Stories by English Authors: the Sea | Page 8

perceived that it

had been a man; that is to say, it was a human skeleton, filled up to the
bulk of a living being by the shells and barnacles which covered it.
Ashore, it might have passed for some odd imitation in shells of the
human figure; but, viewing it as I did, in the midst of that great ocean,
amid the frightful solitude of the great dome of heaven, in a ship that
was like the handiwork of the sea-gods at the bottom of the deep--I say,
looking at it as I did, and knowing the thing had had life in centuries
past, and had risen thus wildly garnished out of the unfathomable secret
heart of the ocean, it awed me to an extent I cannot express, and I gazed
as though fascinated. In all probability, this was a man who, when the
ship foundered, had been securely lashed to the mast for safety or for
punishment.
I turned away at last with a shudder, and walked aft. The wreck was
unquestionably some Spanish or Portuguese carrack or galleon as old
as I have stated; for you saw her shape when you stood on her deck,
and her castellated stern rising into a tower from her poop and
poop-royal, as it was called, proved her age as convincingly as if the
date of her launch had been scored upon her.
What was in her hold? Thousands of pounds' worth of precious ore in
gold and silver bars and ingots, for all I knew; but had she been flush to
her upper decks with doubloons and ducats, I have exchanged them all
for the sight of a ship, or for a rill of fresh water. I searched the horizon
with feverish eyes; there was nothing in sight. The afternoon was
advancing; the sun was burning unbearably midway down the western
sky, and my thirst tormented me. I dropped over the side and cut
another steak of fish; but though the moisture temporarily relieved me,
the salt of the water flowing upon it dried into my throat and increased
my sufferings. There was a light air blowing, and the sea trembled to it
into a deeper hue of blue, and met in a glorious stream of twinkling
rubies under the setting sun. I counted half a score of wet black fins
round about the island, and understood that the sharks had recovered
from their scare, and had returned to see if the earthquake had cast up
anything to eat.
When the sun sank, the night came along in a stride; the curl of the
moon looked wanly down upon me, and the sky flashed with starshine,
so rich and magnificent was the glow of the nearer luminaries. I
reentered the ship and stepped to the cabin front, over which extended a

"break" or penthouse, under which I might find some shelter from the
dew that was already falling like rain, and squatted down,
lascar-fashion, with my back against the shell-armoured bulkhead.
Great Father! never had I known what solitude was till then. There was
no sound save the quiet foaming of waters draining from the wreck, and
the purring of the very light swell softly moving upon the beach, and
the faint, scarce audible whispering of the dew-laden draught of air
stirring in the stony, fossilised shrouds. My throat felt like hot brass; I
tried to pray, but could not. Imagination grew a little delirious, and I
would sometimes fancy that the terrible shape at the foot of the
mainmast moved as if seeking to free itself and approach me. There
was a constant glancing of shooting stars on high, swift sparklings and
trailings of luminous dust, and, as on the previous night, here and there
upon the horizon a dim violet play of sheet-lightning. It was like being
at the bottom of the sea, alive there, to be in this black, shelly,
weed-smelling ship. Whether my thoughts came to me waking or
sleeping I cannot tell, but I know some mad fancies possessed me, and
upon the sable canvas of the night, imagination, like a magic lantern,
flung a dozen febriletinctured pictures, and I particularly recollect
conceiving that I was my own soul at the bottom of the ocean in the
ship; that, in the green twilight of the valley in which I was, I saw many
forms of dead men standing or lying or sitting, preserving the postures
in which they had come floating down into the darkly gleaming
profound--figures of sailors of different centuries clad in the garb of
their times, intermixed with old ordnance making coarse and rusty
streaks upon the sand, the glitter of minted money, the gleam of jewels,
and fish brightly apparelled and of shapes unknown to man floating
round about like fragments of rainbow.