Chapter IV: What a World of Life Was Everywhere Around Them

For a whole month the weather continued calm, and what under other circumstances might have been called delightful. Yet to these unfortunate mariners, cast away in a sea so lonesome and still, there were indeed but few delights.

For their first month I don’t think that any one did much else save read. Antonio had a handsome little library, and although there were in it many books of science, especially those relating to astronomy and electricity, still there were scores of what might have been called books of amusement, novels, plays, and the works of the greater poets.

I but mention the effects their imprisonment had on all hands as a strange psychological fact.

During this time the monotony of their existence was most keenly felt. The stillness of the air, the currentless quiet of the slowly heaving sea, the snake-like movements of the rising and falling brown weeds--all tended to cast a gloom over the mind that amounted almost to a low or nervous fever.

But in six weeks’ time there seemed to be a change for the better. Even Paddy himself recovered a deal of his old rollicking spirits, and when, down below one night, he volunteered a song to an accompaniment played by Miss Leona, Antonio felt that he was over the worst. It was one of Erin’s sweetest, mayhap saddest, songs, which has about it, nevertheless, a deal of sunshine and true beauty.

“There’s not in the wide world a valley so sweet,
As the dear little vale where the waters do meet;
Ah! the last rays of sunshine and life shall depart,
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.”

“Heigh-ho!” he sighed, after he had finished the last verse, “I’m sure it’s meself would give five years av my life just to have one word wid my Kathleen, and to assure her that I wasn’t dead at all, at all, but only just cast away in a sea av brown vegetables. Bother it all, what am I saying? But never mind, boys, it’s out and clear we’ll get one av them days, and then hurrah! for home and the ould counthrie!”

Even Teenie herself had been less bright during these first dull weeks. She had been quiet, and preferred to play with pussy and the monkeys to speaking even to Barclay.

The least unhappy person in the ship was Sister Leona, as she had come to be called; and I think it was her pure and true religion that kept her up. Indeed, her faith in the wisdom and goodness of the Father was like that of a little child in the parents who love and watch over it.

Sunday on board was now a day of complete rest, and Sister Leona invariably conducted service in the saloon or on the upper deck.

One night moon and sky became obscured, and thick darkness brooded over the brown and lonesome sea. It was stiller and quieter than usual, but the stillness was broken at last by a peal of thunder, following a quick crimson stream of fire, that rushed quivering from aloft like a blood-red river flowing from cloudland into the sea. After this the ocean was constantly lit up all around, till it appeared all one heaving mass of billowy flame, while the crash of the thunder shook the ship from stem to stern.

The monkeys had rushed aft as soon as the storm began, and sought shelter in Teenie’s and Barclay’s arms. It was piteous to witness their trembling and abject fear.

No one thought of turning in until the fury of the storm had spent itself.

But next morning broke bright and clear, and seemed to instil strength, joy, and happiness into every heart.

Davie and Barclay were early astir and walking briskly up and down the deck, talking and laughing, long before the breakfast hour. And when Teenie came pattering gleefully along the deck, followed by the cat and two monkeys, the fun grew fast and furious, and all three young folks went down to breakfast as soon as Pandoo rang his bell, with appetites that an ostrich needn’t have been ashamed of.

Whether it was that the terrible thunderstorm had cleared the air, or that these poor prisoners had become acclimatised in their strange surroundings, I know not, and I do but state facts. But I have known more than one sailor who has been cast away in these dreary latitudes, and they have told me that there is a kind of fever which attacks every one at first, its most notable symptoms being lethargy, drowsiness, and great depression of spirits, but that being once acclimatised, it never comes again.

For the next few weeks there certainly was activity enough prevailing on board the good ship _Zingara_, all but a wreck though she was--activity displayed not only among the officers, but by all hands, even by the blacks.

Oh, there is nothing like busy-ness for keeping trouble at bay, and sorrow too. Indeed, as soon as a man, young or old, settles down to serious work, sorrow and worry take the huff and leap straight overboard and drown themselves; for Care can’t bear to see any one industrious and happy.

Archie started the men now to tidy the ship, and they went at it with a will.

“She ain’t much to look at now,” said a bluejacket, “athout the main and mizen, but we’ll make her as trig as a new piano. Heave round, lads,” he shouted, “and trim decks.”

“Good!” said Archie; “I think I can leave the men in your hands. I’m going to teach the boys a bit.”

“You come up in two hours, sir,” said Jack Hodder, “and see wot you sees like.”

Archie was a splendid sailor and excellent scholar, and for two hours every forenoon he coached Davie Drake and Barclay Stuart.

The former was almost a man now, quite a man in his own estimation--eighteen, you know, and this made Barclay sixteen.

Well, I like such lads as these. I would not give a fig for a boy who had no pride of self, and no assurance in him. It is boys with nerve and vim that are going to make the world hum one of these days. Your dull, “dour,” bashful “loons” have no more brains than a mangold-wurzel, and can never to any extent benefit themselves nor those around them.

When Archie did come on deck again he found all things sweet and nice, decks scoured and white, ropes coiled, brass and wood work polished, and the men dressed in their white ducks.

He called Jack Hodder and thanked him; then he cast his eyes aloft, and who should he see in the foretop but Teenie herself, with pussy and the monkeys. How the cat had got up was a mystery, but Muffie was no ordinary puss.

“Oh, come up, come up,” she cried excitedly. “Come up, Captain Archie. Some awful, awful beast in the water. Oh, I is feared it will swallow up the ship.”

Archie hurried up the ratlines, and the sight he saw was really a strange one.

Right ahead of the ship, about a quarter of a mile, was a lake of blue water, in the centre of this brown Sargasso Sea.

About the middle of this piece of open water lay a huge whale half on her side. Archie had been to the Arctic Ocean more than once, and he knew at a glance that this was the “right whale,” as Arctic sailors call it.

He sent Teenie down for Antonio.

In a few minutes the little man was standing glass in hand beside his mate.

“A most interesting discovery,” he said, “because it is said that the ‘right whale’ never visits the Sea of Sargasso. Pah! we can give fireside philosophers the lie.”

“Just watch the dear affectionate lump of a mother, and the gambols of the great ungainly calf,” he continued.

“Sent down here by the husband, I could wager my smoking-cap on that. I think I hear the very conversation that took place away up among the Greenland icebergs before she came away.

“‘Now look here, my dear,’ the fond but colossal husband said, nibbling at his wife’s starboard flipper, ‘you’ve been looking rather pale about the snout for a week or two, and Bully (the calf) isn’t so frisky as I’d like to see him, so you run right away south to the Sargasso Sea, where you’ll find warm water, sunshine, perfect quiet, and any amount of little fishes to eat among the weeds.’

“‘But,’ she replied, ‘how about my little hubbie? What will he do all alone?’

“‘Oh, I’ll be all right. Big enough, you know, to take my own part.’

“‘But who is to guide me?’

“‘Oh, something will--a great Something, that even whales don’t understand.’

“So away went the lady whale, the husband waving his tail to her as long as he could see her. And yonder she is.”

“There is money there too,” said Archie reflectively. “If we could----”

“Stop just right there, mate mine. Not for all the gold in Ophir would I destroy the harmony of Nature by harpooning that innocent brute.”

The calf was ploughing round and round his huge and well-pleased mother--round and round, making the water fly in great green seas over her every time he struck it with his tail. But she lay more on her side at last, and those in the foretop could distinctly hear a long, low, cooing sound. Next moment the calf was as busy sucking as any baby ever was. Rough it was though, and the bumps it gave the dam every now and then made her shake and shiver like a ship in a sea-way.

But another strange thing the captain and mate noticed was this: All around the whale and calf flew gulls in hundreds. At so great a distance it was almost impossible to note what they were. Skuas, however, black-headed and white-headed gulls, the pilot-bird, the Greenland “malley,” and the beautiful ivory gull of Arctic regions were there. Their united voices filled the air with melody, and broke the stillness of this dark and silent sea.

Frequently they alighted on the whale, and seemed to be pecking at her, a liberty that the leviathan did not resent in the least.

In about half-an-hour’s time, however, the monster got her back uppermost. She lifted one great flipper, the calf seemed to cuddle under it, the huge tail was set in motion, making the sea all round like a boiling caldron, then she took a header under the water. The sound was like the springing of a submarine mine or the bursting of a torpedo, and raised waves that, rolling away in circles on every side, caused even the _Zingara_ for a time to rise and fall on the water and weeds.

* * * * *

For six months that whale and her calf were almost daily visitors to the strange open space in the water, and came to be looked upon at last as friends. It used to delight Teenie’s heart to witness the somewhat awkward gambols of the calf, who was growing apace, and her only sorrow was that she could not go and play with and even kiss it.

The _Zingara_ at the end of eight months appeared to be as far from all chances of getting free as ever.

But by this time Antonio was prepared with his diving apparatus, and determined not only to study the surface of the sea and its marvels, but to visit the dark depths thereof and study wonders there.

The ship had drifted nearer to the lake of open water, which was several square miles in extent.

Here the mate found soundings on what appeared to be a sandbank at fifteen fathoms or less. It was determined therefore to let go the anchor, for it was evident that they were getting farther and farther into the sea of weeds, which no doubt stretched for many hundred miles towards the north and the west, so the anchor was dropped.

But what a world of life was everywhere around them!

It may be that some time or other an enterprising naturalist and sailor will find means of exploring this vast sea-solitude and writing a book on its flora and fauna; but the undertaking will be as hazardous and daring as an attempt to find the Pole itself.

Antonio was brave, probably to a fault, but even he dared not risk the lowering of a boat with the view of exploring much farther from the ship than could be seen.

Says a writer in _Chambers’s Journal_, “It is only natural that ships should carefully avoid the marine rubbish heap where the Atlantic shoots its refuse. It seems doubtful whether a sailing vessel would be able to cut her way into the thick network of weed even with a strong wind behind her. Besides, if the effort were rewarded with a first delusive success, there would be the almost certain danger that in the calm regions of the Sargasso Sea the wind would suddenly fail her, leaving her locked hopelessly amid the weeds and wreckage, without hope of succour or escape.

“As regards a steamer, no prudent skipper is ever likely to make the attempt, for it would certainly not be long before the tangling weed would altogether choke up his screw and render it useless.

“The most energetic explorer of land or sea would find himself baffled as regards the Sargasso Sea. It is neither solid enough to walk upon, nor liquid enough to afford a passage to a boat.

“Of course it is quite conceivable that a very determined party of pioneers might cut a passage for a small boat even to the centre. The work would take an immense time, however, and the channel would certainly close up behind them as they proceeded.”

All these facts had been well studied and considered by Antonio.

No more daring mariner than he ever sailed the seas.

Now let the truth be told: so far into the Sargasso Sea had the ship drifted before the anchor had been lowered, that the weird little captain had not the slightest hopes of ever getting free again. Nothing less than a miracle, it seemed, could aid them, and the only miracles nowadays are the miracles of science.

There was nothing to look forward to but imprisonment here for life. The provisions would not last for ever; they would be compelled to live on the fish they might catch among the weeds, or the little brown crabs that clung to their stems.

But this life could not last long, for fuel would fail them. Already they were dependent for water on the condensed steam from the pumping engine. When the coal was finished, water itself would no longer be attainable. The look-out was sad and terrible in the extreme. One by one, the more weakly first, they would drop off and die, till hardly hands enough would be left to bury the dead. And who would be the last man?

Alone on this sad brown sea, he must inevitably become a raving maniac, and perhaps forestall fate by throwing himself into the ocean of weeds.

You must give Antonio credit therefore for bravery and wisdom, when I tell you that he not only determined to keep all those sad forebodings to himself, but determined also to make an attempt to navigate, by means of a specially constructed boat, as much as possible of the great Sargasso Sea itself.

So well had he studied everything during his life in the romantic old windmill, that there was hardly a useful appliance of a scientific character that was not to be found on board the good ship _Zingara_.

But at night, while lying awake on his couch in the awful and deathlike stillness of this wondrous sea, poor Antonio used, at times, to lose heart.

Not that he could blame himself for seeking to amass wealth. But now, imprisoned here, although riches crowded his drawers and safe, what good could it ever be to him?

Then visions would rise up before him of his brother lying in a dark and slimy dungeon that reeked with filth and fœtor, his bed a mat on the floor amidst insects, and even reptiles, that but to think of makes one shudder, fed like a wild beast from the end of a pole, perhaps already white-headed and insane. Oh, it was awful, maddening! Then dreams of the past would take the place of these more terrible thoughts.

They were children once again, his brother and he. Living in a beautiful cottage far away among the green woods and broomy braes of Cornwall, whither their mother had emigrated from Spain--been banished, in fact--after the death, by shooting, of their father, who had taken part in an insurrection, and been chief leader.

His brother José--who was now lying in the priests’ dungeon-keep--was three years his junior, but tall, manly, and strong for his ten years, while Antonio himself was but a weakling, a pale-faced, not over-well-shapen little invalid, whom José loved and looked after as if he had been a baby, lifted in and out from his chair, or left on the daisied sward while he, José, wandered away for a time, to return laden with wild flowers.

Oh, thrice happy days, never, never again to return.

And worst of all, that fond mother--now aged and infirm--still lived, and hoped that ere cold death should close her eyes, she would once more see her boys twain.

But this might never be.

Was it any wonder, then, that even Antonio sometimes during the stillness of night broke down, and watered his pillow with tears?

Then he would sleep--and dream.

But next day--his whole heart and soul bound up in the work of making everybody around him happy and hopeful--Antonio seemed to have never a care in the world. And high above the whirr or noise of his workshop, at all hours of the day his strangely musical voice might be heard raised in song.

Teenie would take a little mandoline he had purchased for her at the Cape, and on which she could already play, and go and sit beside him for hours, accompanying him as he sang.

Idyllic this, surely.

True, but the cheery voice and the pleasant smile may hide many a deep-seated grief, as the sunshine glimmer on the waves hides the dark rocks in the black depths of the unfathomable ocean.