Black Death

I

THREE seamen were adrift on a raffle of wreckage in mid-Atlantic, their ship having foundered in a sudden squall that struck them unawares. There had been no time to lower the boats, and the vessel sank under them, so that they had to fight their way to the surface and find what means they could of keeping themselves afloat. Ross, Ericson, and Burnham had managed to reach a broken mast with the top attached, and climbed on to it to present safety, but as they had neither food nor water their prospects were gloomy in the extreme, especially as they were in warm latitudes and the pangs of thirst would immediately begin to assail them. They had spent the day of their disaster keeping anxious lookout for a passing ship, and this was their first night on the tangle of wreckage. As they clung to the top, close together, and safe enough from the sea in fine weather because of the buoyancy of their wooden craft, they spoke occasionally in low tones.

Ross, a small man of cheerful and energetic temperament, struck the note of optimism.

‘We may be picked up,’ he said. ‘Always a chance of it.'

Ericson answered with a grunt. He was slow-spoken and laconic. ‘Maybe one in a hundred.’

‘Long chances don’t mean nothin’,’ Ross retorted. ‘Things happen at sea that seems like one chance in a million. Other times nothin’ happens when you’d think the chances was all for it.’

‘That’s right, that’s right,’ agreed Burnham. He preserved a judicial air even in the midst of shipwreck. ‘I’ve seen it again and again in my life.’

‘Well,’ said Ross, ‘the way I look at it is this. We’ll be picked up or we won’t be, an’ chances ain’t got nothin’ to do with it.’

‘Maybe fate has somethin’ to do with it,’ said Ericson.

They fell silent, aware of the desperate position the sea had placed them in, but knowing, too, that it might be worse. They were afloat and unhurt, and they had life, and while that remained there was always hope. When a few minutes had passed, Burnham raised his eyes and gazed into the darkness to the west, where the nearest land lay, some fifteen hundred miles distant.

‘We’re somewheres near the latitood of Key West, I reckon,’ he remarked.

‘It’s a far cry to Key West on this craft,’ Ross muttered.

Ericson raised his head and seemed to be listening to some sound coming out of the gloom. Had it been light, his shipmates could have seen in his bluegray eyes a gleam of the strange racial intelligence of men who come from generations of seafarers. There was no moon, and he could make out nothing; and perhaps it was instinct rather than hearing that led him to detect that far-away shadow of sound. Or it might be that their urgent need had wrought on his mind until he imagined things that had no reality, and he must be certain before he mentioned it, in order not to raise hopes that were groundless.

Except for a long swell the sea was almost calm, the soft wind raising only a light ripple on the surface, but the cat’s-paws made a constant lapping and gurgling against the floating mast and the timbers of the top, and these noises, slight though they were, drowned that other note, and he could not be sure for a long time whether he actually heard or only imagined it. If the moon would only rise above the sea it would cheer them with its light, but it was in its last quarter and would not come up until an hour or so before dawn. Until then he would not be able to see a ship a mile or two away, even if one happened to be passing.

Ross and Burnham became aware of his absorbed attitude, and looked at him anxiously, wondering what had attracted his attention.

‘D’ ye hear anything?’ Burnham asked in a husky whisper.

‘Wait! I’m not sure,’ Ericson replied.

They listened intently, breathing silently, conscious that some apparently trifling circumstance of this kind might be of the gravest moment, and eventually might lead them away from the torture of death by thirst in midocean.

‘By God! I heard something then,’ exclaimed Ericson suddenly. All three struggled to their feet on the unstable wreckage, searching in all directions over the dark water for the source of the mysterious sound.

‘I don’t see nothin’,’ said Ross, but they continued their ceaseless vigil, afraid of losing a chance of rescue.

‘Ain’t that the moon comin’ up?’ asked Burnham, looking into the east, and the others raised their eyes from the sea for a few moments, gazing at the pale arc of light that brightened the sky, heralding the rising moon.

‘It’ll be lighter when it gits up a bit, above the murk along the sky line.’

‘ I hear a noise plain now,’ Ericson declared positively, his voice a trifle hoarse.

They all heard it, and stood staring into the west, whence it came, hope growing stronger in their hearts while forced inaction made them fearful that the ship, if it were a ship, might pass without being sighted, and leave them to despair.

‘Sounds to me like somebody beatin’ a drum,’ said Burnham.

‘To hell with drums! Are you crazy?’ Ross burst out. But he looked at his mates with a puzzled expression. ‘It’s comin’ nearer, whatever it is. It must be close, or it would n’t be so loud.’

The moon rose slowly above the bank of haze on the sky line, a slender crescent that did not give much light, but the three men standing on the halfsubmerged mast, holding to the upper edge of the top, scanned the sea in the direction of the sound, straining to see something. In this they were disappointed, and, to add to their depression, the booming noise suddenly ceased.

‘It’s quit,’ said Ross, and they listened for a minute, but did not hear the drumlike beat again. Time passed, and they were beginning to fight against a feeling of despair, when they saw a whitish gleam which they recognized as the canvas of a ship, her sails having at that moment caught the faint moonlight at such an angle as to throw the reflection in the direction of the castaways.

‘There she is!’ cried Ericson, and they sent a wild hail across the sea.

‘Ship ahoy!’ they shouted together, and waited for the answer; but none came, and they hailed again and again, their voices rising desperately. Still no answering signal reached them.

‘There’s something wrong aboard of her,’ Ross said hoarsely.

‘Looks like it,’ agreed Burnham. ‘She ain’t showin’ no lights. But she’s bearing down on us anyways.’

‘What’s the matter wi’ them? All hands drunk, or asleep?’ Ross was almost petulant in his rage against the silent ship.

II

The breeze died slowly as dawn approached, and the strange ship drew near them at gradually slackening speed, yawing wildly from side to side as if the man at the wheel had gone to sleep, or had deserted his post altogether. She came blundering along in this way while the breeze lasted, and when it fell flat calm, and the ripples died on the surface, she lay motionless not more than half a mile from the men on the floating spar, who watched her avidly, hailing spasmodically from time to time, but receiving no word in reply. Now they were silent, sitting crouched on their precarious raft of wreckage, three drooping figures sick with doubt and hope deferred, within sight of rescue, yet seemingly doomed in spite of the nearness of succor.

Ericson’s blue eyes grew more and more anxious. Finally he spoke up with decision. ‘That ship,’ he said, ‘she’s abandoned. There ain’t a soul aboard of her from the way she behaves, an’ as soon as the wind comes she’ll sail away an’ leave us to die on this spar. We’ve got to swim to her. Can you fellers swim?’

‘Sure,’ they answered together.

‘No time to waste,’ said Ericson, and slid into the sea. He swam with a powerful breast stroke toward the silent ship, the others following close behind him. The water was warm and as calm as a pond, and the distance between the swimmers and the ship decreased steadily, but their fear that a breeze might spring up at any moment spurred them to constantly greater efforts, and they sighed with relief and exhaustion when they finally reached the iron side of the becalmed vessel and clung for a minute to the end of a brace they found trailing in the water from the rail. When they had recovered breath, Ross clambered up the side, threw a leg over the rail, and sat surveying the mysterious craft, thankful that he and his mates had reached her, no matter what was wrong.

‘She may be an evil ship,’ he remarked to his companions, when they had come up and were sitting beside him on the rail, ‘but I’d rather be aboard of her than hangin’ to that spar. I ’ve heard yarns about blokes dyin’ from thirst in open boats, an’ I don’t want to know how it feels.'

‘I went without water for two days once, an’ that was bad enough.’ Ericson slid from the rail to the deck. ‘One day’s too many, an’ I’m goin’ for water right now.’

The others dropped to the deck and followed him, walking forward with nervous glances to right and left, prepared for something queer to happen — a crazy sailor to jump out at them, or a ghost to flit across their path. But they heard and saw nothing along the deserted deck, until they reached the fo’c’sle on the starboard side and halted at the door to peer cautiously inside. As they stood thus, a faint moan came to their ears, and they stared into the gloom of the fo’c’sle.

‘There’s a man dyin’ in there,’said Ericson in a low voice.

‘I’ve a hunch she’s a plague ship,’ declared Boss, sniffing.

‘There’s a queer stink in there,’ said Burnham.

Ericson entered the fo’c’sle, passed several empty bunks, and paused before one in which the wasted body of a seaman lay inert, His breathing was shallow and rapid, and when Ericson placed his hand on the sick man’s forehead he felt it burning hot and dry as parchment. Ross and Burnham came to the bunk and gazed at the occupant, standing close together and partly behind Ericson, who went to the locker and took out a pannikin, half filled it with water from the tank, and returned to the bunk, where he placed his arm under the head and shoulders of the sick man, raised him slightly, and held the water to his lips. Although the man seemed at the last extremity, he drank the water avidly, and Ericson would have given him more, but he had emptied the tank in half filling the pannikin.

‘Black plague,’ said Ross. ‘I’ve seen it afore. Let’s take a look at the port side.’

Together they went on deck and hurried across to the other fo’c’sle, entered with apprehensive glances, but saw nobody, and stood in a group wondering just what had happened. Ericson still had the pannikin in his hand, and, holding it under the spout of the tank, he opened the valve, but no water came.

‘Empty,’ he remarked, glancing at his companions.

‘How much d’you reckon is in the other tank?' Ross inquired anxiously.

‘None,’ Ericson replied briefly. ‘I gave the last of it to the sick man.’

All thoughts of anything but water now left their minds, and they went aft to the galley and tried the tank there.

‘Dry as a bone.’ Burnham stood staring at the open valve, through which not a drop of water passed.

They turned and hurried aft to the cabin, where they searched every room for water, but found none in the bottles in the officers’ rooms, or in the tank in the pantry.

‘We might ’ve knowed that,’ Ericson spoke in self-scorn. ‘Of course there’s no water handy in a fever ship. The poor blokes drank all they could git, an’ that lad in the fo’c’sle had n’t the strength to draw any from the ship’s tanks. Let’s try them.’ He started forward at a swift walk. ‘I’ll get the pump from Chips’s room.'

Ross and Burnham went to the waist and unscrewed the plug that closed the pipe leading to the tank on that side, while Ericson hurried back along the dawn-lit deck bringing the fresh-water pump, which they screwed into place, and started working the handle up and down with quick short strokes. For what seemed a long time no water came, and the three men felt a cold sweat break out on them; then the plunger began to drag, and a few moments later a stream of sweet water, thin at first but growing rapidly in volume, gushed into the bucket they held under it.

Ericson plunged the pannikin in and filled it to the brim, then went forward to give it to the sick man, Ross and Burnham following after a moment of hesitation. They halted at the door when they saw their shipmate turn away from the bunk with the pannikin of water still in his hand and come toward the door.

‘He’s dead.’ said Ericson, and they stared at him blankly.

Ericson threw the pannikin and water over the side. They went aft and drank their fill from the bucket, then stood grouped around the main fife rail, ready to face anything now that they were sure of water. Although there was much work to be done, they stood leaning idly against the fife rail, appreciating the feeling of blessed relief from stress and danger and the dread spectre of thirst. Their eyes roved about the decks and up aloft, where all sail hung against the masts, flapping with a rattle of blocks and chain sheets when the ship rolled on the long swell. Only now did they notice that one of the deck ports had been left unfastened, and each time she rolled to starboard the iron gate clanged loudly against the side.

‘That’s the sound we heard,’ said Ericson, remarking that when she lay across the swell the sound ceased, as she did not roll then and the gate hung stationary. They stood watching this action, which they had seen a thousand times before, still unwilling to start the work that had to be done, and wondering if they would have reached the ship in time without the message it had sent across the quiet sea.

Burnham finally straightened up and glanced forward, speaking with his eyes withheld from his mates: —

‘If we stay aboard of this ship we’ve got to put that over the side.’

‘Aye.’

There was a short hesitation, then all three went forward and entered the starboard fo’c’sle, balked at the stench that met their nostrils, but approached the bunk where the dead man lay, wrapped him in his blankets, which they secured in place with rope yarns, and carried him on deck. Searching in the bos’n’s locker, they found a crowbar, which they made fast to the ankles of the corpse; then they looked at each other uncomfortably, hating all ceremony, but believing it right and necessary in a case like this.

‘D’ ye know any of the words of the burial service?’ Ross inquired.

‘I know jist a few,’ Burnham admitted.

‘Anything you kin remember will be all right. It’s the way we do it that counts — not the words.’

They placed the shrouded figure on a wide plank found in the carpenter’s shop, raised it gravely, and balanced it on top of the rail, bowing their heads awkwardly while Burnham recited all he could remember of the service for burial at sea.

‘Almighty God, we commit the body of this man to the deep, and his soul to Thy keeping. Amen.’

The end of the plank was canted up, the body slid off, feet first, and the iron bar carried it down to the depths of the sea with a mournful splash, the three men peering over the rail to watch it out of sight, and breathing more freely when it was gone.

III

‘What about some grub now?' Ericson dismissed the dead with these words, and they went aft. In the pantry bread kid they found plenty of cabin biscuits, a cube of butter on a white dish, and various kinds of canned fish, beef, fruit, and vegetables, also coffee and a broken case of ship’s tobacco. Carrying the food to the cabin table, they sat down to enjoy it properly, after preparing coffee in the pantry over an oil stove. When Ross brought the coffee in and set it down, his eyes fell on an ordinary notebook with a rubber band around it, which he slipped off, turning back the cover to glance within. The other two watched him with interest as they began their meal, and after a while Ericson warned him that his coffee was getting cold. Ross paid no attention, apparently absorbed in whatever he was reading in the notebook — evidently a fascinating yarn from the way he turned the leaves, wetting his finger and hastily switching them over as if impatient at even this small delay. When he came to the end he sat down without speaking, remained still and thoughtful for a minute, then tossed the little book over to Ericson.

‘It’s all there,’ he stated gravely. ‘The whole yarn. Read it.’

Ericson opened the little book and glanced at the first page, noticed the queerly jumbled handwriting, and passed the volume to Burnham. He opened it in turn, made as if to read, then dropped it on the table, glancing at Ross expectantly. ‘The handwriting’s hard to make out. Tell us what’s in it,’ he said.

‘That book’s a diary,’ Ross began. ‘It was written by a bloke callin’ hisself Thomas Burns, an’ he says he was a seaman before the mast. This ship’s the Marathon, from Bombay to Noo York with a mixed cargo, an’ she was forty-five days out when he started his log.

‘They made a good run, he says, down to the Cape, an’ they come round the corner with a howlin’ easterly gale astern of them. Everything was goin’ fine, an’ all hands was enjoyin’ theirselves, when they ran into fine weather. Then one day the second mate began to act queer, staggerin’ about the deck with a wild glare in his eyes that made the men think he was nutty. The skipper came on deck an’ sent him below, an’ he died in five hours.

‘The skipper an’ the mate prob’ly knew it was the plague, but they said nothin’ to the crew about it, an’ he was all sewed up in canvas when they pul him over the side. The mate went down with it next, an’ they buried him the same way; then the bos’n, the sailmaker, Chips, an’ one man after another till only ten were left. They were scared out o’ their senses, an’ went aft to the skipper an’ told ’im he could do as he pleased, but they was goin’ to abandon the ship that very minute. So they took two of the boats, with plenty water an’ grub, an’ left the skipper alone on the poop, this bloke Thomas Burns standin’ on the main deck.

‘They wanted ’im to go in the boats with them, but he wouldn’t — says he don’t know why he stayed aboard, unless he thought his chances were better on board the ship. Anyhow, he stayed, an’ buried the skipper all by hisself the next day. He could n’t git him up to the top of the rail to slide him over, so he opened that port we heard bangin’ last night, an’ dumped ’im through there — forgot to close it again, I reckon. Then he says he’s beginnin’ to feel bad, an’ supposes he’ll go the same as the others, an’ they’ll be nobody to bury him. That’s the end of the writin’.’

In the strained silence that followed, Ericson began to squirm uncomfortably, and sought under his clothing for something that seemed to be troubling him. In a little while he brought his hand from under his shirt, holding a flea, which he crushed into shreds between his finger and thumb, rubbing it off against the leg of his pants.

The others stared at him with an intense gravity, thinking of the story of Thomas Burns, whom they had recently consigned to the sea, dead of the black plague, like most of the crew of this unhappy ship. Their attention was gradually drawn away from this immediate subject by sounds of squeaking and scratching, with which they had all been long familiar.

‘Let’s drive them out of the lazaret. They might spoil the grub.’ Burnham rose as if to carry out this suggestion, but Ericson stopped him.

‘No. Don’t go near them. It’s the rats that carry the plague. We ought to smoke them out. There’s a big block of sulphur in the paint locker. I saw it when I was lookin’ around for water.’

Acting on this suggestion at once, they brought the sulphur in an iron pot from the galley, put the oil stove under it, closed all the doors and portholes, opened the hatch of the lazaret in the cabin floor, then went on deck, where they found that a light breeze had sprung up with the rising of the sun. Mounting ihe ladder to the poop, they gathered around the wheel, Ericson steering, and talked over their plans.

‘Let’s get out of her,’ said Burnham anxiously. ‘There’s no tellin’ how soon we’ll git the plague ourselves, an’ there’s two good boats on the skids.’

‘We’ve got to have grub, an’ the lazaret’s the only place we kin git enough of it to last us to the coast. I reckon it’ll take us all of a month to make our landfall, an’ we don’t want to starve on the trip. That sulphur smoke’ll go down the open hatch an’ drive out all the rats — an’ the fleas — in a day or so.’

‘We’re all right for a day or two,’ Ross declared. ‘Ye don’t catch that sort of disease all in a minute. They were forty-five days out before any of them took it.’

Ericson steered in silence, watching the compass, and throwing an occasional glance aloft at the sails, swelling under the increasing pressure of the fair wind.

‘I’d hate to be buried the way we done Thomas Burns,’ he remarked in a quiet voice. ‘ Jist dumped over the side like a can of ashes. I come down from the Vikings, an’ in the old days, when a chief died, they laid him in his ship on top of a pile of logs, set fire to them, an’ headed the ship west when the sun was settin’. That’s the way I’d like to be buried.’

‘Aye, that’s a nice send-off, but us sailormen ain’t got much chance of that kind of buryin’. We goes down wi’ the ship when she founders, or die in an ’ospital ashore an’ git dumped into a potter’s field.’

IV

They sailed west, taking their trick at the wheel turn about, eating in the pantry during that day and night. In the morning they opened the door of the cabin and allowed the sulphur smoke to escape, but it was not until the second morning that they could descend into the lazaret, which had only the hatch in the cabin floor to provide ventilation. When they had swung one of the boats outboard in the davits, provided her with an ample supply of food and water and an extra mast and sail taken from the other boat, they began to discuss the disposal of the ship.

‘We can’t leave her afloat to run into some other ship, full of men, on a dark night. We oughta set her afire, an’ see her sink afore we leave her,’ Ross argued.

‘Sure thing,’ said Burnham. ‘That’s what we oughta do.’

They turned to Ericson for his opinion, but he was seated on the main hatch, drooping forward with closed eyes and breathing rapidly. His two mates went swiftly to him, and each of them laid a hand on his face, which was dry and burning hot. At their touch he looked up at them with bloodshot eyes.

‘Reckon I’ve got it, mates,’ he muttered hoarsely, and slumped over on the hatch.

Ross caught him and lowered him gently, and Burnham ran to the cabin, returning with a pillow and a mattress, which they spread on a shady part of the deck, laying him on it. The wheel had been lashed, and the ship sailed straight on her course to the west, while the two saddened men sat beside Ericson and did what they could for him, which was very little. At least they could see that he had plenty of water, and they frequently raised him and put a brimming pannikin to his lips.

They were kindly men, although raised in a hard school, and being seamen, accustomed to face death from day to day, they believed that as long as life remained in a man there was always a chance that he might win through any danger, no matter how great the odds against him. But before sunset Ericson died, and the two men rose to their feet, staring at the soiled and corrupted body of their erstwhile shipmate in silent pity and horror.

Moving away without a word, they took the tarpaulin from the main hatch and lifted off the wooden sections, secured axes from the rack in the cabin, and broke up the wood of the bunks, the table and chairs, and the racks on the poop and the main deck used for holding wooden buckets, which they also took for their purpose.

All this lumber, together with the tarpaulin and the wooden sections, they threw into the main hatch on top of the cargo, then stopped and looked again at Ericson’s dead body. Turning away with a few muttered words, Burnham went aft to the flag locker, hoisted the Stars and Stripes to the peak, and brought another flag forward, he and Boss wrapping it around their dead shipmate to serve as a shroud.

‘You heard what he said the other day about them old Vikings,’ said Burnham.

‘Aye,’ answered Boss. ‘We’ll give him what he wanted.’

Fetching the wide board from which they had launched Thomas Burns into the sea, they laid Ericson carefully upon it and placed it in the centre of the pile of wood, then separated to look for something with which to start the fire. Burnham went forward and rummaged in the bos’n’s locker, where he found a big ball of oakum. He poured Stockholm tar over it, carried it aft to the main hatch, and placed it under the edge of the wood. Ross found a bundle of old newspapers in the cabin, and brought them to the hatch preparatory to throwing them down beside the oakum.

‘We kin keep them papers to read in the boat,’ said Burnham. ‘The fire’s all ready to start.’

They looked their last on dead Ericson, then Ross struck a match and dropped it among the tarred oakum, which shortly began to burn briskly.

’D’ ye think she’ll catch?’ he questioned.

‘Sure she will,’ replied Burnham.

Moving slowly across the deck, they reached the rail and lowered the boat into the water, slid down the davit tackles, and unhooked the blocks; then shipped the oars and pulled a fathom or two away from the side, after which they set the sail and ran alongside the burning Marathon, which sailed faster than the boat and drew slowly away from them, heading toward the sunset.

The smoke was rising in a thick cloud from the main hatch, and in a few minutes they saw tongues of flame flickering upward above the rail. The kindling had been skillfully laid, and the fire began to eat into the hold, dropping down into spaces between the cargo until she became a roaring furnace amidships. Flames leaped high above the decks, searching greedily for something to feed on, heavy sparks and red-hot embers belched out of her, and in a little while the mainsail caught the blaze, which ran swiftly to the upper masts and yards and mounted in a pillar of fire over the sea. The decks began to burst open with the intense heat, and spurts of flame shot out of them here and there; then the foremast and mizzenmast started to burn, and the men in the boat heard the roar of the conflagration across half a mile of sea.

As her sails were consumed the Marathon began to lose way, and the boat overhauled her but gave her a wide berth. The mainmast came crashing down, sending up a billowing cloud of sparks, straight aft along the deck. The foremast followed shortly after; then the mizzenmast dropped over the stern with a shrill hiss, amid a cloud of steam.

The entire hull was now aflame, providing a spectacle that no man who had seen it could ever forget, and as the light of day faded its splendor increased. But before her hull had time to be completely gutted some of her bottom plates must have cracked open, for she began to settle slowly, sending up volumes of steam that shot into the air as if blown from a great gun, and blazing fagots that burst in the air, their fragments falling far and wide over the sea. At the last, the water all about her hull boiled and exploded, and the ashes of Ericson sank from the light of the sun.

A minute later all was quiet, nothing but a few charred embers remaining on the surface to show that a beautiful but unfortunate ship had come that way.

Ross and Burnham crouched together in the stern sheets of the little boat, steering toward the dying sunset. The wind was fair, the sea had the look of good weather. The hope of making their landfall seemed bright. Life was ahead; but as the boat moved slowly into the immensity of waters, the two men exchanged a furtive look, each fearing moment by moment to read in his fellow’s eyes or feel within himself the sudden presentiment of death.