CHAPTER IX
In Which I Pass Through Deep Waters
But I came to the surface after a time—and with all my wits about me. I had need of them.
In these months that I had been knocking about the seas I had been in peril often. Nor was this the first time that death by drowning had threatened me.
But on no former occasion had I been in so desperate a strait. I know that in this rising gale the Gullwing could neither be hove to, nor could a boat be launched for me.
The schooner had gone on at the pace of a fast steamship. And the tide was sweeping me astern just as rapidly as the ship was sailing. When I rose breast high on the first breaker I saw the Gullwing’s twinkling lights so far ahead that they seemed like candle flames.
I was alone—and this was one of the loneliest seas upon all this great, round globe!
But when one is thrown into such a situation of peril as I was then, his thoughts are so confused that it is only afterward—if there is an afterward—that he analyzes his mental activities. Just then I had only the clear desire to live.
I turned on my back almost immediately and letting my legs hang well down, floated easily with my nostrils just out of water, and enjoyed two or three minutes of very, very grateful repose. I had been under the surface so long that it was some time before I could breathe clear to the bottom of my lungs again.
The buzzing in my head gradually died away. I began to think collectedly. I did not waste time thinking of rescue. At least, I could expect no help from my comrades on the Gullwing.
When I took my headlong plunge from the rigging I was clad in the heavy garb that most deep-water seamen wear. I had on two thick shirts, a heavy pea-jacket closely buttoned, and, worse than all, boots to my hips. Sooner or later all this weight of clothing would drag me down.
I had paddled half a day at a time in Bolderhead Bay; and even the fresh water ponds about Darringford House, with their hidden springs and under-tows, had never frightened me. I was the first boy to go in swimming in the spring and it had to be a pretty cold day in the fall that drove me out of the water after the first plunge.
Of course, this sea off the boisterous islet of Cape Horn, was no warm bath. The chill of it struck through to the marrow of my bones; yet I believed I was good for several hours yet, if I could get rid of those clothes.
Undressing under water was a trick I had tried more than once; but it was those long-legged boots that scared me. They already made my lower limbs feel as heavy as lead.
Paddling with one hand I tore open my jacket with the other, ripping the buttons off or through the buttonholes as they pleased, and finally got one shoulder and arm clear. As I was fumbling to get the other arm out of the sleeve I felt the handle of my knife.
The coat stuck to my left shoulder; but a few slashes cleared me of the garment. It went floating away on the tide.
I had bobbed up and down in this operation; but was none the worse for the plunges under the surface, being careful to breathe no water into my lungs.
With the knife I slit both my shirts and tore them off. But the boots were the problem that shook me. I had to rest a bit before I tackled them.
I doubled up in a sitting posture and made a slash at one bootleg. Down I went—down, down, until it was a fight to get up again—especially with my fist closed upon my knife handle. It was pretty hard work; every slash meant a plunge under. It was slow.
I would draw up my left foot, for example, paddle vigorously with my left hand, take a long breath, make a slash with the knife in my right hand—and start for the bottom of the sea!
But I got those boots off at last, though not without suffering several cuts and slashes upon my legs, which the salt seawater stung tremendously. I had already gotten rid of my belt, and my trousers came off easier. I was sorry to lose some things in my pockets; but was glad to think that my father’s chronometer was hanging above my berth in the Gullwing’s fo’castle and that what money I had was in the keeping of Captain Bowditch.
And yet, it seemed utterly foolish to think of escape from this predicament. I had heard stories of wonderful rescues from drowning in mid ocean; but why should I expect a miracle? Here I was, struggling miles behind the Gullwing, as naked as the day I was born.
Not many minutes had been spent in these maneuvers, for all the time occupied in their telling. For the Gullwing to have launched a boat to hunt for me would have been ridiculous. By day there might have been some chance of their finding me before I sank for good; but in the night—and a night as black as this—such an attempt would endanger a boat’s crew for nothing.
If they had flung me life-buoys, they would have to come to me, for I could not see them. Gazing up into the sky I saw that scurrying clouds gave signs of a break in the weather. Here and there a little lightening of the gloom overhead showed the moon’s rays trying to break through the mists.
Breast high again upon a rising wave, I took one swift, whirling look all about. Dense blackness everywhere on the face of the ocean; but just as I sank back again the moon, breaking through a rift, lighted up a silvery path before me and at the end of that path—for an instant—I believed I saw the glistening sails of the Gullwing!
It may have been a mirage—a vision. The blackness shut down upon me, and upon the sea again; but I fell back into the trough experiencing a more sickening sense of desolation than I had yet felt. It seemed to me as though I had looked upon the last sign of human life that I would ever see.
I suppose a more hopeless situation than mine could scarcely be imagined. Yet I have philosophized upon it much more since than I did at the time. I would not let my mind picture the natural end of this adventure. My mind rebounded from the horrible thought that I was lost. I would not contemplate it.
In the middle of this broad, tempestuous sea—naked—alone. No hope of rescue by my companions on the Gullwing, with not a splinter to cling to, keeping from death only by constant effort. Yet there was something inside me that would not give up hope—that would not let my muscles relax—that clung with a desperation that clamped me to life!
But at first it was little exertion for me to keep afloat. I was in first rate physical condition and I was not afraid of sinking right away. I knew how to handle myself.
I lay on my back with my head deep, my mouth closed, only my nostrils above, conserved the strength of my legs by letting them hang deep, kept my arms outstretched, pretty well down in the water, palms down, and paddled gently, sometimes with both legs and arms, and again only with my hands.
The waves rolled me over occasionally and used me roughly; but I did not lose my head and never sank to any depth, having always plenty of air in my lungs. When I felt that my arms might become wearied I folded them under my head and kicked easily.
I am not sure that the sea subsided; but I believe it must have done so. It was a providence for me, then. I know that not many of the waves broke over me, and I seemed sliding up and down vast swells which heaved up out of Nowhere, gray and green and foam-streaked, and then disappeared and left me floating in the deep trough.
If anyone was ever literally rocked in the cradle of the deep, I was that person—from the crest of the wave, down, down, in a gradually diminishing rush, and then up and up to the crest of the next roller—and so on, over and over again.
Once I let my mind slip and began to calculate the chances for and against my escape. The conviction that it was impossible rushed over me and I turned over quickly and struck out with a savage, hand-over-hand stroke through the waves, with the momentary insane feeling that I must get somewhere!
The dogged idea of living as long as I could, however, came to me again with fatigue, and I rolled over and rested, cradled in the waves.
My hand touched my knife, which still hung by its lanyard from my neck. An awful thought touched my mind, at the same moment. They say it is an easy death, this drowning; but I can imagine nothing more awful than to drift for hours upon the surface of the sea with the knowledge in one’s mind that, after all, there is but one end possible. I opened my knife and held it tightly gripped in my hand a moment. Then I pulled the lanyard over my head and let the knife and all drop into the depths—and the curse went from me.