ADRIFT WITH A LUNATIC —
MARINER'S TERRIBLE VOYAGE

OFF BROWN'S BANKS — the Nova Scotia fishing ground — a little world was made up of a limited area of green sea, a heavy, yellow fog, a weather-beaten dory and two men. These two men were Charles Matheson, a Boston fisherman, and Frederick Hemmeon, a youthful Nova Scotian. They were trawlers, late of the fishing schooner Quannapowitt. Now the dory was full of fish, and the labor of trawling was all done; there was more serious work at hand. These two men were anxious to return to their fellows, but they were unable to find the other little world inhabited by their vessel. They studied the rim of the universe with great care, but they could, not see her. So far as they were concerned she did not exist.

       So the younger man threw out the anchor and made himself restful in the bow and watched the waves undulating lazily out of the clouds of mist, into the small world and into the mists again. Eventually his pipe went out and he lifted his head abruptly, regarded the other man stupidly and remarked that he had nearly fallen asleep. A moment later he said he guessed he would doze a while since there was no signs of the schooner.

       "Keep awake," answered the older man sharply. "You'll take cold if you sleep in this dampness."

       But Hemmeon protested that he would sleep only a short time. The other man commanded him to sprinkle some water on his face and swing his arms vigorously. The older man had been to sea during the last thirty years; the younger man only three years. So the latter obediently sprinkled his face with the cold brine and exercised and presently he said he was wide awake again.

       The older man had began to relate the story of the Nancy Jones — of how, one afternoon, the cook, inspired by the whiskey he had smuggled aboard, emerged from the galley and wished very much to make hash of every member of the crew. This was the forty-third repetition of the tale, and so, in its handling, it was the classic of his repertory. Now it was so flawlessly rendered that the young man hung tensely on every word and from time to time interrupted with eager exclamations. His drowsy feelings were driven completely out of mind. And when the story was done he discussed it at great length and asked many curious questions, not only about the trips of the Nancy Jones, but also about innumerable other voyages in the older man's career. He asked the older man if he had ever been lost in a fog.

       "No," Matheson replied, gruffly.

       The younger man gazed from him to [the] rim of the little world and then knitted his brows and observed curiously:

       "What hope is there if you are lost in a fog[?]"

       "Oh!" snapped the older man. ["]Don't cross your bridges until you come to them. Wait til you are lost, my boy."

The First Night.

       Hemmeon said the fog was growing thicker. The older man corrected him with considerable sternness. He said night was coming. He told the younger man to swing his arms whenever he felt drowsy and cold. Several times during the early part of the evening the youth rose in the bow and exercised; later he lay still so long that his dory mate grabbed an oar and prodded him and ordered him peremptorily to keep awake.

       Always they listened for the foghorn, and the youth often wondered what had become of the schooner. But the night grew colder and colder and the cold penetrated through their oilskins. Occasionally the youth swore.

       Finally the morning came. The fog was so thick that the light of day made only the merest impression on the dark brownish coloring of the atmosphere. At first the nearby horizon was blackish green; hours later it was murky green and in the late forenoon it was a curious mixture of brown and yellow. So the world of the oceanic lake and the dory and the two men was very hideous and ghastly. The younger man's face was pallid and wrinkled. The older man still sat silently in the stern, with both eyes wide open and grave.

       Hemmeon complained of hunger and thirst. He kept, looking across the undulating lake, asking fretfully if the fog would ever lift. He said that the cook on the steamer was probably getting a feed ready, and he remarked that that feed would go mighty well. He felt of his stomach, and then he asked the older man if he, too, was pretty hungry.

       "Well, I could eat," said Matheson, grimly. "But keep your ears open for the foghorn and don't think of grub. We ought to hear that, thing by and by. And maybe the fog will blow away."

       He spoke soothingly, but the youth kicked around in the bow and cursed his luck. After a time he thought the fog was thinning out, and so he became hopeful again. One by one the hours passed. Both men diverted their minds by examining the clouds of fog with great care and commenting on the nature of the flimsy stuff and wondering why fogs came more often at certain times of the year than at others.

       Matheson was relating another famous experience of life on the Nancy Jones, when he felt a sudden coolness on his forehead. He pulled off his mitts and wet his finger and held his hand up.

       "Breeze blowing up," he remarked, cheerfully.

       The youth rose in the bow and tried the same experiment. Then he forgot his hunger and looked hither and thither with renewed interest. He observed many times that if the wind ended the fog perhaps they could see something of the schooner. The breeze continued to increase the coolness of their foreheads and to revive their energy. Both men became very optimistic.

       Matheson lit his pipe and chatted amiably. His gravity was ancient history. And as the breeze gained strength the fog began to lose its density; it changed to a creamy yellow, then the creamy yellow evolved a very light yellow and after a time the very light yellow became only a haze. This haze lasted for an hour or more. And as it grew thinner and thinner the oceanic lake grew larger and larger. Eventually it assumed gigantic proportions. The men suddenly realized that they couldn't define its boundaries; it had become the limitless ocean. All the time the two men in the dory strained their eyes to detect the hull or even the masts of the schooner. They looked unendingly from port to starboard.

On the Boundless Ocean.

       To the younger man it was incomprehensible what had become of the Quannapowitt. He had thought she lay to the westward, but the longer he gazed at the exasperating western horizon the less he thought of his original theory. At first he suggested that they row in that direction. But the older man argued that because the breeze came from the northeast and because the schooner had probably changed her position during the preceding twenty-four hours they ought to row southwesterly with the wind. He told the young man that that course would undoubtedly lead them into a fleet of fishing smacks or into the path of other craft. The younger man assented.

       The older man advised him to take the oars and row and added that he would relieve him after half an hour. Hemmeon rowed leisurely fur the period agreed and said he felt better. Meanwhile the man in the stern used a third oar as a rudder. They talked and kept looking from horizon to horizon for a sail or a funnel. During the latter part of the afternoon the wind developed into a forty-five-mile-an-hour gale and the men rowed very little and bailed frequently, for the waves boiled angrily and from time to time splashed over the sides of the dory.

       The younger man became very weary and hungry and sleepy. Now and then his head dropped on his breast and lay there until the man in the stern prodded him roughly with an oar, whereupon the young man slowly awoke and showed much anger. Sometimes his friend spoke to him brusquely and sometimes pleaded with [h]im. The young man continued to complain. He said he was hungry enough to eat leather. He wished to eat some of the remaining fish in the bottom of the boat. The older man ordered him to leave them alone, and to make certain that the youth complied he picked them up, one by one, and threw them overboard. The young man said he had already eaten one, and when the older man scolded him he laughed loudly.

Youth's Mind Deserts Him.

       But by and by the laugh became a shriek and the complaints incoherence. To check the delirium the older man splashed cold water on the burning face. These ministrations restored his friend to temporary sanity. But presently the older man was so busy trying to manipulate the dory in the turbulent sea that he couldn't give much attention to the youth, and then, above the wailing of the wind and the water, he heard a disorderly clamor. And once in a while the youth reached forward and grabbed him by the arm and demanded his supper. He accused Matheson of keeping his food from him.

       During the night the storm tossed the dory about like a piece of wreckage and sometimes it amused itself by deluging its occupants and once, when Hemmeon was standings theatrically in the bow and expostulating with his companion, a wave descended upon the boat and careened it so far that the raving boy lost his balance and toppled over the side. Matheson jumped for him and caught him by the collar of his jacket and when the next wave came along yanked him into the boat again. The young man was no longer delirious; he was limp as a dead man. His face was pallid and parboiled.

       The older man stooped down and felt of the faintly beating heart and then he rose and looked around for his oars. He saw one of them on the crest of a wave; he couldn't see the other two and then he worked desperately. From the bottom of the dory he tore off a batter board and used it for a rudder. It was a very crude affair, but it sufficed to control the dory after a fashion.

       The man was occupied so thoroughly with the improvised rudder that he had to ignore the inert figure in the bottom of the boat. The northeast winds lowered the temperature and little particles of ice formed in the boat and on the clothing of the men.

       After many hours the mound of oilskins in the bottom of the dory moved restlessly and eventually the head of a man appeared from the debris and a weak voice inquired what had happened. The active figure in the stern replied briefly and urged the youth to busy himself with the bailing bucket. Hemmeon worked for half an hour and then began to talk and talk and always incoherently. Chiefly he accused the other man of withholding his food from him. He pleaded and stormed and threatened. And thus the night grew older and older and gray morning dawned.

       The sea was ribboned with foam. The other man in the dory examined it for a long time and his eyes sunk farther and farther in their sockets. He listened to the younger moan impassively and made no answers to his charges. This silence incited the mad youth to greater frenzy. But the industrious man with the batter board, between trying to steer with a board and bail out the boat and to forget a constant internal disturbance, forgot the lunatic.

Mad Youth Attempts Suicide.

       All the afternoon and early evening of this day the youth sputtered and fumed. And at last began to talk about his home in Nova Scotia and carried on a long conversation with his mother and father. He told them that he had gone out fishing with a man named Matheson and that this man, by reason of some enemity for him, had eaten all the food and drunk all the water in the boat. He said that he suffered so much from hunger and thirst that he finally wished to jump into the sea. Whereupon he stood up and screamed a long denunciation to the man with the board and bucket, and when Matheson ordered him to sit down he flung himself over the side of the boat.

       The older man dropped his board and bucket and jumped for the lunatic. The latter fell into the water, but his friend had him firmly by the tail of his smock and dragged him back into the dory. For a long time the youth lay apparently dead. Matheson tried to revive him, but the frequent deluges of water interrupted him. He bailed automatically for the remainder of the night.

       In the morning the storm lessened, but the waves still tumbled over one another in a threatening manner so that the older man busied himself in steering the boat and in bailing.

Vessel Is Sighted.

       Shortly after noon the creature in the bottom of the boat wriggled to life again and moaned fitfully. This was reassuring to the older man and he looked again from horizon to horizon. And after a time when the dory rose on the crest of a wave he thought he saw a speck in the distance. He watched it intently and finally concluded, with a feeling of great joy that it was a schooner of some sort. So he jumped for the pitchfork and took off his jacket forgetful of the January wind, and raised the crude signal in a frantic manner.

       The vessel seemed to approach them; then it remained in its relative position for an apparently interminable time. It remained there so long that even the older man lost patience and began to scream. The feverish youth gradually comprehended the unusual excitement and regained sufficient consciousness to join in the cries for succor. Together the two men stood up in the uncertain dory and waved their apparel to the far-off vessel and yelled until their parched lips split and the blood ran down their chins. The vessel eventually disappeared in the far-off east.

       Then the youth sunk down in the bottom of the dory and resumed his raving denunciation of his companion. The latter sat with bowed head and for a long time gave way to his emotions. It was his first breakdown. Later in the day, when the boat rose on a boiling wave, he saw other schooners. Each time he waved his slicker in a frenzy and yelled until his dry throat refused him utterance, but the men of the vessels never saw the lone dory and its corpselike cargo.

       Just before sundown that night the trawlers saw a steamer and once more they went through the mockery of waving their garments and trying to shout. The steamer was beyond the limits of their world. Still Matheson urged that they were in the path of commerce, and he told the youth that they would probably be sighted on the morrow[.] Hemmeon huddled in the bow of the dory and raved all during the evening.

Tries to Kill Companion.

       Toward midnight he began again to talk of his home and to tell his parents of the cruelties of a man named Matheson. The latter tried to quiet him, but the mad youth glared out of burning eyes and threatened to kill him. After a time he crept along the bottom of the boat and fumbled about in the water until he found the pitchfork. And then he sprang up and stood over the older man, brandishing the pitchfork. Matheson moved quickly also. He tried to seize the youth's wrists; Hemmeon laughed and jumped backwards, nearly swamping the boat. Matheson pleaded with his friend. The youth screamed with laughter, and before the laugh ended made a plunge with the pitchfork. Once Matheson missed the wrist and barely dodged the prongs of the fork; the next time he gripped the mad youth's wrist and wrenched the pitchfork away.

       Hemmeon, in struggling to regain it, staggered and fell overboard. The older man leaped for him just in time to catch the tail of his smock, but the wet garment slipped out of his grasp, and the lunatic went down into the brine. Matheson clutched for his companion frantically, and at last caught him by the hair of the head. He was barely able to drag him into the boat, again. The effort left Matheson exhausted. For a long time the youth again lay in the bottom of the dory like a corpse, and his friend thought he was a corpse, but he couldn't try to revive him because another wave came into the boat and compelled him to resume bailing.

       Presently his arched figure suddenly straightened. His haggard eyes opened wide and stared tensely into the night. Far off to the starboard he thought he observed a change in the blackness. Gradually the mity yellow reflection became a number of twinkling stars and later a continuous discharge of sparks issued from the centre of the radiance. The trawler shouted to the still figure in the bottom of the dory.

       "It's a steamer! She's bearin' down on us!"

       At once he reached for the fork and repeated his frenzied signaling. The steamer came nearer and nearer, but at last she approached no more, but began to recede. Then Matheson concluded to signal no longer; he sat down in the boat and sobbed tearlessly.

       The youth revived during the night and sang and swore. Matheson bailed and steered the boat and kept the fork close beside him. The older man was alternately discouraged and hopeful. He felt certain that the dory was in the path of commerce. He told the lunatic that they would see more schooners.

Men Finally Rescued.

       In the morning on the horizon appeared two steamers and three schooners, but they continued on their way unseeing. Yet at last, when Matheson figured out that the day must be Saturday, he detected still another sail. He couldn't see very plainly, but he told the youth in the bottom of the boat that it was a fishing schooner. After a time he began to believe that she was drifting in a course similar to his own. He made out a number of small boats around her like a flock of busy chickens. Later he saw the boats spread out and ramble hither and thither. So he struggled to his feet and held up his signal for the last time and waved it to and fro.

       Then he saw the other dory men wave something back and steer their boats toward him. The stimulating influence of their acknowledgment was so great that he leaped on the maudlin figure in the bow and tried to arouse him to a realization of the most wonderful event in the world. The youth answered him with faint incoherences. The boy was very pallid.

       Later on board the Flora S. Nickerson the older rescued traveller drank endless quantities of water. Eventually he said to his rescuers:

       "What day of the week is it?"

       They answered: "Saturday — Saturday afternoon. When were you lost in the fog?"

       He answered: "On a Tuesday — I don't remember what year."

       The other fishermen counted rapidly on their fingers, and then they gasped:

       "One hundred and two hours — God!"

       In a near-by bunk the pallid youth babbled continuously. When they brought him into Boston the other day and sent him to the hospital he was still babbling.

[THE END.]