Stories by English Authors: the Sea | Page 6

very warily in order to see; and it was not until I had
kept opening and shutting them and shading them with my hands for
some minutes that they acquired their old power. The island on which I
stood had unquestionably been hove up in the night by the earthquake.
I cannot figure it better than by asking you to imagine a gigantic mass
of pumice-stone, somewhat flat on top, and shelving on all sides very
gently to the water, lying afloat but steady on the sea. It was of the hue
of pumice, and as clean as an egg-shell, without a grain of calcined dust
or any appearance of scoriae that I could anywhere observe. It was
riddled with holes, some wide and deep--a very honeycomb; and that I
did not break my neck or a limb in staggering walk from the beach in
the darkness, I must ever account the most miraculous part of my
adventure.
But what (when I had my whole wits) riveted my attention, and held

me staring open-mouthed, as though in good truth the apparition of the
devil had risen before me, was the body of a ship leaning on its bilge, at
not more than a gunshot from where I stood, looking toward the
interior. When my eyes first went to the thing I could not believe them.
I imagined it some trick of the volcanic explosion that had fashioned a
portion of the land or rock (as it may be called) into the likeness of a
ship, but, on gazing steadfastly, I saw that it was indeed a vessel,
rendered extraordinarily beautiful and wonderful by being densely
covered with shells of a hundred different kinds, by which her bulk was
enlarged, though her shape was preserved. Bright fountains of water
were gushing from fifty places in her, all these waterfalls shone like
rainbows, and showed surprisingly soft and lovely against the velvet
green of the moss and the gray and kaleidoscopic tints of the shells
upon her. Lost in amazement, I made my way toward her, and stood
viewing her at a short distance. She had three lower masts
standing--one right in the bows, and the mizzen raking very much aft.
All three masts were supported by shrouds, and that was all the rigging
the sea had left. She looked to be made of shells and moss; her shrouds
and masts were incrusted as thickly as her hull. She was a mere tub of a
ship in shape, being scarce twice as long as she was broad, with great
fat buttocks, a very tall stern narrowing atop, and low bows with a
prodigious curve to the stem-head. I am not well versed in the shipping
of olden times, but I would have willingly staked all I was worth in the
world that the fabric before me belonged to a period not much later
than the days of Columbus, and that she had been sunk at least three
centuries below the sea; and it was also perfectly clear to me that she
had risen in the daylight, out of her green and oozy sepulchre, with the
upheaval of the bed on which she lay to the convulsion that had
produced this island.
But my situation was not one to suffer me to stand long idly wondering
and staring. The moment I brought my eyes away from the ship to the
mighty desolation of the blue and gleaming ocean, a horror broke upon
me, my heart turned into lead, and in the anguish of my spirits I
involuntarily lifted my clinched hands to God. What was to become of
me? I had no boat, no means of making anything to bear me, nothing
but the life-buoy, that was no better than a trap for sharks to tear me to
pieces in. I was thirsty, but there was no fresh water on this steaming

speck of rock, and I tell you, the knowing that there was none, and that
unless rain fell I must die of thirst, had like to have driven me mad.
Where the ship was, and beyond it, the island rose somewhat in the
form of a gentle undulation. I walked that way, and there obtained a
view of the whole island, which was very nearly circular, like the head
of a hill, somewhat after the shape of a saucepan lid. It resembled a
great mass of sponge to the sight, and there was no break upon its
surface save the incrusted ship, which did, indeed, form a very
conspicuous object. Happening to look downward, I spied a large dead
fish, of the size of a cod of sixteen or eighteen pounds, lying a-dry in a
hole. I put my arm down and dragged it out, and, hoping by appeasing
my hunger to help