Read Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) Online
Authors: Travelers In Time
Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (299 page)
For
it
was
broadside
that
the
galleon
glided,
almost
imperceptibly, ever
sucking
down.
She
glided
as
if
a
loadstone
drew
her,
and,
at
first, Abel
Keeling
had
thought
it
was
a
loadstone,
pulling
at
her
iron,
drawing
her
through
the
pearly
mists
that
lay
like
face-cloths
to
the
water and
hid
at
a
short
distance
the
tarnish
left
by
the
sail.
But
later
he had
known
that
it
was
no
loadstone
drawing
at
her
iron.
The
motion was
due—must
be
due—to
the
absolute
deadncss
of
the
calm
in
that silent,
sinister,
three-miles-broad
waterway.
With
the
eye
of
his
mind he
saw
that
loadstone
now
as
he
lay
against
a
gun-truck,
all
but
toppling
down
the
deck.
Soon
that
would
happen
again
which
had
happened
for
five
days
past.
He
would
hear
again
the
chattering
of
monkeys
and
the
screaming
of
parrots,
the
mat
of
green
and
yellow
weeds would
creep
in
towards
the
Mary
over
the
quicksilver
sea,
and
once more
the
sheer
wall
of
rock
would
rise,
and
the
men
would
run.
.
.
.
But
no;
the
men
would
not
run
this
time
to
drop
the
fenders. There
were
no
men
left
to
do
so,
unless
Bligh
was
still
alive.
Perhaps Bligh
was
still
alive.
He
had
walked
halfway
down
the
quarter-deck steps
a
little
before
the
sudden
nightfall
of
the
day
before,
had
then fallen
and
lain
for
a
minute
(dead,
Abel
Keeling
had
supposed,
watching
him
from
his
place
by
the
gun-truck),
and
had
then
got
up
again and
tottered
forward
to
the
forecastle,
his
tall
figure
swaying
and
his
long
arms
waving.
Abel
Keeling
had
not
seen
him
since.
Most
likely, he
had
died
in
the
forecastle
during
the
night.
If
he
had
not
been dead
he
would
have
come
aft
again
for
water.
.
.
.
At
the
remembrance
of
the
water
Abel
Keeling
lifted
his
head.
The strands
of
lean
muscle
about
his
emaciated
mouth
worked,
and
he made
a
little
pressure
of
his
sun-blackened
hand
on
the
deck,
as
if
to verify
its
steepness
and
his
own
balance.
The
mainmast
was
some seven
or
eight
yards
away.
...
He
put
one
stiff
leg
under
him
and began,
seated
as
he
was,
to
make
shuffling
movements
down
the
slope.
To
the
mainmast,
near
the
belfry,
was
affixed
his
contrivance
for catching
water.
It
consisted
of
a
collar
of
rope
set
lower
at
one
side than
at
the
other
(but
that
had
been
before
the
mast
had
steeved
so many
degrees
away
from
the
zenith),
and
tallowed
beneath.
The
mists lingered
later
in
that
gully
of
a
strait
than
they
did
on
the
open
ocean, and
the
collar
of
rope
served
as
a
collector
for
the
dews
that
condensed
on
the
masts.
The
drops
fell
into
a
small
earthen
pipkin
placed on
the
deck
beneath
it.
Abel
Keeling
reached
the
pipkin
and
looked
into
it.
It
was
nearly
a third
full
of
fresh
water.
Good.
If
Bligh,
the
mate,
was
dead,
so
much the
more
water
for
Abel
Keeling,
master
of
the
Mary
of
the
Tower. He
dipped
two
fingers
into
the
pipkin
and
put
them
into
his
mouth. This
he
did
several
times.
He
did
not
dare
to
raise
the
pipkin
to
his black
and
broken
lips
for
dread
of
a
remembered
agony,
he
could
not have
told
how
many
days
ago,
when
a
devil
had
whispered
to
him, and
he
had
gulped
down
the
contents
of
the
pipkin
in
the
morning, and
for
the
rest
of
the
day
had
gone
waterless.
.
.
.
Again
he
moistened
his
fingers
and
sucked
them;
then
he
lay
sprawling
against
the mast,
idly
watching
the
drops
of
water
as
they
fell.
It
was
odd
how
the
drops
formed.
Slowly
they
collected
at
the
edge of
the
tallowed
collar,
trembled
in
their
fullness
for
an
instant,
and fell,
another
beginning
the
process
instantly.
It
amused
Abel
Keeling to
watch
them.
Why
(he
wondered)
were
all
the
drops
the
same
size? What
cause
and
compulsion
did
they
obey
that
they
never
varied,
and what
frail
tenuity
held
the
little
globules
intact?
It
must
be
due
to some
Cause.
.
.
.
He
remembered
that
the
aromatic
gum
of
the
wild frankincense
with
which
they
had
parcelled
the
seams
had
hung
on the
buckets
in
great
sluggish
gouts,
obedient
to
a
different
compulsion;
oil
was
different
again,
and
so
were
juices
and
balsams.
Only quicksilver
(perhaps
the
heavy
and
motionless
sea
put
him
in
mind
of quicksilver)
seemed
obedient
to
no
law.
.
.
.
Why
was
it
so?