In the Sargasso Sea: A NovelJanvier, Thomas A. (Thomas Allibone)
Science
In the Sargasso Sea: A Novel
Janvier, Thomas A. (Thomas Allibone)
Science fiction
I did not have to search far nor long to satisfy myself that I had a
bigger stock of food by me than I could eat in a dozen years. Forward
of the galley were the store-rooms: a cold-room, with a plenty of ice
still in it, in which was hanging a great quantity of fresh meat; a
wine-room, very well stocked and containing also some cases of tobacco
and cigars; and in the other rooms was stuff enough to fit up a big
grocery shop on shore--hams and bacon and potted meats, and a great
variety of vegetables in tins, and all sorts of sweets and sauces and
table-delicacies in tins and in glass. Indeed, although I was full to
the chin with the meal that I had just eaten, my mouth fairly watered
at sight of all these good things. In the bakery I found only a loaf
or two of bread, and this--as it was lying on the floor--I suppose
must have been dropped in the scramble while the boats were being
provisioned; but in the baker's store-room were a good many cases of
fine biscuit, and more than twenty barrels of flour. In addition to
all this, I did not doubt that somewhere on board was an equally large
store of provisions for the use of the crew; but with that I did not
bother myself, being satisfied to fare as a cabin-passenger on the
good things which I had found. Finally, two of the big water-tanks
still were full--the others, as I inferred from the cocks being open,
having been emptied for the supply of the boats; and as a
reserve--leaving rain out of the question--I had the ice to fall back
upon, of which there was so great a quantity that it alone would last
me for a long while. In a word, so far as eating and drinking were
concerned, I was as well off as a man could be anywhere--having by me
not only all the necessaries of life but most of its luxuries as well.
Finding all these good things cheered me and put heart in me in much
the same way that I was cheered and heartened by finding my floating
mast after Captain Luke and the mate chucked me overboard. Again I had
the certainty that death for a while could not get a chance at me; and
this second reprieve was of a more promising sort than that which my
mast had given me in the open sea. On board the steamer, or what was
left of her, I was sure of being in positive comfort so long as she
floated; and my good spirits made me so sanguine that I was confident
she would keep on floating until I struck out some plan by which I
could get safe away from her, or until rescue came to me by some lucky
turn of chance. And so, having completed my tour of inspection, and my
general inventory of the property to which by right of survival I had
fallen heir, I went on deck again in a very hopeful mood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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