my with severe fixity,
then suddenly went away. It was a long time before any one spoke in
the little cabin, though we all breathed more freely as men do after an
escape from some dangerous situation. We all knew the old man's ideas
about Jimmy, and nobody dared to combat them. They were unsettling, they
caused pain; and, what was worse, they might have been true for all
we knew. Only once did he condescend to explain them fully, but the
impression was lasting. He said that Jimmy was the cause of head winds.
Mortally sick men--he maintained--linger till the first sight of land, and
then die; and Jimmy knew that the very first land would draw his life
from him. It is so in every ship. Didn't we know it? He asked us with
austere contempt: what did we know? What would we doubt next? Jimmy's
desire encouraged by us and aided by Wamibo's (he was a Finn--wasn't he?
Very well!) by Wamibo's spells delayed the ship in the open sea. Only
lubberly fools couldn't see it. Whoever heard of such a run of calms and
head winds? It wasn't natural.... We could not deny that it was strange.
We felt uneasy. The common saying, "More days, more dollars," did not
give the usual comfort because the stores were running short. Much had
been spoiled off the Cape, and we were on half allowance of biscuit.
Peas, sugar and tea had been finished long ago. Salt meat was giving
out. We had plenty of coffee but very little water to make it with.
We took up another hole in our belts and went on scraping, polishing,
painting the ship from morning to night. And soon she looked as though
she had come out of a band-box; but hunger lived on board of her. Not
dead starvation, but steady, living hunger that stalked about the decks,
slept in the forecastle; the tormentor of waking moments, the disturber
of dreams. We looked to windward for signs of change. Every few hours of
night and day we put her round with the hope that she would come up
on that tack at last! She didn't. She seemed to have forgotten the way
home; she rushed to and fro, heading northwest, heading east; she ran
backwards and forwards, distracted, like a timid creature at the foot of
a wall. Sometimes, as if tired to death, she would wallow languidly for
a day in the smooth swell of an unruffled sea. All up the swinging masts
the sails thrashed furiously through the hot stillness of the calm. We
were weary, hungry, thirsty; we commenced to believe Singleton, but
with unshaken fidelity dissembled t