Chapter XVI: A Man Overboard

On descending into the "caboose," I found the four negroes stretched out and snoring. They had worked hard at the steering-oar while making these eccentric traverses, which even they did not understand. Poor wretches! had they known what was in store for them, they would not have gone to sleep. Even fatigue could not have overcome them.

The dip was burning dimly, and by its light I had some difficulty in finding my cigar-case. I laid my hands upon it at length, and drawing forth a fresh weed, kindled it at the cumulus of smoking wick.

For a moment I hesitated as to whether I should return to the roof, or take my seat upon a chest that formed part of the furniture of the cabin.

The stench decided me. The odor of greasy cooking-utensils, combined with that emanating from the shirts of four sweating Africans, was too powerful to be put down by the perfume of the best Havana, and I preferred returning to the roof.

As I ascended the steps, I heard a scrambling above me, as if the two men were struggling with the steering-oar.

I could not guess what it meant, and was all the more surprised at seeing them--as soon as the darkness permitted--exactly in the same spot where I had left them. Black was still grasping the handle of the oar, Stinger standing at his elbow.

I was about passing on to the stem, and had got between them and the beam, when I heard the former exclaim: "H--l fire! we'll be on a snag!"

At the same instant I saw him rush toward me, pressing the oar in front of him.

Before I had time to get out of the way, the huge piece of timber struck me in the ribs; and but that I had caught hold of it I should have been precipitated into the water.

My hold did not avail me, nor was it the intention of that ruffian steersman that it should.

"Let go!" he cried. "Let go, d--n ye, or ye'll have us on the snag!"

As he spoke, I saw his right hand raised from the oar, and then descending toward me. By the light of my cigar, still between my teeth, I saw the gleaming of steel. At the same time I felt a stinging sensation in my shoulder, the arm seemed to become suddenly paralyzed, my grasp became relaxed, and I fell back downward into the river!

For a second or two my cloak sustained me, but before I could turn upon my face and strike out to swim, the huge ark swept over me, sending me far below the surface. A loud drumming in my ears, a choking sensation in my throat--the sensation of drowning!

I came again to the surface, but without any clear idea of where I was, or what had happened me. It appeared like a horrible dream from which I was not yet awakened.

Soon my senses returned; I remembered having fallen from the flat; and then, that I had been pushed from it; and then, how I had struggled to save myself from going over; and then, why I had not succeeded.

During this process of thought, I was kept above water less by my own efforts, than by the cloak that covered my shoulders, and the rapid current that carried me along. But for these I might have gone back to the bottom, never more to rise. On attempting to swim, I found that my right arm was of no use to me.

I looked around for the flat, though without any design to recover footing upon it. It was no longer near me, nor in sight. Carried swiftly on by the current, it had disappeared in the darkness.

I did not shout to make known my situation. I had sufficiently recovered my senses to know that on board the boat there might be as much danger to me as in the water. Perhaps more; and I preferred trusting to the stream.

Working the cloak to the right side, so as to leave my left arm free, I struck out with it; not to swim, but simply to keep my head above water. In this way I glided on with the current.

I could not have kept long afloat. I felt I was each moment growing feebler; and with the utmost difficulty could save myself from sinking.

The surging current carried me along, but not toward the bank. I saw no bank; for that matter I might as well have been in the middle of the ocean.

Even had the shore been in sight, I could have done nothing to approach it. I could have made no effort beyond that I was making--just sufficient to sustain myself on the surface.

I should soon sink. I began to feel certain of it--to contemplate it with a sort of resignation. Quicker than the changes of a kaleidoscope, the scenes of my past life came before me. Father, mother, sisters, and brothers, were all at that moment remembered, and she whom I had late left. Oh! it was agony to think I should never see her again!

While giving way to this despairing thought, something struck me from behind. I felt some hard substance pressing against my thigh. It caused a thrill through my flesh, for it was a contact unexplained and unnatural. I could think only of one thing, the snout of an alligator! I knew that I was now in that part of the Mississippi where this hideous saurian held his midnight revels.

Instinctively I increased my speed, but to no purpose; the bony proboscis still rubbed against my thigh. In another moment I should feel the huge jaws harshly closing upon and crushing it like a reed!

With an effort I turned round, to meet the monster face to face. In this way I preferred perishing.

In another moment I lay with my left arm clasped around it, embracing it as I might my dearest friend, as if it had been--

What I had mistaken for an ugly alligator, was a floating tree-trunk; like myself rudely flung upon the flood, but with a buoyancy far surpassing mine.

The log proved light enough to sustain not only itself, but faint sinking me; and straddling it longitudinally, I gave myself up to the current with a gratitude to God, whose hand, I could not help thinking, had been stretched out to preserve me!

After that, I became unconscious.