Читать книгу Idylls of the Sea, and Other Marine Sketches онлайн

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Such a morbific, unwholesome condition of our environment as this utter cessation of the revivifying motion of the aerial ocean, with its beneficent reaction upon the watery world beneath, could not fail sooner or later to affect the health of the crew. Doubtless the heavy toil in which all hands were continually engaged during the day put off the coming disaster longer than would otherwise have been the case. But the ship was ill found, the meat was partially decayed, and the bread honeycombed by various vermin. The water alone was comparatively sweet, although somewhat flavoured with tar, for we had caught it as it fell from the surcharged skies. There was no change of dietary, no fresh provisions, except when, as a great banquet once in two months, an allowance of soup and bouilli was served out, which only suggested a change, hardly supplied it. Men grew listless and uncompanionable. Each aloof from his fellows took to hanging moodily over the bulwarks and staring steadfastly at the unpleasant surface of the once beautiful sea. And the livid impalpabilities that, gigantic and gruesome, pursued their shadowy, stealthy glidings beneath seemed to be daily growing more definite and terrible. The watchers glared at them until their overburdened imagination could support the sight no longer, and they sought relief by hoarse cries from the undefinable terror. One by one the seamen fell sick, apparently with scurvy, that most loathsome ailment, that seems to combine in itself half a dozen other diseases and reproduces old and long-forgotten wounds. It was accompanied, too, by partial blindness, as of moon-stroke, rendering the sufferers utterly unable to see anything at night, even though by day their sight was still fairly good. Already short-handed, this new distress added greatly to the physical sufferings of the patient mariners, who endured with a fortitude seldom seen among merchant seamen the slowly accumulating burden of their sorrows. The questioning look before noted as visible in every man’s eyes now took another meaning. As a recent and a most powerful writer, Joseph Conrad, has noticed, one of the strongest superstitions current among seamen is the notion that such an abnormal condition of the elements calls for a human victim. Life must be paid that the majority may live. Whose would it be? No word was spoken on the subject, but the sequel showed how deeply seated was the idea.