase his
darling "tot." Nowadays, American whalemen in the Pacific never think
of carrying spirits as a ration; and aboard of most of them, it is
never served out even in times of the greatest hardships. All Sydney
whalemen, however, still cling to the old custom, and carry it as a
part of the regular supplies for the voyage.
In port, the allowance of Pisco was suspended; with a view,
undoubtedly, of heightening the attractions of being out of sight of
land.
Now, owing to the absence of proper discipline, our sick, in addition
to what they took medicinally, often came in for their respective
"tots" convivially; and, added to all this, the evening of the last
day of the week was always celebrated by what is styled on board of
English vessels "The Saturday-night bottles." Two of these were sent
down into the forecastle, just after dark; one for the starboard
watch, and the other for the larboard.
By prescription, the oldest seaman in each claims the treat as his,
and, accordingly, pours out the good cheer and passes it round like a
lord doing the honours of his table. But the Saturday-night bottles
were not all. The carpenter and cooper, in sea parlance, Chips and
Bungs, who were the "Cods," or leaders of the forecastle, in some way
or other, managed to obtain an extra supply, which perpetually kept
them in fine after-dinner spirits, and, moreover, disposed them to
look favourably upon a state of affairs like the present.
But where were the sperm whales all this time? In good sooth, it made
little matter where they were, since we were in no condition to
capture them. About this time, indeed, the men came down from the
mast-heads, where, until now, they had kept up the form of relieving
each other every two hours. They swore they would go there no more.
Upon this, the mate carelessly observed that they would soon be where
look-outs were entirely unnecessary, the whales he had in his eye
(though Flash Jack said they were all in his) being so tame that they
made a practice of coming round ships, and scratching their backs
against them.
Thus went the world of waters with us, some four weeks or more after
leaving Hannamanoo. _
Read next: PART I: CHAPTER XIII. OUR DESTINATION CHANGED
Read previous: PART I: CHAPTER XI. DOCTOR LONG GHOST A WAG--ONE OF HIS CAPERS
Table of content of Omoo
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
