[Literature] Charles Dickens: The Wreck of the Golden Mary #5/47

He was always afraid of her falling
overboard, or falling down a hatchway, or of
a block or what not coming down upon her
from the rigging in the working of the ship,
or of her getting some hurt or other. He
used to look at her and touch her, as if she
was something precious to him. He was
always solicitous about her not injuring her
health, and constantly entreated her mother
to be careful of it. This was so much the
more curious, because the child did not like
him, but used to shrink away from him, and
would not even put out her hand to
him without coaxing from others. I believe
that every soul on board frequently noticed
this, and that not one of us understood it.
However, it was such a plain fact, that John
Steadiman said more than once when old
Mr. Rarx was not within earshot, that if
the Golden Mary felt a tenderness for the
dear old gentleman she carried in her lap,
she must be bitterly jealous of the Golden
Lucy.

Before I go any further with this narrative,
I will state that our ship was a barque of
three hundred tons, carrying a crew of
eighteen men, a second mate in addition to
John, a carpenter, an armourer or smith, and
two apprentices (one a Scotch boy, poor little
fellow). We had three boats; the Long-boat,
capable of carrying twenty-five men; the
Cutter, capable of carrying fifteen; and the
Surf-boat, capable of carrying ten. I put
down the capacity of these boats according
to the numbers they were really meant to
hold.

We had tastes of bad weather and headwinds,
of course; but, on the whole we had
as fine a run as any reasonable man could
expect, for sixty days. I then began to enter
two remarks in the ship’s Log and in my
Journal; first, that there was an unusual
and amazing quantity of ice; second, that
the nights were most wonderfully dark, in
spite of the ice.

For five days and a half, it seemed quite
useless and hopeless to alter the ship’s course
so as to stand out of the way of this ice. I
made what southing I could; but, all that
time, we were beset by it. Mrs. Atherfield
after standing by me on deck once, looking
for some time in an awed manner at the
great bergs that surrounded us, said in a
whisper, “O! Captain Ravender, it looks as
if the whole solid earth had changed into ice,
and broken up!” I said to her, laughing,
“I don’t wonder that it does, to your inexperienced
eyes, my dear.” But I had never
seen a twentieth part of the quantity, and, in
reality, I was pretty much of her opinion.

However, at two p.m.on the afternoon of
the sixth day, that is to say, when we were
sixty-six days out, John Steadiman who had
gone aloft, sang out from the top, that the
sea was clear ahead. Before four p.m.a
strong breeze springing up right astern, we
were in open water at sunset. The breeze
then freshening into half a gale of wind, and
the Golden Mary being a very fast sailer, we
went before the wind merrily, all night.

I had thought it impossible that it could
be darker than it had been, until the sun, moon,
and stars should fall out of the Heavens, and
Time should be destroyed; but, it had been next
to light, in comparison with what it was now.
The darkness was so profound, that looking
into it was painful and oppressive—like looking,
without a ray of light, into a dense black
bandage put as close before the eyes as it
could be, without touching them. I doubled
the look-out, and John and I stood in the
bow side-by-side, never leaving it all night.
Yet I should no more have known that he
was near me when he was silent, without
putting out my arm and touching him, than
I should if he had turned in and been fast
asleep below. We were not so much looking
out, all of us, as listening to the utmost, both
with our eyes and ears.

Next day, I found that the mercury in the
barometer, which had risen steadily since we
cleared the ice, remained steady. I had had
very good observations, with now and then
the interruption of a day or so, since our
departure. I got the sun at noon, and found
that we were in Lat. 58° S., Long. 60° W., off
New South Shetland; in the neighbourhood
of Cape Horn. We were sixty-seven days
out, that day. The ship’s reckoning was
accurately worked and made up.