A Legend Of The Sea

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Title:     A Legend Of The Sea
Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz [More Titles by Sienkiewicz]

Translator: Jeremiah Curtin

There was a ship named "The Purple," so strong and so great that she feared neither winds nor waves, even when they were raging most terribly.

"The Purple" swept on, with every sail set, she rose upon each swelling wave and crushed with her conquering prow hidden rocks on which other ships foundered. She moved ever forward with sails which were gleaming in sunlight, and moved with such swiftness that foam roared at her sides and stretched out behind in a broad, endless road-streak.

"That is a glorious craft," cried out crews on all other ships; "a man might think that she sails just to punish the ocean."

From time to time they called out to the crew of "The Purple":

"Hei, men, to what port are ye sailing?"

"To that port to which wind blows," said the men on "The Purple."

"Have a care, there are rocks ahead! There are whirlpools!"

In reply to this warning came back a song as loud as the wind was:

"Let us sail on, let us sail ever joyously."

Men on "The Purple" were gladsome. The crew, confiding in the strength of their ship and the size of it, jeered at all perils. On other ships stern discipline ruled, but on "The Purple" each man did what seemed good to him.

Life on that ship was one ceaseless holiday. The storms which she had passed, the rocks which she had crushed, increased the crew's confidence. "There are no reefs, there are no winds to wreck this ship," roared the sailors. "Let a hurricane shiver the ocean, 'The Purple' will always sail forward."

And "The Purple" sailed; she was proud, she was splendid.

Whole years passed--she was to all seeming invincible, she helped other ships and took in on her deck drowning passengers.

Blind faith increased every day in the breasts of the crew on "The Purple." They grew slothful in good fortune and forgot their own art, they forgot how to navigate. "Our 'Purple' will sail herself," said they. "Why toil, why watch the ship, why pull at rudder, masts, sails, and ropes? Why live by hard work and the sweat of our brows, when our ship is divine, indestructible? Let us sail on, let us sail joyously."

And they sailed for a very long period. At last, after years, the crew became utterly effeminate, they forgot every duty, and no man of them knew that that ship was decaying. Bitter water had weakened the spars, the strong rigging had loosened, waves without number had shattered the gunwales, dry rot was at work in the mainmast, the sails had grown weak through exposure.

The voice of sound sense was heard now despite every madness:

"Be careful!" cried some of the sailors.

"Never mind! We will sail with the current," cried out the majority. But once such a storm came that to that hour its like had not been on the water. The wind whirled ocean and clouds into one hellish chaos. Pillars of water rose up and flew then with roars at "The Purple"; they were raging and bellowing dreadfully. They fell on the ship, they drove her down to the bottom, they hurled her up to the clouds, then cast her down again. The weak rigging snapped, and now a quick cry of despair was heard on the deck of that vessel.

"'The Purple' is sinking!"

"The Purple" was really sinking, while the crew, unaccustomed to work and to navigate, knew not how to save her.

But when the first moment of terror had passed, rage boiled up in their hearts, for those mariners still loved that ship of theirs.

All sprang up speedily, some rushed to fire cannon-balls at the winds and foaming water, others seized what each man could find near him and flogged that sea which was drowning "The Purple."

Great was that fight of despair against the elements. But the waves had more strength than the mariners. The guns filled with water and then they were silent. Gigantic whirls seized struggling sailors and swept them out into watery chaos.

The crew decreased every minute, but they struggled on yet. Covered with water, half-blinded, concealed by a mountain of foam, they fought till they dropped in the battle.

Strength left them, but after brief rest they sprang again to the struggle.

At last their hands fell. They felt that death was approaching. Dull despair seized them. Those sailors looked at one another as if demented.

Now those same voices which had warned previously of danger were raised again, and more powerfully, so powerfully this time that the roar of the waves could not drown them.

Those voices said:

"O blind men! How can ye cannonade wind, or flog waves? Mend your vessel! Go to the hold. Work there. The ship 'Purple' is afloat yet."

At these words those mariners, half-dead already, recovered, all rushed to the hold and began then to work in it. And they worked from morning till night in the sweat of their brows and with effort, seeking thus to retrieve their past sloth and their blindness.

[The end]
Henryk Sienkiewicz's short story: Legend Of The Sea

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