Chapter 41 - Ran Away to Sea by Mayne Reid
I shall spare the reader many details of this voyage of of the Pandora. There were but few incidents outside the vessel itself to break the monotony—not even one sail was seen for two weeks after leaving the Gulf of Guinea. But there were incidents enough on board, many horrid ones, of which I shall spare the reader the details.
One I must relate in all its particulars. It will be found to contain horrors enough for a thousand, which I would spare the reader if possible; but by doing so my narrative must come to a sudden termination, since in this incident lies the continuation of my story.
Incident is hardly the name for what I am about to relate. It was more than a mere occurrence; it was a dread and awful calamity; and in a retrospect of the events of my life, this is the one which rises upon my memory the saddest and darkest; indeed, at the time of its occurrence it made upon my mind an impression so appalling, that it was a long while before I could think of anything else. Even now, long years after the terrible drama, I was witness of, and partly an actor in, is often passed in review before the eye of memory; and its horrid scenes appear to me with all the painful vividness of reality.
Listen, then! and I shall make known the nature of this dread occurrence.
As already stated, we had been about two weeks out to sea, with a favouring wind nearly all the time, and had arrived in mid-Atlantic—that is, about half-way between Cape Palmas in Africa and the most easterly point of South America—of course, therefore, we were many hundreds of miles from either shore.
The breeze continued fair, for we were sailing under the southern trade-wind, and everything seemed to promise a quick passage to the coast of Brazil. I was myself gratified at our progress, for I looked upon every day as a week of misery, and every hour a day, not only to myself but to the poor creatures who lived only in torments, and by these torments daily died. Not daily, but hourly, I might almost say, were they dying; and the plunge of their bodies, as they were unceremoniously tumbled over the side, had become of as frequent occurrence as the ringing of the watch bells. Over the side were they pitched in all their ghastly nakedness—just as a dead dog would have been thrown—with not even a shot or a stone tied to them to sink their corpses below the surface of the water. On the contrary, many of their bodies, swollen in an unnatural manner after death, remained upon the surface of the sea, and could be seen in our wake bobbing up and down upon the waves that had been made by the keel of the vessel in her passage through the water! Never for a very long period was this awful spectacle before our eyes. Though oft repeated it was usually a short scene, and ended in an abrupt strife among the monsters of the deep, amid the foam and spray flung aloft by the violent strokes of their tails, until a cloud seemed to rest over the spot, concealing the hideous struggle underneath. Then as this cloud slowly settled away, it could be seen that a human form was no longer there, but in its place might be observed some mangled remains, with the sail-like fin of the shark projected above the surface or gliding rapidly through the water.
This, at first, had been a painful spectacle to me, whilst, incredible to relate, it afforded only amusement to the crew of the Pandora. But in a short while, it had been so oft repeated that it ceased to interest them even as a momentary diversion; and I—my heart growing, not hardened, I hope, but only practised to bear the pain—was less every day touched with the hideous spectacle.
I had infinite opportunities of observing the habits of those sea-monsters, the sharks. Many of them, I have no doubt, had followed us all the way from the African coast, for there were several with whose aspect I had grown familiar, from having noticed them day after day. Indeed several of them were marked by the cicatrices of old wounds, which probably they had received in encounters with antagonists of their own species, or in battles with some other voracious monsters of the deep. By these scars was I enabled to distinguish more than one; and I am certain they had followed us all the way, for I had noticed some of the marked individuals as we sailed out of the Gulf. I had observed, too, that there were several kinds of them, though the sailors took little notice of the distinction, calling them all by their well-known characteristic name of “sharks.” Indeed, my own observations of them were not very minute or scientific. I had too much upon my mind, as well as upon my hands, to direct any thoughts beyond the boundaries of the vessel; and it was only at intervals that I gave any attention to the sea or its finny inhabitants. One thing I could not help observing, and that was, that the number of the sharks had daily increased, and kept increasing; and now, at the end of two weeks, they could be seen around the barque in dozens—sometimes gliding across her course, and sometimes running in the same direction, like a shoal of porpoises! At other times they would be seen all around the vessel, looking up at her sides as though they would leap aboard, and glaring greedily with their eyes, like hungry dogs expecting a bone to be thrown them.
To one not accustomed to it, it would have been a fearful sight; but, along with the rest, I had grown so used to these demonstrations that I could look upon them without the slightest feeling of concern.
But to return to the relation of that fearful calamity I have promised to describe.