the sun by that time being risen so high that the mist was changing again to a golden haze, and the cabin of the barque well lighted through the skylight over it, i felt less creepy and uncomfortable as i went down the companion-way than i had felt when i went below into the old brig's dusky cabin in the early dawn. but for all that i walked gingerly, and stopped to sniff at every step that i took downward; for i could not by any means get rid of my dread of coming upon some grewsome thing. however, the air was sweet enough—the slide of the hatch being closed, but the doors open and the cabin well ventilated—and when i got to the foot of the stair i saw nothing horrible in my first sharp look around.
it was a small cabin, but comfortably fitted; and almost the first thing that caught my eye was a work-basket spilled down into a corner and some spools and a pair of rusty scissors lying on the floor, and then in another corner i saw a little chair. and the sight of these things, which told that the barque's captain had had his wife and his child along with him, gave me a heavy sorrowful feeling—for all that if death had come to this sea-family the pain of it must have been over quickly a long while back in the past.
two of the state-room doors, both on the starboard side, were open; and both rooms were empty, save for the mouldy bedding in the bunks and in one of them a canvas bed-bag such as seamen use. the doors of the other two rooms, there being four in all, were closed, and i opened them hesitatingly; and felt a good deal easier in my mind when i found that in neither of them was what i dreaded might be there. in one of them the bunk had been left in disorder, as though some one had risen from it hurriedly, and a frock and a bonnet were hanging against the wall; but the other one seemed to have been used only as a sort of storeroom—there being in it a pair of rubber boots and a suit of oil-skins, and a locker in which were some pretty trifles in shell-work such as might have been picked up in a west indian port, and a little rack of books gone mouldy with the damp. one of these books i opened, and found written on the flyleaf: "mary woodbridge, with aunt jane's love. for the coming christmas of 1879"—and this date, though it did not settle certainly when the barque had started on the voyage that had come to so bad an ending, at least proved that she had not been lying where i found her for a very great many years.
as to how the barque had got so deep into the wreck-pack, she being so lately added to it, i could not determine; but my conjecture was that some storm had broken the pack and had driven her down into it, and then that the opening had closed again, leaving her fast a good way in its inside. but about the way of her getting there i did not much bother myself, my one strong thought being that i had a chance of finding on board of her something that i could eat; and so—being by that time pretty well satisfied that i was safe not to come upon anything horrid hid away in a dark corner of her—i went at my farther explorations with a will. indeed, i was so desperately hungry by that time that even had i made some nasty discoveries i doubt if they would have held me back from my eager search for food.
luckily i had not far to look before i found what i was after, the very first door that i tried—a door in the forward side of the cabin—opening into a pantry in which were stowed what had been, as i judged from the nature of them and the place where i found them, the captain's private stores. the door was not locked, and a good many empty boxes were lying around on the floor with splintered lids, as though they had been smashed open in a hurry—which looked as though the pantry had been levied on suddenly to provision the boats after the wreck occurred, and so made me hope that the captain and his wife and baby had got away from the barque alive.
but the stock of stores had been a big one, and i saw that i was safe enough against starvation if only a part of what was left still were sound—and that uncertainty i settled in no time by picking up a hatchet that was lying among the broken boxes and splitting open the first tin on which i laid my hands. the tin had beans in it, and when i cracked it open that way more than half of them went flying over the floor; and they looked so good, those blessed beans, that without stopping to smell at them critically, or otherwise to test their soundness, i fell to feeding myself out of the open tin with my hand—and never stopped until all that remained of them were in my inside. i don't suppose that they were the better for having lain there so long, but they certainly were not much the worse for it—as i proved more conclusively, having by that time taken off the sharp edge of my hunger, by eating a part of another tin of them and finding them very good indeed. after that i opened a tin of meat—but on the instant that the hatchet split into it there came bouncing out such a dreadful smell that i had to rush on deck in a hurry with it and heave it over the side.
but even without the meat my food supply was secure to me for a good while onward, there being no less than ten boxes with two dozen tins of beans in each of them—quite enough to keep life in me for more than half a year. i rummaged through the place thoroughly, but found nothing more that was fit to eat there. some boxes of biscuit and a barrel of flour had gone musty until they fairly were rotten; and all the other things that i came across were spoiled utterly by damp and mould. as for the stores for the crew, when i went forward to have a look at them, they were spoiled too—the flour and biscuit rotten, and the pickled meat a mouldy mass of tough fibre encrusted thickly with salt.
one other thing i did find in the captain's pantry that was as good, save for the mould that coated the outside of it, as when it came aboard—and because of its excellent condition was all the more tantalizing. this was a case of plug tobacco—a bit of which shredded and filled into one of the pipes that i found with it, could i have got it lighted, would have made me for the moment almost a happy man. but as i could think of no way of lighting it i was worse off than if i had not found it at all.
having made my tour of inspection and taken a general inventory of my new possessions, i came on deck again and seated myself on the roof of the cabin that i might do some quiet thinking about what should be my next move; for i realized that only by a stroke of rare good fortune had i come upon this supply of food far away from, the coast of my continent, and that should i leave it and keep on the course northward that i had set for myself i very likely might starve before another such store fell in my way. and yet, on the other hand, to stay on where i was merely because i was able to keep alive there—with no outlook of hope to stay me—was but making a bid for that madness which comes of despair.
as to carrying any great quantity of food on with me, it was a sheer impossibility. the tins of beans weighed each of them more than five pounds, and a score of them would make as much of a load as i well could carry on level ground—and far more of a load than i could manage in the scramble that was before me if i decided to go on. indeed, i had found my two bottles of water a serious inconvenience; and yet i would have them to carry also, and the big compass too. as to water, however, since the shower of the morning. i felt less anxiety: and the event proved that my confidence in the rainfall was justified—for the showers came regularly a little after dawn, and only once or twice after that first sharp experience did i feel more than passing pain from thirst.
i sat there on the roof of the cabin for a good part of the morning cogitating the matter; and in the end i could think of no better plan than one which promised certainly a world of hard labor, and only promised uncertainly to serve my turn. this was to stick to my project of going steadily northward—carrying with me as much food as i could stagger under—until i came again to the outer edge of the wreck—pack; but to safeguard my return to the barque, should my food give out before my journey was accomplished, by blazing my path: that is to say, by making a mark on each wreck that i crossed so that i could retrace my steps easily and without fear of losing my way. what i would gain in the end i did not try very clearly to tell myself—having only a vague feeling that in getting again to the coast of my great dead continent i would be that much the nearer to the living world once more; and having a clearer feeling that only by sticking at some sort of hard work that had a little hopefulness in it could i save myself from going mad. and i cannot but think now, looking back at it, that a touch of madness already was upon me; for no man ever set himself to a crazier undertaking than that to which i set myself then.
