CHAPTERX.
Day by day the Kantoon’s heart softened toward me. The performance of my executive duties about the ship occupied my mind, and assisted greatly in reconciling me to my enforced absence from my native land. The presence of Fidette had much more than all things else to do with my contentment of mind. One of the pleasantest of my daily tasks was to keep guard over her while she took her morning swim. Armed with a long pole, at the end of which was fixed a very large knife, ground to sharpness of both sides, I swung over the side of the ship upon a broad board, suspended much as is a painter’s scaffolding. Upon this I walked back and forth, with the heavy spear poised in such a way that I could hurl it at a shark and prevent the endangering of my pretty sweetheart’s life. A section of the sod twenty feet square had been hewn away at the side of the ship, disclosing beneath the clear, warm water of the mid-Atlantic. Into this bottomless tank Fidette would dive from the window of her stateroom. She usually spent an hour at her bath, and then, seizing a knotted rope, she would climb back into the vessel, and into the same window from which she had emerged.
Thus, for weeks, the monotonous routine of my life continued. I passed as much of my time in Fidette’s company as possible. The Kantoon’s threat had not been carried out. On several occasions we had dined together,and, after the pretty Sargasson fashion, she had fed me with her own fingers from a bowl of seaweed pudding.
An incident of importance about this time was my visit to the great floating kitchen, to which I have heretofore referred. It is needless to say that I was not trusted to make this journey until I had shown by my conduct that I was wholly reconciled to my Sargasson surroundings. The distance was not great, and, having learned in my boyhood to wield the paddle with cleverness, I found no difficulty in performing my share of the work.
Armed with a formal requisition from our Kantoon for the week’s supply of cooked food for the cantonment of the Happy Shark, we set out. This demand was inscribed upon a tarpon’s scale with a shark’s tooth. The character and the amounts of the supplies were to me undecipherable, because of the peculiar hieroglyphics in which they were written. We occupied the leading boat, being accompanied by ten others, fully manned, in which the week’s supply of provisions would be brought back.
We set out at sunrise and pulled steadily along the Grand Canal for two hours. This was a trip of great interest to me. For the first time I enjoyed the opportunity of seeing the other ships of the floating community close at hand, and of studying the faces of their inhabitants.
I had decided before we had passed a dozen ships that our crew was in many ways superior to most of the others, and that, if I had to spend the rest of my days among the Sargassons, I had been quite fortunate in landing upon the Happy Shark.
I felt very sad when we passed the Caribas. I found her moored in a new slip, cut for her reception in the floating debris. Several chains had been cast over the bow and stern, attaching her to stumps and trees firmly imbedded in the surrounding sod. I scrutinized the dear old craft thoroughly. Nothing was changed about her.
It was a mere fancy, but I imagined that she knew me!
On her deck were strange faces, all bearing the stamp of the Sargasson race. I was curious to learn who was occupying my cabin and sleeping in my berth, but the man in the boat with me could not, or would not, impart any information.
We reached the kitchen ship about 11 o’clock, and I was soon on board.
I have seen many strange places afloat and ashore, but none so thoroughly novel as was that vessel. Its main deck contained a series of rude furnaces and ovens, about which fifty men busied themselves preparing the food for the floating city. The work must have been very warm in hot weather and very dangerous to health in the cold season. I visited the lower decks and witnessed the reception of the seaweed, its assortment into fuel and food, and studied every stage of its preparation for the messroom. The great problem on board that ship was the procurement of fresh water, with which the cooking, obviously, had to be done. Several large condensers were set up and ready for use, but I could not discover that fires had ever been built under them. Most of the fresh water was caught from the skies upon a great awning of shellacked matting suspended over the masts. This awning was concave in shape, exceeding the deck area of the vessel, and was capable of catching a great deal of water from the skies. As it rained every second or third day, and the downpour sometimes equaled an inch and a half to two inches in half an hour, as shown by the rain gauge, the great tanks in the centre of the hulk were constantly kept filled.
As a rule, the Sargassons ate only one meal a day. This was partaken of on each ship in two messes, one consisting of the crew and the other of the officers.
The Kantoon of the Happy Shark, respecting the fact that I had been the commander of the Caribas, alwaysinsisted upon my dining with his daughter, himself and first and second mates. The service was of the rudest possible character. All surrounded a large porridge dish, and each person helped himself or herself therefrom. When the number of persons about to dine exceeded five or six there were two bowls or more of this glutinous material. One fish was always regarded as a portion. The fish were laid upon the deck on the usual strip of matting, and each diner helped himself or herself.
As I have stated, fish formed a staple article of diet, and it was prepared very much as dried herrings are put up in the English seaport towns. Long rows of men were seen cleaning and dressing the fish, which were then placed in an oven, through which hot air from the furnaces passed. Thus they were slowly dried, like our desiccated fruits in the United States. The oil was rendered out, and found its way to a tank, where it was kept for greasing shark and porpoise leather.
In this floating kitchen I discovered an article of diet I had never before encountered. It was a sort of wild rice or wheat, that was boiled in the grain and then hastily dried. In this condition it would keep for years. I afterward became very fond of this food, and was surprised to learn that it was not liked on board the Happy Shark. It had the taste of parched corn, upon which I know the soldiers in our armies had sustained life for months together.
The equipment of the cook ship was kept up by details of men sent from time to time from the various communities. But some of the older men had grown very expert, and occasionally concocted special dishes for the Kantoon of the vessel from which they had been originally drafted, hoping in this way to ingratiate themselves with him.
For example, a most delicious soup was made from barnacles. A bucketful of these small shellfish wouldbe scraped from the side of a vessel or from floating logs, carefully washed and then boiled in several waters. In taste this soup was very much like rich clam broth. Of course, it was difficult to obtain hot, away from the cook ship, for the reason that fires were prohibited upon any of the other vessels. Yet this rule was often broken, as we shall see.
While I was inspecting the ship, our men were loading the fleet of boats that had accompanied us, and early in the afternoon our return journey began. After a long and laborious tug at the paddle we reached the Happy Shark, in the darkness, and were welcomed back with a wild, weird chant. In this the Kantoon joined, and, rising sweetly above all the singers, I readily distinguished the rich, musical voice of Fidette, welcoming me home again.
Where separation is so unusual, and, from the very necessity of circumstances, people are compelled to live in such close and constant association, absence of a day or more over the ship’s side seems a much more important event than it otherwise would.