第82章

Alone on the deep - Necessity the mother of invention - A valuable book discovered - Natural phenomenon - A bright day in my history.

IT was with feelings of awe, not unmingled with fear, that I now seated myself on the cabin sky-light and gazed upon the rigid features of my late comrade, while my mind wandered over his past history and contemplated with anxiety my present position.Alone!

in the midst of the wide Pacific, having a most imperfect knowledge of navigation, and in a schooner requiring at least eight men as her proper crew.But I will not tax the reader's patience with a minute detail of my feelings and doings during the first few days that followed the death of my companion.I will merely mention that I tied a cannon ball to his feet and, with feelings of the deepest sorrow, consigned him to the deep.

For fully a week after that a steady breeze blew from the east, and, as my course lay west-and-by-north, I made rapid progress towards my destination.I could not take an observation, which Ivery much regretted, as the captain's quadrant was in the cabin;but, from the day of setting sail from the island of the savages, Ihad kept a dead reckoning, and as I knew pretty well now how much lee-way the schooner made, I hoped to hit the Coral Island without much difficulty.In this I was the more confident that I knew its position on the chart (which I understood was a very good one), and so had its correct bearings by compass.

As the weather seemed now quite settled and fine, and as I had got into the trade-winds, I set about preparations for hoisting the top-sails.This was a most arduous task, and my first attempts were complete failures, owing, in a great degree, to my reprehensible ignorance of mechanical forces.The first error Imade was in applying my apparatus of blocks and pulleys to a rope which was too weak, so that the very first heave I made broke it in two, and sent me staggering against the after-hatch, over which Itripped, and, striking against the main-boom, tumbled down the companion ladder into the cabin.I was much bruised and somewhat stunned by this untoward accident.However, I considered it fortunate that I was not killed.In my next attempt I made sure of not coming by a similar accident, so I unreeved the tackling and fitted up larger blocks and ropes.But although the principle on which I acted was quite correct, the machinery was now so massive and heavy that the mere friction and stiffness of the thick cordage prevented me from moving it at all.Afterwards, however, I came to proportion things more correctly; but I could not avoid reflecting at the time how much better it would have been had I learned all this from observation and study, instead of waiting till I was forced to acquire it through the painful and tedious lessons of experience.

After the tackling was prepared and in good working order, it took me the greater part of a day to hoist the main-top sail.As Icould not steer and work at this at the same time, I lashed the helm in such a position that, with a little watching now and then, it kept the schooner in her proper course.By this means I was enabled also to go about the deck and down below for things that Iwanted, as occasion required; also to cook and eat my victuals.

But I did not dare to trust to this plan during the three hours of rest that I allowed myself at night, as the wind might have shifted, in which case I should have been blown far out of my course ere I awoke.I was, therefore, in the habit of heaving-to during those three hours; that is, fixing the rudder and the sails in such a position as that by acting against each other, they would keep the ship stationary.After my night's rest, therefore, I had only to make allowance for the lee-way she had made, and so resume my course.