In the Sargasso Sea: A NovelJanvier, Thomas A. (Thomas Allibone)
Science
In the Sargasso Sea: A Novel
Janvier, Thomas A. (Thomas Allibone)
Science fiction
That was the end of my visions. Through the night that followed--my
fever having run its course, I suppose--I slept easily; and when
another day came and I woke again my fever was gone. I was pretty weak
and ragged, but the cut in my head was healing and no longer hurt me
much, and my mind was clear. There still was water left in the jug,
and I drank freely and felt the better for it; and toward afternoon I
felt so hungry that I managed to get up and go to the pantry on a
foraging expedition for something to eat.
This time I was careful not to stuff myself. I found a box of light
biscuit and ate a couple of them; and then I filled my water-jug at
the tank and brought it and the biscuit back to my stateroom without
going on the deck at all. My light meal greatly refreshed me; and in
an hour or two I ate another biscuit--and kept on nibbling at them off
and on through the night when I happened to wake up. In between whiles
my sleep was of a sort to do me good; not deep, but restful. With the
coming of another morning I felt so strong that I went to the pantry
again for food of a better sort--venturing to eat a part of a tin of
meat with my biscuit and to add to my water a little wine; and when
this was down I began to feel quite like myself once more, and to long
so strongly for some sunshine and fresh air that I climbed up the
companion-way to the deck.
But when I got there I thought at first that my visions were coming
back again. Indeed, what I saw was so nearly my last vision over again
as to make me half believe, later, that I really did go on deck in my
delirium and really did see that blood-red sunset and all the rest
that had seemed to me a dream. At any rate, there was no doubting this
second time--if it were the second time--the reality of what I beheld;
and because I no longer was fever-struck, and so could take in fully
the wonder of it, my astonishment kept my spirits from being wholly
pulled down.
The haze was so thick as to be almost like a fog hanging about me, but
the hot sunshine pouring down into it gave it a golden brightness and
I could see through it dimly for a good long way; and there was no
need for far-seeing to be sure that I had before me what I think must
be the strangest sight that the world has in it for the eyes of man.
For what I looked at was the host of wrecked ships, the dross of wave
and tempest, which through four centuries--from the time when sailors
first pushed out upon the great western ocean--has been gathering
slowly, and still more slowly wasting, in the central fastnesses of
the Sargasso Sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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