Chapter 96 - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea by Mayne Reid
The darkest Hour
Death in all its dark reality once more stared them in the face. They were entirely without food. Of all their stores, collected and cured with so much care and ingenuity, not a morsel remained. Besides what the chest contained there had been some loose flitches of the dried fish lying about upon the raft. These had been carried into the boat, and must have been capsized into the sea. While collecting the other débris, they had looked for them in hopes that some stray pieces might still be picked up; not one had been found. If they floated at all, they must have been grabbed by the sharks themselves, or some other ravenous creatures of the deep.
Had any such waifs come in their way, the castaways just at that crisis might not have cared to eat them with the bitterness they must have derived from their briny immersion; still they knew that in due time they would get over any daintiness of this kind; and, indeed, before many hours had elapsed, all four of them began to feel keenly the cravings of a hunger not likely to refuse the coarsest or most unpalatable food. Since that hurried retreat from their moorings by the carcass of the cachalot they had not eaten anything like a regular meal.
The series of terrible incidents, so rapidly succeeding one another, along with the almost continuous exertions they had been compelled to make, had kept their minds from dwelling upon the condition of their appetites. They had only snatched a morsel of food at intervals, and swallowed a mouthful of water.
Just at the time the last catastrophe occurred they had been intending to treat themselves to a more ceremonious meal, and were only waiting until the sail should be set, and the boat gliding along her course, to enter upon the eating of it.
This pleasant design had been frustrated by the flukes of the whale; which, though destroying many other things, had, unfortunately, not injured their appetites. These were keen enough when they first reoccupied their old places on the Catamaran; but as the day advanced, and they continued to exert themselves in collecting the fragments of the wreck, their hunger kept constantly increasing, until all four experienced that appetite as keenly as they had ever done since the commencement of their prolonged and perilous “cruise.”
In this half-famished condition it was not likely they should have any great relish for work; and as soon as they had secured the various waifs, against the danger of being carried away, they set themselves to consider what chance they had to provide themselves with a fresh stock of food.
Of course their thoughts were directed towards the deep, or rather its finny denizens. There was nothing else above, beneath, or around them that could have been coupled with the idea of food.
Their former success in fishing might have given them confidence,—and would have done so but for an unfortunate change that had taken place in their circumstances.
Their hooks were among the articles now missing. The harpoons which they had handled with such deadly effect upon the carcass of the cachalot had been there left,—sticking up out of the back of the dead leviathan composing that improvised spit erected for roasting the shark-steaks. In short, every article of iron,—even to their own knives, which had been thrown loosely into the boat,—was now at the bottom of the sea.
There was not a moiety of metal left out of which they could manufacture a fish-hook; and if there had been it would not have mattered much, since they could not discover a scrap of meat sufficient to have baited it.
There seemed no chance whatever of fishing or obtaining fish in any fashion; and after turning the subject ever and over in their minds, they at length relinquished it in despair.
At this crisis their thoughts reverted to the cachalot,—not the live, leaping leviathan, whose hostile behaviour had so suddenly blighted their bright prospects; but the dead one, upon whose huge carcass they had so lately stood. There they might still find food,—more shark-meat. If not, there was the whale-beef, or blubber: coarse viands, it is true, but such as may sustain life. Of that there was enough to have replenished the larder of a whole ship’s crew,—of a squadron!
It was just possible they could find their way back to it, for the wind, down which they had been running, was still in the same quarter; and the whole distance they had made during the night might in time be recovered.
At the best, it would have been a difficult undertaking and doubtful of success, even if there had been no other obstacle than the elements standing in their way.
But there was,—one more dreaded than either the opposition of the wind or the danger of straying from their course.
In all likelihood their pursuers had returned to the spot which they had forsaken; and might at that very moment be mooring their craft to the huge pectoral fin that had carried the cable of the Catamaran.
In view of this probability, the idea of returning to the dead whale was scarce entertained, or only to be abandoned on the instant.
Cheerless were the thoughts of the Catamarans as they sat pondering upon that important question,—how they were to find food,—cheerless as the clouds of night that were now rapidly descending over the surface of the sea, and shrouding them in sombre gloom.
Never before had they felt so dispirited, and yet never had they been so near being relieved from their misery. It was the darkest hour of their despondency, and the nearest to their deliverance; as the darkest hour of the night is that which precedes the day.