The patient captain, drooped over the water-jar, was
sometimes obliged to speak to the oarsman.
“Keep her head up! Keep her head up!”
“‘Keep her head up,’ sir.”
The voices were weary and low.
This was surely a quiet evening. All save the
oarsman lay heavily and listlessly in the boat’s
bottom. As for him, his eyes were just capable
of noting the tall black waves that swept forward in
a most sinister silence, save for an occasional subdued
growl of a crest.
The cook’s head was on a thwart, and he looked
without interest at the water under his nose.
He was deep in other scenes. Finally he spoke.
“Billie,” he murmured, dreamfully, “what
kind of pie do you like best?”
“Pie,” said the oiler and the correspondent,
agitatedly. “Don’t talk about those
things, blast you!”
“Well,” said the cook, “I was just
thinking about ham sandwiches, and—”
A night on the sea in an open boat is a long night.
As darkness settled finally, the shine of the light,
lifting from the sea in the south, changed to full
gold. On the northern horizon a new light appeared,
a small bluish gleam on the edge of the waters.
These two lights were the furniture of the world.
Otherwise there was nothing but waves.
Two men huddled in the stern, and distances were so
magnificent in the dingey that the rower was enabled
to keep his feet partly warmed by thrusting them under
his companions. Their legs indeed extended far
under the rowing-seat until they touched the feet of
the captain forward. Sometimes, despite the efforts
of the tired oarsman, a wave came piling into the
boat, an icy wave of the night, and the chilling water
soaked them anew. They would twist their bodies
for a moment and groan, and sleep the dead sleep once
more, while the water in the boat gurgled about them
as the craft rocked.
The plan of the oiler and the correspondent was for
one to row until he lost the ability, and then arouse
the other from his sea-water couch in the bottom of
the boat.
The oiler plied the oars until his head drooped forward,
and the overpowering sleep blinded him. And he
rowed yet afterward. Then he touched a man in
the bottom of the boat, and called his name. “Will
you spell me for a little while?” he said, meekly.
“Sure, Billie,” said the correspondent,
awakening and dragging himself to a sitting position.
They exchanged places carefully, and the oiler, cuddling
down in the sea-water at the cook’s side, seemed
to go to sleep instantly.
The particular violence of the sea had ceased.
The waves came without snarling. The obligation
of the man at the oars was to keep the boat headed
so that the tilt of the rollers would not capsize her,
and to preserve her from filling when the crests rushed
past. The black waves were silent and hard to
be seen in the darkness. Often one was almost
upon the boat before the oarsman was aware.
