And now indeed the shadows gathered and closed in about us. Already our day was but a brief period of mournful twilight. Soon there would be only a chill redness in the northern sky at midday. Then this too would leave us, and the electric glow of the Billowcrest would be our only cheer.
With the coming of the dark, the friendly sea life—the penguins and the seals—vanished. They had visited us numerously during the early days of our arrival in Bottle Bay, and we did not realize what a comfort they had been until they were gone. Neither did we quite understand why they should go, when the water of the bay was still open. Yet we knew that they must be wiser in the matter than we, and we could not help being a bit depressed as we watched them becoming fewer each day, until the last one had regarded us solemnly and with a harsh note of farewell had deserted us for the open waters of the north.
155Instinctively we drew nearer together and our interdependence became daily more evident. What gave trifling pleasure to one was a signal for a general rejoicing, while the slightest individual ailment became a matter of heavy concern to all.
There were so few of us, and the darkening waste about was so wide and desolate. Personal consideration and even tenderness crept into our daily round, and any dim shadows of discontent that may have lingered among us were gathered up by the approaching gloom.
The Captain informed us that on the Saturday before Easter we should see the sun for the last time. Gale said he was glad Easter fell late that year, and that we ought to do something special in the way of farewell ceremonies.
So on Saturday immediately after breakfast we began our programme. We were to have many other such diversions during the long night that followed, and as our first was fairly representative of the others I will give it somewhat in detail. There were a number of musical instruments on board and most of us could play, or at least strum a little. Edith Gale, who was a skilled musician, had composed something for the occasion, and led on the harp. Ferratoni played well on the violin, Gale had some mastery of the flute, and I could follow with chords on the piano. Then we had singing, 156in which all joined, and the great barrier behind us echoed for the first time in all its million years to a grand old English ballad with a rousing chorus.
Now followed a literary series in which we were to give things of our own composition. Edith Gale was first on this programme. She did not need to read her effort. It was very brief.
“Beauty,” she said, “and a love of the truly beautiful, are nature’s best gifts to men and women. We have only to look and to listen, and we learn something of the joy of the Universe and the soothing spirit of peace. Even in this loneliness, and through the long night that lies now at our Gateway of the Sun, we may find, if we will understand it, something beside desolation and unillumined dark. Within, we shall keep the semblance and memories of summertime. Without, will fall a night, mighty and solemn, and terrifying, but always majestic, always beautiful. And in our hearts we shall not grow faint, or despair.”
After the acknowledgments Gale said:
“That’s the sort of thing that Johnnie used to carry to the homes and hearthstones of Tangleside, and it’s wonderful the way they seemed to take to it. What do you think about it, Bill? Do you think a love of the beautiful will be our greatest comfort during a hundred-day night? Let’s hear from you.”
157Mr. Sturritt rose nervously.
“I—I am quite sure,” he began, “that Miss Gale understands her bus—er—subject, I should say, but I would suggest, that, without proper nourishment—that is—food we would find it not easy to appreciate the less filling—er, I mean less material comforts of beauty.”
Here Mr. Sturritt glanced at a little paper in his hand and continued more steadily.
“Without proper food man becomes ill in body and morals. With it, he becomes hopeful, and inspired to high achievements. Different foods result in varied trains of thought. Acting upon this I hope to produce a condensed lozenge or wafer that shall assist each according to his needs. The inventor, the artist and the poet will then be gently stimulated in imagination, command of words or rhythmic forces, as may be required.”
Mr. Sturritt lowered his paper.
“For those lacking in their love of the truly beautiful I may also get up a dose—er, I should say—prepare a lozenge. For our long winter, however, I have laid in a line of—er—uncondensed supplies which I hope will make our memories of summer fonder, and the strangeness of the night less—less discouraging.”
“Good for you, Bill,” laughed Gale as he sat down. “Johnnie’s all right too, but in a case of 158this kind it’s the food question that I’m thinking of. Who’s next? Let’s hear from you, Biffer.”
The Captain rose with some embarrassment, and rather ponderously.
“I’m with Miss Gale, mostly,” he began. “I’ve seen the sea in a storm so beautiful that I wasn’t afraid, but the story I’m going to tell may seem to side some with Mr. Sturritt, too.
“Twenty-five years ago last January I was captain of a three-masted schooner in the colony trade, bound from Liverpool to Halifax. Five days out we struck one of the hardest no’theast storms I ever met. In less than an hour after she hit us we’d lost our mainmast, and our cook’s galley was a wreck. Our deck was open at the seams in forty places and everything, including our provision, was wet with salt water. I ought to have run back but I didn’t, and we hadn’t more’n got out of that storm till another hit us, and then another, until we’d had eleven hurricanes in less than that many days, and were in the worst condition a vessel could get into and keep afloat. We had none too much provision to start with, and most of what we’d had was lost. There was no way to cook what we did have, so it was half a loaf of bread and a pint of water a day, and drifting along under a little dinky sail, with a signal of distress flying. Well, the wind kept up 159and blew us across the ocean, somehow. We got in sight of Halifax light one evening, and right there we struck a nor’wester that laid us out proper. We rolled and pitched and waterlogged, and went back to sea again—God knows where.
“Then hard times did begin. It was four ounces of bread and half a gill of water a day for fifty days, and cold and freezing, trying to keep afloat.”
“And then you were rescued! Then you were taken off!”
It was Edith Gale. She was leaning forward, and her eyes glistening.
“No, Miss Gale, then we ran out of bread and water.”
“Oh, Captain Biffer!”
“For seven days there wa’n’t any of either. Everybody laid down to die except me. I kep’ up on responsibility, and stood at the wheel day and night. I didn’t know where we was, and I didn’t care, but somehow I couldn’t let go of the wheel. Mebbe, if I’d appreciated nature a little more it would have helped, too, and I know a little food would have gone a long ways. But nature didn’t seem to need us, and we didn’t need nature. And all the food and water were gone, though pretty soon I didn’t care for that, either. I didn’t even 160care much when I saw a big steamer coming right toward us. I was glad, of course, but I didn’t care enough to make any hurrah over it, and neither did the men. But after we’d been carried on board, and I’d got through with a plate of soup, down in the Captain’s room, I says; ‘What day is it, Captain?’ ‘Why,’ he says, ‘didn’t you know? It’s Easter Sunday.’ ‘No,’ I says, ‘but the Lord be praised.’”
The glisten in Edith Gale’s eyes had become tears. Captain Biffer and I had had our differences. Perhaps in a general way he still believed me an ass. But I had walked over and taken his hand before I remembered it.
“I want to shake a brave man’s hand,” I said.
“Mr. Larkins,” said Gale, “suppose you give us your experience. What’s the best thing to keep up on through a long dark night?”
“Well, Admiral,” began Mr. Larkins, “I’ve never been shipwrecked, but I remember something about a dark night, and a man as got out into the wet of it. It was tin year ago, and I was comin’ out of Manchester on the bark Mary Collins, bound fer Bombay. She was a shlow old towboat, an’ the sailors were makin’ fun of her from the shtarrt. But there was one felly, named Doolan, who kep’ at it continual, an’ repeatin’ all day that he could shwim to Bombay sooner than we 161could get there on the Mary Collins. ‘An,’ Doolan,’ I says, ‘you may get a chance to thry it, if we hit one o’ thim shqualls that I run into here two year ago.’ An’ it was the next night that we did that same, an’ Doolan was up on the top-s’l yarrd. An’ whin the thwist of the shquall hit Doolan, he wint off wid a whoop an’ a currvin’ ploonge, an’ one of the men below yells out ‘Man overboard!’ an’ heaves a life-buoy into the blackness of it. But by the time we could put her about in that shquall, an’ get back, there was no Doolan. We hadn’t expected there would be. For whin a man dhrifts ashtern in a shquall on a darrk night his name may shtay Doolan, but it’s more than likely to be Dinnis. So afther callin’ an’ showin’ lights a bit, we wint on to Bombay in the direction that Doolan might be shwimmin’, if he had a mind, now, to thry. An’ whin we got to Bombay an’ I wint to the Cushtom House an’ walked in, I see a felly sthandin’ by the rail, an’ a-grinnin’, an’ by the Ghost of me Great Gran’mother if it wasn’t Doolan! ‘Don’t be frightened, sur,’ he says, ‘it’s me.’ ‘An’ Doolan!’ I says, ‘an’ how did you get here? ‘Shwimmin’,’ says Doolan, ‘an’ I told you I could beat the Mary Collins.’
“But it wasn’t shwimmin’ that saved Doolan, ner food, ner reshponsibility, ner even the beauties of nature, though he had a chance durin’ the night he fell over to view thim at close range. It was 162the life-buoy that saved Doolan, an’ kep’ him floatin’ till he was picked up next mornin’ by a shmarter boat that beat the Mary Collins to Bombay by one tide. I’m not sayin’ but that the others air sushtainin’ too, but it was the life-buoy that saved Doolan.”
“There are many kinds of life-buoys, Mr. Larkins,” laughed Edith Gale, “and I confess that Mr. Doolan seems to have found the one best suited to his needs. What is your experience, Mr. Emory?”
The quiet Second Officer was silent for a moment, and his face saddened.
“I was shipwrecked once,” he said. “We lost our vessel and drifted for a long time in a leaky boat. A good many died. I was kept up by the memory of a girl, waiting for me at home. When I got there——”
Mr. Emory paused as if to gather himself. It had grown very still in the saloon.
“She was dead,” he concluded, “so you see my shipwreck and dark night are not over yet.”
Our narrow round had indeed brought us close together. I doubt if Emory had ever spoken of this before to any one. Edith Gale laid her hand on his arm.
“And she is still waiting,” she said, “you must not forget that.”
163“Suppose we hear from you, Chase,” said Gale, after a pause.
Matters had taken rather an unexpected turn. I felt that I could not discuss what would best sustain me through the dark night ahead without putting myself and one other person in a trying position. I made an effort to gain time.
“I think we should hear from the Admiral, now,” I said.
“Oh, well,” said Gale, “I’m not bashful if I have got new clothes on. Here’s a few observations that I’ve jotted down from time to time, not especially for a dark night, but for any old night, or day either, when you happen to think about ’em.” Gale straightened back and pulled down his vest comfortably. “Seventeen Observations,” he began, “by Chauncey Gale. Homes and Firesides a Specialty.”
I. “This is a good world if we just think so. The toothache is about the worst thing in it, and we can have the tooth pulled.
II. “There ain’t so many mistakes in this world as people think. A man’s pretty apt to get where he belongs by the time he’s forty.
III. “It’s easy to get rich if people only know it. Most folks want to make too hard work of it.
IV. “There may be men who could get rich playing poker, but I’ve only happened to meet the ones that had tried it.
164V. “It isn’t hard work to judge human nature if you let the other man do the talking.
VI. “A man’s word m............