only an hour before i had been longing for any sort of a live man to talk with and so break my loneliness; but having thus found a live man—who, to be sure, was close to being a dead one—i would have been almost ready to get rid of him by going back to my mast in the open sea. indeed, as i stood there in the shadows beside that dying brute, and with the other brute lying dead on the deck above me, the feeling of dull horror that filled me is more than i can put into words.
i think that the underlying strong strain of my wretchedness was an intense pity for myself. in what the fellow had told me i saw clearly outlined a good deal of what must be my own fate in that vile solitude: which i perceived suddenly must be strewn everywhere with dead men lying unhidden, corrupting openly; since none there were to hide the dead from sight as we hide them in the living world. and i realized that until i myself should be a part of that indecent exhibition of human carcasses—which might not be for a long while, for i was a strong man and not likely to die soon—i should have to dwell in the midst of all that corruption; and always with the knowledge that sooner or later i must take my place in it, and lie with all those unhidden others wasting away slowly in the open light of day. i got so sick as these horrid thoughts pressed upon me that i turned to the table and poured out for myself a stiff drink of gin-and-water—being careful first to rinse the glass well—and i was glad that i thought of it, for it did me good.
my movement about the cabin roused up the dying fellow and he hailed me to give him some more gin. his voice was so thick that i knew that the drink already had fuddled him; and after he had swiped off what i gave him he began to talk again. but the liquor had taken such hold upon him that he called me "jack," not recognizing me, and evidently fancying that i was his mate—the man whom he had killed.
at first he rambled on about the storm that had wrecked them; and then about their chance of falling in with a passing vessel; and then about some woman named hannah who would be worrying about him because he did not come home. as well as i could make out he went over in this fashion most of what had happened—and it was little enough, in one way—from the time that the two found themselves alone upon the hulk until they began to get among the weed, and realized pretty well what that meant for them.
"it ain't no use now, jack," he rambled on. "it ain't no use now thinkin' about gettin' home, an' hannah may as well stop lookin' fur me. this is th' dead man's sea we're gettin' into; an' i knows it well, an' you knows it well, both on us havin' heerd it talked about by sailor-men ever sence we come afloat as boys. down in th' middle of it is all th' old dead wrecks that ever was sence ships begun sailin'; and all th' old dead sailor-men is there too. it's a orful place, jack, that me an' you's goin' to—more damn orful, i reckon, than we can hev any idee. gin's all thet's lef' to us, and it's good luck we hev such swashins of it aboard. here's at you, jack an' gimme some more out o' the kag, you damn starin' owl."
there was an angry tone in his voice as he spoke these last words; and the tone was sharper a moment later when he went on: "can't you keep your owl eyes shet, you beast? don't look at me like that, or i'll stick a knife into you. no, i'm not starin' at you; it's you who's starin' at me, damn you. stop it! stop it, i say, you—" and he broke out with a volley of foul names and curses; and partly raised himself, as though he thought that a fight was coming on. and then the pain which this movement caused him made him fall back again with a groan.
without his asking for it i gave him another drink, which quieted him a little; and then put fresh strength into him, so that he burst out again with his curses and abuse. "cut the heart out of me, will you—you scum of rottenness? i'd have you to know that cuttin' hearts out is a game two can play at. take that, damn you! an' that! an' that! them's fur your starin'—you damn fat-faced blinkin' owl. and i mean now t' keep on till i stop you. no more of your owl-starin' fur me! take it agen, you stinkin' starin' owl. so! an' so! an' so!"
he fairly raised himself up in the berth as he rushed out his words, and at the same time thrust savagely with his right hand as though he had a knife in it. for a minute or more he kept his position, cursing with a strong voice and thrusting all the time. suddenly he gave a yell of pain and fell on his back again, crying brokenly: "hell! it's you who've finished me!" and then he gave two or three short sharp gasps, and after that there was a little gurgling in his throat, and then he was still—lying there as dead as any man could be.
this quick ending of him came so suddenly that it staggered me; but i must say that my first feeling, when i fairly realized what had happened, was thankfulness that his life was gone—for i had had enough of him to know that having much more of him would drive me mad.
in the telling of it, of course, most of what made all this horrible slips away from me, and it don't seem much to strain a man, after all. but it really was pretty bad: what with the shadowy light in the state-room, for even with the port uncovered it still was dusky; and the horrid smell there; and the vividness with which the fellow somehow managed to make me feel those days and weeks of his half-crazy half-drunken life, while he and the other man stared at each other until neither of them could bear it any longer—and so took to fighting from sheer heart-breaking horror of loneliness and killed each other out of hand. and back of all that i had the feeling that i was caught in the same fate that had shut in upon them; and was even worse off than they had been, since i had no one to fight my life away with but must take it myself when i found my solitude in that rotten desolation more than i could stand.
even the gin-and-water, though i took another big drink of it, could not hearten me; but it did give me the courage to rid myself of the two dead brutes by casting them overboard; and, indeed, getting rid of them was a necessity, for their presence seemed to me so befouling that i found it hard to breathe.
with the man on deck—except that touching him was hateful to me—i did not have much trouble. i just made fast to him a couple of heavy iron bars that i found down in the engine-room—pokers, they seemed to be, for serving the boiler fires—and then dragged him along the deck to a place where the bulwarks were gone and there shot him overboard. and luckily the weed was thinnish there, and he went down like a stone into it and through it and so disappeared.
but with the man in the cabin i had a harder job. in his horridly cut condition i could not bring myself to touch him, and the best that i could do was to make a sort of bundle of him and the mattress and the bedclothes all together—with a bit of light line whipped around and around the whole mass until it was snug and firm. when it was finished i worked it out of the state-room, and rolled it fairly easily along the floor of the cabin to the companion-way—and there it stuck fast. budge it i could not; for it was too long to roll up the stair, and too heavy for me to haul it up after me or to push it up before me, though i tried both ways and tried hard. but in the end i managed to get it up by means of a purchase that i rigged from a ring-bolt in the deck just outside the companion-way door; and once having it on deck i could manage it again easily, for there i could roll it along.
yet i did not at once cast it overboard; for i had no more iron bars with which to weight it, and i knew that such a bunch of stuff would not sink through the weed—and that i should have it still loathsomely with me, lying only partly hidden in the weed right alongside. in the end i got up a big iron cinder-bucket that i filled with coal—making sure that the coal would stay in it by lashing a piece of canvas over the top—and this i made fast to the bundle by a rope three or four fathoms long. then i cast the bucket overboard through the break in the bulwarks, and as it shot downward i rolled the bundle after it—and i had the comfort of seeing the whole go down through the weed and away from my sight forever into the hidden water below.
and then i sat down on the deck and rested; for what little cheering and strength i had got from the gin-and-water had left me and i was utterly miserable and tired as a dog. but i was well quit of both my dead men, and that was a good job well done.
