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- 1129
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- CHAPTER IX.
The Watery World Is All Before Them
At sea in an open boat, and a thousand miles from land!
Shortly after the break of day, in the gray transparent light, a speck
to windward broke the even line of the horizon. It was the ship wending
her way north-eastward.
Had I not known the final indifference of sailors to such disasters as
that which the Arcturion’s crew must have imputed to the night past
(did not the skipper suspect the truth) I would have regarded that
little speck with many compunctions of conscience. Nor, as it was, did
I feel in any very serene humor. For the consciousness of being deemed
dead, is next to the presumable unpleasantness of being so in reality.
One feels like his own ghost unlawfully tenanting a defunct carcass.
Even Jarl’s glance seemed so queer, that I begged him to look another
way.
Secure now from all efforts of the captain to recover those whom he
most probably supposed lost; and equally cut off from all hope of
returning to the ship even had we felt so inclined; the resolution that
had thus far nerved me, began to succumb in a measure to the awful
loneliness of the scene. Ere this, I had regarded the ocean as a slave,
the steed that bore me whither I listed, and whose vicious
propensities, mighty though they were, often proved harmless, when
opposed to the genius of man. But now, how changed! In our frail boat,
I would fain have built an altar to Neptune.
What a mere toy we were to the billows, that jeeringly shouldered us
from crest to crest, as from hand to hand lost souls may be tossed
along by the chain of shades which enfilade the route to Tartarus.
But drown or swim, here’s overboard with care! Cheer up, Jarl! Ha! Ha!
how merrily, yet terribly, we sail! Up, up—slowly up—toiling up the
long, calm wave; then balanced on its summit a while, like a plank on a
rail; and down, we plunge headlong into the seething abyss, till
arrested, we glide upward again. And thus did we go. Now buried in
watery hollows—our sail idly flapping; then lifted aloft—canvas
bellying; and beholding the furthest horizon.
Had not our familiarity with the business of whaling divested our
craft’s wild motions of its first novel horrors, we had been but a
rueful pair. But day-long pulls after whales, the ship left miles
astern; and entire dark nights passed moored to the monsters, killed
too late to be towed to the ship far to leeward:—all this, and much
more, accustoms one to strange things. Death, to be sure, has a mouth
as black as a wolf’s, and to be thrust into his jaws is a serious
thing. But true it most certainly is—and I speak from no hearsay—that
to sailors, as a class, the grisly king seems not half so hideous as he
appears to those who have only regarded him on shore, and at a
deferential distance. Like many ugly mortals, his features grow less
frightful upon acquaintance; and met over often and sociably, the old
adage holds true, about familiarity breeding contempt. Thus too with
soldiers. Of the quaking recruit, three pitched battles make a grim
grenadier; and he who shrank from the muzzle of a cannon, is now ready
to yield his mustache for a sponge.
And truly, since death is the last enemy of all, valiant souls will
taunt him while they may. Yet rather, should the wise regard him as the
inflexible friend, who, even against our own wills, from life’s evils
triumphantly relieves us.
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