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Palm Tree Island

by Herbert Strang · English · Gutenberg #37418 · 733,423 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Palm Tree Island

Author: Herbert Strang

Illustrator: Archibald Webb
        Alan Wright


        
Release date: September 19, 2011 [eBook #37418]
                Most recently updated: January 8, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37418

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PALM TREE ISLAND ***




Produced by Al Haines










[Illustration: Cover art]





[Frontispiece: "WHEN I LET FLY THE ARROW IT SPED VERY TRUE." (See page
335.)]





PALM TREE ISLAND

_BEING THE NARRATIVE OF_ HARRY BRENT _SHOWING HOW HE IN COMPANY WITH_
WILLIAM BOBBIN _OF_ LIMEHOUSE _WAS LEFT ON AN ISLAND IN THE SOUTHERN
HEMISPHERE, AND THE ACCIDENTS AND ADVENTURES THAT SPRANG THEREFROM, THE
WHOLE FAITHFULLY SET FORTH_

_BY_

HERBERT STRANG



_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY_

_ARCHIBALD WEBB AND ALAN WRIGHT_




LONDON

HENRY FROWDE

HODDER AND STOUGHTON

1910




Copyright 1909, by the G. H. Doran Company, in the United States of
America.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER THE FIRST

OF MY UNCLE AND HIS HOBBY, AND WHAT CAME OF HIS CONVERSATIONS WITH TWO
MARINERS


CHAPTER THE SECOND

OF THE VOYAGE OF THE _LOVEY SUSAN_ AND OF MY CONCERN THEREIN, ALSO THE
DISTRESSFUL CASE OF WILLIAM BOBBIN


CHAPTER THE THIRD

OF THE NAVIGATION OF STRANGE SEAS; OF MUTTERINGS AND DISCONTENTS, OF
DESERTION, OF MUTINY AND OF SHIPWRECK


CHAPTER THE FOURTH

OF THE MEANS WHEREBY WE CHEATED NEPTUNE AND CAME WITHIN THE GRIP OF
VULCAN; AND OF THE INHUMANITY OF THE MARINERS


CHAPTER THE FIFTH

OF CLAMS AND COCOA-NUTS AND SUNDRY OUR DISCOVERIES; AND OF OUR
REFLECTIONS ON OUR FORLORN STATE


CHAPTER THE SIXTH

OF OUR SEARCH FOR SUSTENANCE AND SHELTER; WITH VARIOUS MATTERS OF MORE
CONSEQUENCE TO THE CASTAWAY THAN EXCITEMENT TO THE READER


CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

OF THE BUILDING OF OUR HUT, TO WHICH WE BRING MORE ENTHUSIASM THAN SKILL


CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

OF MY ENCOUNTER WITH A SEA MONSTER; AND OF THE MEANS WHEREBY WE
PROVIDED OURSELVES WITH ARMS


CHAPTER THE NINTH

OF PIGS AND POULTRY, AND OF THE DEPREDATIONS OF THE WILD DOGS, UPON
WHOM WE MAKE WAR


CHAPTER THE TENTH

OF THE NAMING OF OUR ISLAND--OF A FLEET OF CANOES, AND OF THE MEANS
WHEREBY WE PREPARE TO STAND A SIEGE


CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH

OF OUR SUBTERRANEOUS ADVENTURE, AND THE MANNER IN WHICH THE WILD DOGS
PROFITED BY OUR ABSENCE


CHAPTER THE TWELFTH

OF A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION BETWEEN BILLY AND THE NARRATOR--OF AN
ENCOUNTER WITH A SHARK, AND THE BUILDING OF A CANOE


CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH

OF OUR ENTRENCHMENTS; OF THE LAUNCHING OF OUR CANOE, AND THE DEADLY
PERIL THAT ATTENDED OUR FIRST VOYAGE


CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH

OF OUR VOYAGE TO A NEIGHBOURING ISLAND, AND OF OUR INHOSPITABLE
RECEPTION BY THE SAVAGES


CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH

OF THE SEVERAL SURPRISES THAT AWAITED BILLY AND THE NARRATOR AND THE
CREW OF THE _LOVEY SUSAN_; AND OF OUR ADVENTURES IN THE CAVE


CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH

OF THE ASSAULT ON THE HUT, IN WHICH BOWS AND ARROWS PROVE SUPERIOR TO
MUSKETS


CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH

OF THE END OF THE SEA MONSTERS; AND OF THE EVENTS THAT LED US TO
RECEIVE THE CREW AS OUR GUESTS


CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH

OF THE DISCOMFITURE OF THE SAVAGES, AND THE UNMANNERLY BEHAVIOUR OF OUR
GUESTS


CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH

OF OUR RETREAT TO THE RED ROCK, AND OF OUR VARIOUS RAIDS UPON OUR
PROPERTY


CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH

OF ATTACKS BY LAND AND SEA; AND OF THE USES OF HUNGER IN THE MENDING OF
MANNERS


CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST

OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE CREW ARE PERSUADED TO AN INDUSTRIOUS AND
ORDERLY MODE OF LIFE


CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND

OF OUR DEPARTURE FROM PALM TREE ISLAND; OF THOSE WHO WON THROUGH, AND
OF THOSE WHO FELL BY THE WAY




ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR

BY ARCHIBALD WEBB


"WHEN I LET FLY THE ARROW IT SPED VERY TRUE . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
                                                        (see p. 335)

"ONE LIFTED THE PLANK AND AIMED A FURIOUS BLOW AT MY HEAD"

"THE BEAST WHEELED ABOUT, AND RUSHED UPON BILLY"

"I CRIED OUT TO HIM THAT A MONSTER WAS ATTACKING ME"

"ONE DAY I FOUND HIM TRYING TO SHAVE WITH A FLINT"

"THE BEAST HEAVED ITSELF CLEAN OUT OF THE WATER"

"BILLY REACHED OVER, AND BROUGHT HIS AXE DOWN ON THE MAN'S HEAD"

"I DEALT HIM SUCH A BLOW THAT HE FELL DOUBLED UP AT THE DOORWAY"




PEN-AND-INK SKETCHES

BY ALAN WRIGHT


BILLY'S AXE

OUR FLINT SCRAPER FOR SHARPENING AXES

BILLY'S PLATE AND MUG

SOME OF MY POTTERY

SPEARHEAD

BILLY'S BOW AND ARROW

BILLY'S SCRAPER FOR ROUNDING ARROW SHAFTS

CLAY SAUCEPANS, AND TONGS OF WOOD

OUR PIG-STY

KNIVES AND FORK

CLAY PAIL, THE HANDLE OF A TOUGH ROOT, BOUND ON WITH SHRUNK HIDE

BILLY'S PALM-LEAF HAT

OUR SMALL HUT TURNED INTO A FOWL-HOUSE

JUG WITH BENT-WOOD HANDLE, AND CUP

THE BRUSH BILLY MADE, SHOWING ALSO THE MANNER OF IT

COMB OF SPINES

SPADE CUT OUT OF A LOG

RAKE HEAD AND SCALLOP-SHELL HOE

OUR WHEELBARROW

OUR TABLE

MY CHAIR AND BILLY'S STOOL

OUR FISH-HOOKS

OUR GAFF AND LANDING-NET

OUR HARPOONS

OUR CANOE

OUR TRIPOD

BILLY'S TOASTING-FORK

OUR BASKETS

OUR LAMP



MAP OF PALM TREE ISLAND  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _facing p._ 96




CHAPTER THE FIRST

OF MY UNCLE AND HIS OF HIS CONVERSATIONS WITH TWO MARINERS


I was rising four years old when my parents died, both within one week,
of the small-pox; and the day of their funeral is the furthermost of my
recollections.  My nurse, having tied up the sleeves of my pinafore
with black, held me with her in the great room down-stairs as the
mourners assembled.  Their solemn faces and whispered words, and the
dreadful black garments, drove me into a state of terror, and I was not
far from screaming among them when there entered a big man with a jolly
red face, at whom the company rose and bowed very respectfully.  The
moment he was within the room his eye lit on me, and seeing at a glance
how matters stood, he thrust one hand into his great pocket, and drew
it forth full of sugar-plums, which he laid in my pinafore, and then
bade the nurse take me away.

'Twas my uncle Stephen, said Nurse, and a kind good man.  Certainly I
liked him well enough, and when, two or three days thereafter, he set
me before him on his saddle, and rode away humming the rhyme of
"Banbury Cross," I laughed very joyously, never believing but that
after I had seen the lady with the tinkling toes, Uncle Stephen would
bring me home again, and that by that time my mother would have
returned from heaven, whither they told me she had gone.

I did not see my childhood's home again for near thirty years.

My uncle took me to live with him, in his own house not a great way
from Stafford.  He was an elder brother of my father's, and till then
had been a bachelor; but having now a small nephew to nourish and breed
up, he did not delay to seek a wife, and wed a fine young woman of
Burslem.  She was very kind to me, and even when there were two boys of
her own to engage her affections, her kindness did not alter.  So I
grew up in great happiness, having had few troubles, the greatest of
them being, perhaps, those that beset my first steps to learning in
Dame Johnson's little school.  As for my subsequent search after
knowledge on the benches of the Grammar School at Stafford, the less
said the better: the master once declared, in Latin, that I was "only
not a fool."

The light esteem in which the pedagogue held my intellects did not give
my uncle any concern.  He was bad at the books himself, saving in one
kind I am to mention hereafter.  He was a master potter, in a
substantial way of business, and held in some repute among men of his
trade.  Indeed, it was the belief of many in our parts that he might
have become as famous in the world as Mr. Wedgwood himself, had he not
been afflicted with a hobby.

I will not follow the example of the ingenious Mr. Sterne, and write
here a chapter upon hobby-horses; though I do believe I could say
something on that subject, if not with his incomparable humour, yet
with a certain truth of observation.  Why is a man's hobby often at
such variance with other parts of his character?  Why did the late Mr.
Selwyn, to wit, take the greatest pleasure in life in seeing men
hanged, drawn, and quartered?  Who that knew John Steer (I knew him
well) only as he stood with knife and cleaver in his butcher's shop,
would believe that 'twas his delight, after slaughtering his sheep and
oxen, to solace his evenings with warbling on the German flute?  My
uncle's hobby was no less extraordinary.  He was inland bred, and I do
believe, until the year of his great adventure, had never gone above
twenty miles from his native town; yet he had a wondrous passion for
the sea and all that pertained to it.  I am sure that he never saw the
sea until he and I together looked upon it at Tilbury, and there, to be
sure, the salt water is much qualified with fresh; yet, after business
hours, he was for ever talking of it and reading about it and the
doings of sailor men.  He would pore for long hours upon the pages of
the _Sailor's Waggoner_, and con by heart the rules and instructions of
the _Sailor's Vade Mecum_.  He was deeply learned in the _Principal
Navigations_ of Mr. Hakluyt; he could tell you all that befell George
Cavendish in the _Desire_ and Sir Richard Hawkins in the _Dainty_, and
would hold me spell-bound as he recited with infinite gusto the stark
doings of the Buccaneers.  And when Mr. Cadell, the bookseller in the
Strand in London, sent him the great volumes containing the discoveries
of Commodore Byron, and those gallant captains Carteret, Wallis, and
Cook in the southern hemisphere, the days were a weariness to him until
he could light his candle and put on his spectacles and feast on those
enthralling narratives.  Many's the time, as I lay awake in my bed,
have I heard my aunt Susan call down the stairs through the open door
of her room, "Steve, Steve, when be a-coming to bed, man?" and his
jolly voice rolling up, "Yes, my dear, I am near the end of the
chapter"; and there he would sit, and finish the chapter, and begin
another, and read on and on, until I might be stirred from a doze by
the sound of him shuffling past in his stockings, and grumbling because
there was but an inch of guttering candle left.

My uncle was a sturdy patriot, and took a great delight in knowing that
the most of the navigators of those far-off seas were Englishmen.  I
remember how he fumed and fretted when his bookseller in London sent
him the volume of Monsieur de Bougainville's voyage round the world.
What had these French apes, he cried, to do with voyages of discovery?
And when he read later, in Dr. Hawkesworth's book, of the trick which
Monsieur de Bougainville played on Captain Wallis--how, meeting the
captain on his homeward way, he sought with feigning to worm out of him
the secrets of his expedition--my uncle smote the table with his great
fist, and used such fiery language that my aunt turned pale and my
little cousins began to blubber.

At this time I was in my seventeenth year, and had been for some months
in my uncle's factory, learning the rudiments of his trade.  'Twas
taken for granted that I should become a partner with him when I was of
age, for the business was good enough to support both me and my elder
cousin Thomas; while as for the younger, James, my aunt had set her
heart on making a parson of him.  But it was ordained that, in my case,
things should fall out quite contrary to the intention, as you shall
hear.

One fine Sunday we were walking home from church, my uncle and I,
across the fields, as our practice was, when we saw that the last stile
before we reached our road was occupied.  A big fellow, clad in a dress
that was strange to our part of the country, sat athwart the rail of
the fence, with his feet on the upper step.  Another man sprawled on
the grass beside the fence, lying stretched on his back with his hands
under his head, and a hat of black glazed straw tilted over his eyes.
As we drew nearer, I saw that the man on the stile had a big fat face,
his red cheeks so puffed out that his eyes were scarce visible, his
mouth loose and watery, with an underhung chin, a thick fringe of black
hair encircling it from ear to ear.

Seeing us approach, he began with uncouth and clumsy movements to
descend from his perch; but he gave my uncle a hard look as we came up
with him, and then, spitting upon the ground, he said,

"Bless my eyes--surely 'tis--ain't your name Stephen Brent, sir?"

My uncle looked at the man in the way of one who is puzzled, and for
some while stood thus, the man smiling at him.  Then of a sudden his
face partly cleared, and he said--

"You are never Nick Wabberley?"

"The same, sir, Nick and Wabberley, as you knowed five and twenty year
ago."

"Why, man, I am glad to see you," says my uncle heartily, offering his
hand, which the man took, not however before he had rubbed his own hand
upon the back of his breeches.

"Same to you, sir, and very glad I am to see you so hearty.  After five
and twenty year at sea----"

"You have been to sea!" cries my uncle, his jolly face beaming.  "Then
you must come up to my house to supper and tell me all about it."

"Why, d'ye see, sir, there's my messmate," said the man, with a glance
at the prone figure, which had not moved; indeed, there came from
beneath the hat a succession of snores, as untuneful as ever I heard.
"We're in tow, d'ye see," added the big man.

"Bring him too," says my uncle.  "We have plenty of bread and bacon,
thank God."

Whereupon the man went to his sleeping comrade, and neatly kicked his
hat into the air, bidding him wake, with a strange oath that startled
me.  The sleeper did not at once open his eyes, but his mouth being
already open, he let forth a volley of curses, and demanded his hat,
avouching that if he suffered a sunstroke he would "this" and "that"
the other: his actual words I cannot write.  My uncle's face showing
his reprobation of such language, especially on the Sabbath, the big
man excused his comrade, saying that 'twas only Joshua Chick's way, and
he was really a good soul, and very obliging.  At this the prostrate
man opened his eyes, and, seeing my uncle, got upon his feet, and when
he was told of the invitation to supper, he touched his forelock and
said he was always ready to oblige.  If the looks of Nick Wabberley did
not take my fancy, still less did those of Joshua Chick, who was a
small man, very lean and swarthy, and his eyes squinted so dreadfully
that he seemed to be looking at my uncle and myself at one and the same
time.

After a few more words we parted, the men promising to be at our house
prompt at eight o'clock.  And as we continued our walk home, my uncle
satisfied my curiosity, telling me that the big man, Nick Wabberley,
who was, as I had already guessed, the brother of Tom Wabberley, that
owned Lowcote Farm some two miles from our door, had been a
school-fellow of his, and the idlest boy in the whole countryside.  He
never got through a day without a flogging.  The master birched him;
his father leathered him; but neither did him any good: he remained an
incorrigible dunce and truant, and no one was very sorry when one
morning it was found that he had slipped out of his bedroom window
during the night and run away.  He had never since been heard of, but
now that after twenty-five years he had returned to his native place,
my uncle's heart warmed towards him because he had been to sea.
Sailors were not often seen in our inland parts, and the prospect of
discourse with a man who had actually beheld what he had only read
about filled my uncle with delight.

Prompt on the stroke of eight Nick Wabberley arrived, accompanied by
his messmate Joshua Chick.  They proved to be excellent trenchermen:
indeed, they prolonged the meal longer than either my uncle or my aunt
liked, the former being impatient to hear stories of the sea, the
latter watching with concern the disappearance of her viands.  But
supper was over at last, and then my uncle bade the visitors draw their
chairs to the fire, gave them each a long pipe and a sneaker of punch,
and settled himself in his arm-chair to drink in the tale of their
adventures.  Being near seventeen I was allowed to make one of the
company, to the envy of my young cousins, who hung about the room for
some time, but being at last detected were bundled off to bed.

It needs not to tell how late we sat up, nor how many tumblers of
brandy-punch the two sailors tossed off between them before they
departed, steady enough on their legs, but a trifle thick in their
speech.  My uncle was abstemious himself, and held a toper to be
something less than a man; at an ordinary time he would have avoided to
ply his visitors with liquor, but the truth is that on this occasion
his whole soul was rapt away into a kind of wonderland by Nick
Wabberley's tales, so that the men were able to replenish their glasses
at intervals, unperceived.  I have heard many a mariner's yarn since,
and know them to be works of fancy and imagination as often as not; at
that time I was as credulous as a babe, and my uncle scarcely less, and
I doubt not we gulped down all the marvels we heard as greedily as the
trout gapes at a fly.  Certainly Nick Wabberley was a masterly
story-teller, spinning yarns, as they say, as easily as a spider spins
her web, and never at a loss for a word.  Joshua Chick took but a
modest part in the conversation, being very well occupied in
replenishing the glasses; but every now and again he would slip in a
word to correct some statement of his comrade, Nick accepting it with
great composure.  I noticed that these occasional contributions of
Joshua's tended most often towards embellishment, and the level tones
in which he related the most astonishing marvels, at the same time
fixing one eye on my uncle and the other on me (keeping his hand on the
brandy-bottle), made a wonderful impression on us.

It appeared that the two sailors had been members of the company which
sailed with Captain Cook (he was then lieutenant) on his first voyage
into the southern hemisphere.  My uncle knew by heart the story of this
voyage as it is given in Dr. Hawkesworth's book, and expressed great
surprise that so many of the incidents and particulars related by Nick
Wabberley were not mentioned in that worthy doctor's pages.  He even
ventured at one point to controvert a statement of Nick's, adducing the
doctor as his authority, at which Nick waxed mightily indignant.  "Why,
d'ye see, warn't I there?" he said.  "Warn't I there, Josh?"

"You was," says Chick firmly.

"And warn't you there?" says Wabberley, his moist lips quivering with
indignation.

"I were," replies Chick, with vehemence.

"Then what the blazes has any landlubber of a doctor got to do with it,
what don't know one end of a ship from t'other!"

There was nothing to be said in answer to this, and my uncle afterwards
confided to me his opinion that Captain Cook's own journals contained a
good many things which Dr. Hawkesworth had not seen fit to print.

My uncle was so well pleased with the conversation of the seamen that
he invited them to come and see him again, and before long it became
their regular custom to drop in about supper-time, much to the
annoyance of Aunt Susan.  She called Nick Wabberley a lazy lubber, and
as for Joshua Chick, she said his eyes made her feel creepy, and he ate
enough for four decent men.  But my uncle was fairly mounted on his
hobby, and he asked her rather warmly whether she grudged a bite and a
sup to worthy mariners who had braved the perils of the deep (not to
speak of the appetites of cannibals) in the service of their country.
'Twas in vain she said that she knew Farmer Wabberley wished his
brother at Jericho--the great fat lubber lolloping about doing nothing
but eat and drink, when there were fields to hoe, and Joshua Chick
looking two ways at once, one eye on bacon and the other on beer; 'twas
a mercy he hadn't got two mouths as well, she said.  My uncle would
hear nothing against them; always kindly and indulgent, he reminded her
that a gammon rasher and home-baked bread must be the most delectable
of dainties to men who for months at a time ate nothing but salt junk
and ship's biscuit.

He never tired--nor, I must own, did I--of listening to Nick Wabberley.
His face fairly glowed as he heard of those favoured islands of the
south where food grew without labour and wealth was to be had almost
without lifting a finger.  Wabberley described the ease with which
pearls might be obtained in the Pacific: how he had seen the natives
dive into the water and bring up oysters, every tenth of them
containing a gem, so little valued by the finders that the present of a
four-penny nail or a glass bead would purchase a handful of them.
Wabberley heaved a great sigh as he deplored his desperate bad luck in
not being permitted to trade.  "The Captain, d'ye see, warn't a
trader," he said; "he was always thinking of taking soundings and
marking charts and discovering that there southern continent, which I
don't believe there ain't no such thing, though they do say as how the
world 'ud topple over if there warn't summat over yonder to keep it
steady.  And as often as not, when we come to a island, we was so
desperate pushed for provisions, and vegetables to cure us of the
scurvy, that he hadn't no thought except for stocking the ship.  Oh!
'twas cruel, when we might all ha' been as rich as lords, and all
vittles found in the bargain."

In those days I remarked a certain restlessness in my uncle.  He would
go to the door of an evening and look down the road for the two seamen,
and if they did not appear, which was seldom, he would walk up and
down, in and out of the house, with hands in pockets, melancholy
whistlings issuing from his lips.  He read even more closely than usual
the pages of the _Vade Mecum_, and pored for hours on the maps that
embellish Dr. Hawkesworth's volumes.  For the most part he was silent
and abstracted, but ever and anon he would startle me with some sudden
exclamation, some remark or question addressed, it seemed, to himself.
"Tugwell is a good man: I can trust him....  What will Susan say? ... A
matter of a year or two: what's that? ... I haven't a grey hair in my
head."  I was somewhat concerned when I listened to these mutterings,
and wondered whether much brooding on oversea adventures had turned my
uncle's brain.  And I was not at all prepared for the revelation that
came one night, when, looking up from his book, which lay open on his
knees, he waved his long pipe in the air and cried, "I'll do it, as
sure as my name is Stephen Brent."

And then he poured out upon my astonished ears the full tale of his
imaginings.  He was bent on making a voyage round the world.  The South
Seas had cast a spell upon him.  He longed to see the lands of which
the sailor-men had spoken; he was athirst for discovery.  Perhaps he
might light upon this Southern Continent which had eluded the search of
others, and if he could forestall the French, what a feather it would
be in his cap, and how glorious for old England!  And in these dreams
he was not less a man of business.  There was vast wealth to be had by
bold adventurers; why should not he obtain a share of it, and amass a
second fortune for his boys?

The greatness of this scheme as he unrolled it before me took my breath
away.  When I asked how his business would fare in his absence he swept
the air with his pipe and declared that Tugwell, his manager, was sober
and trustworthy, and he had no fears on that score.  I spoke of the
perils of shipwreck and pirates, of the Sallee rovers, of the
numberless accidents that might befall; but he brushed them all away as
things of no account.  And then I myself took fire from his own
enthusiasm and begged that I might go with him.  "No, no, Harry, my
boy," he said, kindly enough.  "You must stay at home to look after
your aunt and the boys.  Tugwell is a good man, but growing old; and if
anything happens to me you will be at hand to look to things; you are
seventeen, and pretty near a man."

That night at supper, with much hemming and hawing, he broached his
project to my aunt.  You should have heard her laugh! 'twas plain she
did not believe him to be serious; she said it was all gammon, and she
wondered what next indeed.  But when he assured her that he meant every
word of it, she was first alarmed and then angry.  She talked about a
maggot in his head, and asked what she was to do, a widow and not a
widow, with two growing boys that would run wild without their father;
and she wondered how a respectable man nigh fifty years old should
think of such a thing, and there wasn't a woman in the country who
would put up with such a pack of nonsense.  To which he replied that
Captain Cook was a respectable man with a wife and family, and if the
captain's lady could part with her husband for a year or two, for the
honour and profit of England, surely 'twas not becoming in Mrs. Stephen
Brent to make an outcry over such a trifling matter.  This made my aunt
only the more angry, and, for the first time in all my knowledge of
them, the good people looked unkindly upon each other.

That my uncle's mind was firmly made up was plain to us next day.
Bidding me say nought of his intentions, which he wished to be kept
secret, lest they came to the ears of the French, he set off for
London, and was absent for a matter of ten days, much to the
displeasure of Nick Wabberley and Joshua Chick, who came to the house
evening after evening and went very disconsolate away, my aunt
detesting them both, and refusing to feed the men to whom she
attributed this mad whimsy of her husband.  Her anger somewhat
moderated while he was away, and after a week or so she could smile at
his rubbish, declaring to me that she was sure he would think better of
it: he would be like a fish out of water in London Town, and the
sensible folks there would laugh him out of his foolishness, that they
would.  She smiled and tossed her head even when he came back and told
us with great heartiness that he had bought a vessel--a north-country
collier of near four hundred tons, stout in her timbers and broad in
the beam, built for strength rather than speed--just such a vessel as
Captain Cook had sailed in.  "Go along with you, Steve," she said.
"Don't tell me!  You'll never go rampaging over the seas--a man of your
age: and 'tis a mercy, I'm sure, that you're a warm man and won't ruin
yourself, for you won't get half what you gave for it when you sell
your precious vessel again."  She told me privately that she was sure,
when the time came, the foolish man would never venture himself on a
ship; what would _he_ do on a ship, she'd like to know, when he
couldn't ride a dozen miles in a coach, as he had told us, without
becoming squeamish and feeling as if his inside didn't belong to him!
The news that he had engaged a captain--a seasoned skipper, by name
Ezekiel Corke--only made her lift her hands and cry out, "Well, did you
ever see!"  I am sure that her air of disbelief, and amusement mingled
with it, was a sore trial to my uncle.

As for him, good man, he was in earnest, if ever a man was.  One day
after he returned he rode over with me to Lowcote Farm, where we found
those two mariners, Chick and Wabberley, gloomily sucking straws on a
five-barred gate, and idly looking on at a busy scene of
sheep-shearing.  Their dull faces brightened at the sight of him, and
when he told them what he had been doing, and asked if they would join
his crew, they smote each other on the back and swore lustily for very
joy.  They asked him many questions about the ship and the captain,
talked very knowingly of spars and armaments and the various articles
it behoved to carry for trading with the natives, and offered to go at
once to London--my uncle paying their coach fares--and seek out old
messmates who should form the finest crew that ever foregathered in a
foc'sle.  My uncle showed great pleasure at their willingness, and
arranged that they should accompany him when he next went to London to
make his preparations for the voyage.

The news of my uncle's enterprise soon spread through our town, and it
became a nine days' wonder among our neighbours and the townsfolk.  His
friends accosted him in the streets; some poked fun at him for entering
on a new branch of business at his time of life; others, with the best
intentions in the world, addressed to him the most solemn warnings,
taking him by the buttonhole and expatiating on the risks he was about
to run, doubting whether any money was to be made at sea, and advising
him very earnestly to stick to the clay.  He bore their pleasantries
and their counsels with great good nature, declaring that he knew what
he was about, and they would see if they lived long enough.  But I
could not help feeling sometimes that he was not quite so confident as
he liked to appear, and that the drawbacks and dangers he had shut his
eyes to in the first flush of his enthusiasm were now looming larger in
the prospect.  Yet, whatever his qualms may have been, he pushed on his
preparations with vigour.  He spent another fortnight in London,
collecting a crew with the aid of Wabberley and Chick, purchasing
stores, and laying in a cargo, and then he returned to take leave of
his family and friends.

All this time I was beset with a great longing.  The making of pottery
in a quiet town seemed to me a very tame and spiritless occupation: I
felt an immense stirring towards a life of activity and adventure, and
wished with all my heart that my uncle would change his mind and take
me with him.  Against this, however, he was resolute, and the utmost he
would concede was that I should accompany him when he departed finally
from Stafford, and see the vessel in which he was to sail forth.
Accordingly, one fine August day ('twas the year 1775), I took passage
with him in the London coach.  All Stafford had gathered to speed him.
He parted from my aunt and his boys at the inn door: up to the very
last she had held to the belief that he would draw back; and even when
he left her side and mounted into the coach she whispered to me, "I
don't believe it.  I won't believe it!  He'll never go.  He never
will!"  But the coach rumbled off, the crowd cheered, some one flung an
old shoe after us for luck, and I had never a doubt that before the
month was out my uncle would be afloat on the wide ocean, fairly
committed to his wonderful adventure in the southern seas.




CHAPTER THE SECOND

OF THE VOYAGE OF THE _LOVEY SUSAN_ AND OF MY CONCERN THEREIN; ALSO THE
DISTRESSFUL CASE OF WILLIAM BOBBIN


The _Lovey Susan_--for so my uncle had named his vessel--lay at
Deptford, and as we walked from our inn, the _Cod and Lobster_ in Great
Tower Street, to see how her fitting out was proceeding, I was amazed
(this being the first time I had come to London) at the smells and the
noises of the narrow streets, and at the number of rough seamen whom we
met.  How much greater was my amazement when we came to the docks, and
I saw the multitude of shipping--the forests of masts, the great black
hulls, the crowds of lighters that moved in and out among them.  I
remember the fond air of pride with which my uncle pointed to his
vessel, and the smile upon his face when the captain spied him and
touched his hat.  Captain Corke did not in the least resemble the idea
I had formed of a sea-captain.  He was a little man, with lean cheeks,
and a brown wig a world too small for his head, so that I could see the
grey stubble of his own hair showing beneath it.  My uncle presented me
to him and to the first mate, Mr. Lummis, whose hand, when I shook it,
left a strange pattern of tar on mine.  Mr. Lummis was a rough-looking
man, with a square face and a tight mouth, who broke off his talk with
us very frequently to roar at one or other of the crew as they went to
and fro about their duties.  The captain took us over the vessel, which
was all very strange to a landsman, and showed me his own quarters in
the round house, and when we came to my uncle's cabin, which was
certainly not so big as Aunt Susan's larder, nor half so sweet, I
thought of what she had said, and for the first time I felt some pity
for my uncle, and wondered how he would endure the being cooped up in
so narrow a compass.  I was presented also to Mr. Bodger, the second
mate, who seemed a very shy and timid fellow, always looking away when
he spoke.  I did not see either Wabberley or Chick, but learnt by and
by that they were on shore beating up for a few men to make up the
ship's full complement.

Things were in a very forward state, and the captain said that the
_Lovey Susan_ would be ready to set sail in a week's time.  We spent
that week in going to and fro between the ship and our inn.  I own I
should have liked to see the sights of London, but my uncle was so much
in love with his vessel that he could not bear to be away from her, and
he would not let me go sight-seeing alone, saying that London was a
terrible wicked place for a boy.  The utmost he would consent to was to
ride out to Tilbury and ride in again, which was a very paltry
expedition.  When the end of the week came, there were still some
berths vacant, a number of the men having been seized for the king's
ships, the press being then very active.  This put my uncle in a
desperate state of annoyance.  He declared it was monstrous that his
men should be stolen when he was embarking on an adventure which might
bring great honour to the country.  Since it was plain that his
departure must be delayed, he said it was sinful for me to waste any
more time in London when I might be useful at the works, and so took
passage for me in the coach and dispatched me home.  Knowing that the
business would not suffer a jot by my absence, I wondered whether my
uncle dreaded a scene of parting; and for my part I was so sore at not
being allowed to accompany him that I thought it would save me an extra
pang if I did not take my farewell of him at the ship's side.

I found my aunt wonderfully cheerful.  She smiled when I told her of
the hindrances my uncle had met with, and declared that we should even
yet see him give up his whimsy and return to his proper business.  This
opinion, however, I scouted, and when, after about a week, we received
a letter from him, I felt sure as I broke the seal that it was a last
message penned on the eve of sailing.  It proved otherwise, being a
brief note to say that the crew was complete, through the good offices
of the obliging Chick, but that the departure was once more delayed, my
uncle being confined to his room at the _Cod and Lobster_ by a slight
attack of the gout.  My aunt was for starting at once to attend upon
her husband, but this I dissuaded her from, saying that by the time she
arrived in London the attack might have passed and the ship sailed, and
she would have made the long journey for nothing, besides wasting
money.  However, within three days comes another letter, in which my
uncle wrote that he was much worse, and desired me to come to him post
haste.  This letter gave my aunt much concern, but on the whole pleased
her mightily, for she was sure I had been sent for to bring my uncle
home, and she went about with that triumphant look which a good lady
wears when she sees events answer to her predictions.

I set off by the coach next morning.  When I opened the door of my
uncle's room he fairly screamed at me: "Take care! for mercy's sake
take care!"  I stepped back and looked about me in alarm, seeking for
some great peril against which I must be on my guard.  But I saw
nothing but my uncle sitting in a big chair, with one leg propped on a
stool, and his foot swathed in huge wrappings of flannel.  "Take care!"
he cried again with a groan as I approached.  "Mind my toe!  Keep a
yard away; not an inch nearer, or I shall yell the house down."  At
that time I was astonished beyond measure at my uncle's vehemence; but
having since then suffered from the gout myself--'tis in our family: my
grandfather was a martyr to it, I have been told--I know the terror
which a movement, even a gust of air, inspires in the sufferer.

My uncle told me, amid groans, that his heart was broken.  The _Lovey
Susan_ was ready; he had as good a captain and crew as any man could
wish to have, but he himself would never make the voyage.  Three
physicians, the best in London, were attending him, and their opinion
was that not only might he be some considerable time in recovering of
it, but that, being of a gouty habit of body, a new attack might seize
him at any moment and without warning.  "Suppose it took me on the
voyage, Harry!" he said, groaning deeply.  "Suppose I was like this on
board!  You saw my cabin; no room to swing a kitten.  What if a storm
blew up!  What if I was tossed about!"  Here he groaned again.  "No
doctors!  No comforts!  I must go home to Susan, my boy--if I can ever
stand the journey----  Oh!" he shouted, as a twinge took him.  "A
thousand plagues!  Give me my draught, Harry; take care!  Mind my toe!"

I was distressed at my uncle's pitiful plight.  'Twas plain that his
agony of mind was as great as that of his body, because of his
disappointment in the check to his cherished design.  For some while he
did nothing but groan; presently, when he was a little easier, he
announced the resolution he had come to, which was a great surprise to
me, but a still greater joy.  'Twas nothing less than that I should
take his place.  He could not abide that his plans should be brought to
nought.  He had weighed the matter carefully as he lay awake o' nights;
I was seventeen and nearly a man, and though no doubt I had gout in my
blood, I need not fear that enemy for some years to come.  Being
sober-minded (he was pleased to say), and well acquainted with his
purposes, I could very well represent him, and though this
responsibility was great for one of my years, yet it would teach me
self-reliance and strengthen my character.  He spoke to me long and
earnestly of the manner in which I should bear myself, with respect to
the captain and kindliness to the seamen; and I must never lose sight
of the object of the expedition, which was to discover the southern
continent, if it were the will of Providence, and so forestall the
French.

I fear I paid less heed than I ought to my uncle's solemn admonitions,
so overjoyed was I at the wonderful prospect opening before me.  Having
taken his resolution, my uncle was not the man to delay in executing
it.  He sent for Captain Corke, and acquainted him with his design,
adjuring him to regard me in all things as his deputy, and to take me
fully into his counsels.  He summoned before him Mr. Lummis and Mr.
Bodger, and Chick, who was made boatswain of the vessel, and addressed
them in my presence very solemnly, enlarging on the service they would
do their country if they assisted Captain Corke and me to bring the
expedition to a successful issue.  And then, having dismissed them, he
bade me fall on my knees (at a yard's distance from his toe), and
besought the blessing of the Almighty on the voyage.  A lump came into
my throat as I listened to his prayer, and when at its conclusion I
muttered my "Amen!" it expressed my earnest desire to do all that in me
lay to fulfil my uncle's behests, and, in God's good time, to give him
an account of my stewardship which should bring him comfort and
happiness.

Next day, it being Friday the 22nd of August and a fair day, we loosed
our moorings at four o'clock in the morning and fell down with the
tide.  We were lucky in encountering a favouring breeze when we came
out into the broad estuary of the river, and rounding the Foreland, we
set our course down channel.  The movements of the sailors in working
the ship gave me much entertainment, and the gentle motion of the
vessel, the sea being calm, caused not the least discomfort, though it
was the first time I had sailed upon the deep.

About eight o'clock in the evening, the time which mariners call
eight-bells, I was standing beside the captain on the main deck, and he
was pointing out a cluster of houses on the shore which he told me was
the fishing village of Margate, when we were aware of a commotion in
the fore-part of the vessel.  I distinguished the rough voice of Mr.
Lummis, shouting abuse with many oaths that were new and shocking to my
ears.  Presently the first mate comes up, hauling by the neck a boy of
some fifteen years, a short and sturdy fellow in dirty and ragged
garments, and with the grimiest face I ever did see.  Up comes Mr.
Lummis, I say, lugging this boy along, cuffing him about the head, and
still rating him with the utmost vehemence.  He hauls him in front of
the captain, and, shaking him as a terrier shakes a rat, says, "Here's
a young devil, sir, a ---- stowaway.  Found him on the strakes in the
bilge, sir, the ---- little swipe."

The captain looked at the boy, who stood with his shoulders hunched to
defend his head from the mate's blows, and then bidding Mr. Lummis
loose him, he asked him in a mild voice what he did aboard the vessel.
The boy rubbed his hand across his eyes, thereby spreading a black
smudge, and then answered in a tearful mumble that he didn't know.

"What's your name?" says the captain.

"Bobbin, sir," says the boy.

"Bobbin what?" says the captain.

"William, sir," says the boy.

"Bobbin William?" says the captain.

"William Bobbin," says the boy.

The captain looked sternly on William Bobbin for the space of a minute
or two, but I do not remember that he said anything more to him at that
time.  Mr. Lummis lugged him away and set him to some task, the captain
telling me that he would either put him ashore at some port in the
Channel or keep him if he gave promise of making himself useful.  I may
as well say here that Billy Bobbin, as we called him, was not sent
ashore when contrary winds made us put in at Plymouth.  It had come out
that his father was a blacksmith, of Limehouse, and the boy had run
away from the cruelties of his stepmother, and being strong of his
arms, and with some skill in smith's work, he proved a handy fellow.  I
often wondered whether his stepmother used him any worse than he was
used aboard our vessel.  The crew, as I was not long in finding out,
were a rough set of men, and seemed to look on Billy, being a stowaway,
as fair game.  He was a good deal knocked about among them, and the
officers, so far as I could see, did nothing to defend him from their
ill-usage.  When I spoke of it to the captain, he only said that was
the way at sea; and, indeed, Mr. Lummis himself was very free in
cuffing any of the seamen who displeased him, and once I saw him fell a
man to the deck with a marlin-spike, so that it was not to be wondered
at, when the men were thus treated, that they should deal in like
manner with the boy.  I did speak of it once to Wabberley, thinking he
might perhaps put in a word for Billy, and he promised to speak to
Chick, who would do anything to oblige; but I never observed that
anything came of it.

We had fair weather for a week or more, with light breezes, and I was
not the least incommoded by the motion of the vessel, whereby I began
to think that I should escape the sea-sickness of which I had heard
some speak.  But when we had passed the Lizard the wind freshened, and
the ship rolled so heavily that I turned very sick, and lay for several
days in my bunk a prey to the most horrible sufferings I ever endured,
so that I wished I was dead, and did nothing but groan.  During this
time I was left much to myself, the captain coming now and then to see
me, and ordering Clums the cook to give me a little biscuit soaked in
rum.  However, the sickness passed, and when I went on deck again the
captain told me that I had now found my sea-legs and should suffer no
more, a prediction which to my great thankfulness came true.

We proceeded without any remarkable incident until the 14th of
September, when we came to an anchor in Madeira road.  The captain sent
a party of men on shore to replenish our water-casks, Mr. Lummis going
with them carrying three pistols stuck in his belt.  I supposed that he
went thus armed for fear of some opposition from the natives of that
island, but the captain told me 'twas only to prevent the men from
deserting, it being not uncommon for such incidents to happen.  We
sailed again on the 17th, and for two months never saw land, until the
6th of November, when we anchored off Cape Virgin Mary in the country
named Patagonia.  There we perceived a great number of people on the
shore, who ran up and down both on foot and on horseback, hallooing to
us as if inviting us to land.  This the captain was resolved not to do,
somewhat to my disappointment, for I should have liked to see the
Indians more nearly, especially as I had heard many things about them
from Wabberley when he related his voyages to my uncle.  I had to
content myself with gazing at them through the captain's perspective
glass, and observed that all were tall and swarthy, and had a circle of
white painted round one eye, and a black ring about the other, the rest
of the face being streaked with divers colours, and their bodies almost
naked.  One man, who seemed to be a chief, was of a gigantic stature,
and painted so as to make the most hideous appearance I ever beheld,
with the skin of some wild beast thrown over his shoulders.

The captain questioned whether we should proceed through the Straits of
Magellan or attempt to double Cape Horn.  He decided for the latter
course, and having heard somewhat of the violent storms that were to be
encountered in that latitude, I was not a little apprehensive of our
safety.  However, having taken in water at a retired part of the coast,
we doubled the Cape after a voyage of rather more than two months,
having sustained no damage, and the _Lovey Susan_ sailed into the South
Sea.  Here the calm weather which had favoured us broke up, and for
several weeks we had strong gales and heavy seas, so that we were
frequently brought under our courses, and there was not a dry place in
the ship for weeks together.  Our upper works being open, and our
clothes and beds continually wet, as well from the heavy mists and
rains as from the washing of the seas, many of the crew sickened with
fever, and the captain kept his bed for several days.  On the first
fair day our clothes were spread on the rigging to dry, and the sick
were taken on deck and dosed with salop, which, with portable soup
boiled in their pease and oatmeal, and as much vinegar and mustard as
they could use, brought them in a fair way to recovery.

We proceeded on our voyage, the weather being variable, and I observed
that many strange birds came about the ship on squally days, which the
captain took for a sign that land was not far off.  He was anxious now
to make land, for the men began to fall with the scurvy, and even those
who were not seized by that plague looked pale and sickly.  We were
greatly rejoiced one day when the man at the masthead called out that
he saw land in the N.N.W., and within a little we sighted an island,
which approaching, we brought to, and the captain sent Mr. Lummis with
a boat fully manned and armed to the shore.  After some hours the boat
returned, bearing a number of cocoa-nuts and a great quantity of
scurvy-grass, which proved an inestimable comfort to our sick.  Mr.
Lummis reported that he had seen none of the inhabitants, who had all
fled away, it was plain, at the sight of our vessel.  It being evening,
we stood off all night, and in the morning the captain sent two boats
to find a place where the ship might come to an anchor.  But this was
found to be impossible, by reason of the reef surrounding the island.
The captain marked it down on his chart, and called it Brent Island
after my uncle; but I learnt many years afterward that it had already
been named Whitsun Island by Captain Wallis, having discovered it on
Whitsun Eve.  We sailed away, hoping for better fortune.  There was
none of us but longed to stretch our legs on the solid earth again, and
I think maybe it had been better for us if the captain had permitted
the men to stay for a while at Cape Virgin Mary or some other spot on
the coast of Patagonia, for the being cooped up for so many months
within the compass of a vessel of no great size must needs be trying to
the spirits even of men accustomed to it.

However, within a few days of our leaving Brent Island we made another,
that afforded a safe anchorage.  Here we went ashore by turns, and the
native people being very friendly, we stayed for upwards of a fortnight
among them.  It was an inestimable blessing, after living so long on
ship's fare--salt junk and pease and hard sea-biscuit (much of it
rotten and defiled by weevils)--to please our appetites with fresh meat
and fruits, and these the natives very willingly provided in exchange
for knives and beads and looking-glasses and other such trifles.  It
was now I tasted for the first time many vegetable things of which I
had known nothing save from the reports of Wabberley and Chick and the
books I had heard my uncle read--yams (a great fibrous tuber that
savoured of potatoes sweetened), bananas (a fruit shaped like a sausage
and tasting like a pear, though not so sweet), and bread-fruit, a
marvellous fruit that grows on a tree about the size of a middling oak,
and is the nearest in flavour to good wheaten bread that ever I ate.
As for flesh meat and poultry, we had that in plenty, the island being
perfectly overrun with pigs (rather boars than our English swine) and
fowls no different from our own, except that they were more active on
the wing.  In this place, I say, we stayed for a fortnight or more, and
were marvellously invigorated by the change of food, so that our men
recovered the ruddy look of health, and the scurvy wholly left us.

During this time the captain and I lodged in a hut obligingly lent us
by the chief of the island.  We talked frequently of the main purpose
of our adventure, the discovery of a southern continent, the captain
intending, when we left the island, to sail southwards by west, into
latitudes to which his charts gave him very little guide.  After we had
spent some time in diligent search, whether we made the discovery or
not, he proposed sailing north again, and visiting Otaheite and other
islands whereon Captain Cook had landed, for another part of my uncle's
purpose, though lesser, was to find what opportunities for trading
there were in these seas.  It was the first part that engaged my fancy
the most, pleasing myself with the thought of my uncle's pride if we
should succeed where so many navigators before us had failed.

When we left the island and sailed away, I remarked that the crew were
very loath to quit this land of ease and plenty.  Indeed, when we
mustered the crew before embarking, we found that Wabberley and Hoggett
the sailmaker were amissing, and the captain in a great rage sent Mr.
Lummis with a party to find them.  Chick offered to lead another party,
so as to scour the whole island (which was only a few miles across)
more expeditiously; but this the captain would not permit, for what
reason I knew not then, though I afterwards had cause to suspect it.
Half-a-day was wasted before the truants were brought back, and though
they pretended that they had lost their way in the woods that covered
the centre of the island, they looked so glum when they came that I
conceived a notion that Wabberley, a lazy fellow at all times, would
not have been much put about if we had sailed without him.  It came
into my head that in the play of _The Tempest_, when the sailors are
cast upon an island, one of them proposes to make himself its king and
the other his minister, and I was amused to think how Wabberley and
Hoggett would have disputed about the allotment of those dignities,
even as Stephano and Trinculo.

We took on board a good store of the fruits of the island, and sailed
for many days without dropping our anchor, though we passed several
islands both large and small.  Then on a sudden the wind failed us, our
sails hung idle, and for many days we lay becalmed, the vessel being so
close wrapt about by mist that we could not see beyond a fathom line.
This had a bad effect on the temper of the men, who, being perforce
idle, had the more time for quarrelling, which is ever apt to break
out, even among good folk, when there is little to do.  Some lay in a
kind of sullen stupor about the deck; others cast the dice and wrangled
with oaths and much foul talk; and when they tired even of this, they
took a cruel delight in tormenting poor Billy Bobbin in many ingenious
ways.  So long did the calm endure that our store of fresh provision
gave out, and the men were put on short allowance, at which, although
the need of it was plain, they murmured as much as they dared.  Having
always in mind my uncle's counsel to deal kindly with them, I had been
treated hitherto with respect; but I now observed that some of them
looked askance at me as I went about the ship, and once or twice after
I had passed I heard a muttering behind me, and then a burst of coarse
laughter.  To make matters worse, the captain again fell sick of a kind
of calenture, and took to his bed.  For all he was a quiet man, he
exercised a considerable authority over the crew, much greater than Mr.
Lummis, though the first mate was rougher, and sparing neither of oaths
nor of blows.  With the captain always in his cabin the men became the
more unruly, and I longed very fervently for a breeze to spring up, so
that the need for work might effect a betterment in their tempers.

One day when I was in the fore part of the ship, I heard a great hubbub
in the forecastle, and looking down through the scuttle, I saw a big
ruffian of a fellow--it was that same Hoggett whom I have mentioned
before--I saw him, I say, very brutally thrashing Billy Bobbin, dealing
him such savage blows on the bare back with a rope-end that his flesh
stood up in great livid weals, the rest of the men laughing and
jeering.  The boy was so willing and good-tempered that I knew there
could be no just cause for such heavy punishment, and he was withal of
a brave spirit, bearing the stripes with little outcry until one stroke
of especial fierceness caused him to shriek with the pain.  I had a
liking for Billy, and when I saw him thus ill-used I could no longer
contain myself, but springing down through the scuttle, I seized
Hoggett's arm and so prevented the rope from falling.  Hoggett held the
boy with his left hand, but when I caught him and commanded him to
cease, he loosed Billy and turned upon me, dealing me a blow with the
rope before I was aware of it, and demanding with a string of oaths
what I meant by interfering, and crying that I had no business in the
forecastle.  At this I got into a fury, and without thinking of the
odds against me I smote him in the face with my fist, an exceedingly
foolish thing to do with a man of his size.  In a moment I lay
stretched on the deck, with the fellow above me, belabouring me with
his great fist so that I was like to be battered to a jelly, and I
doubt not would have been but that Mr. Lummis chanced to come by.
Seeing what was afoot he sprang down after me and immediately felled
Hoggett with a hand-spike.  I was very much bruised, and felt sore for
a week after, and withal greatly distressed in mind, for none of the
men, not even Wabberley, who was among them, had offered to help me,
and I could not but look on this as a very clear proof that a dangerous
spirit was growing up among the crew.  True, I was not an officer of
the ship, and was not in my rights in giving orders, as Hoggett said
when Mr. Lummis sentenced him to the loss of half his rum for the week.
But being nephew of the owner of the vessel, I considered, and justly,
that my position was as good as an officer's; and as for my striking
the man, Mr. Lummis did as much every day.

It was on the day after this that Billy Bobbin came to me with a tale
that disturbed me mightily.  He had been for some time uneasy in his
mind, he said, but owned that he would still have kept silence but for
my intervention in his behalf.  He sought me after sunset (in those
latitudes it falls dark about seven o'clock), when the men were at
their supper, and he might talk to me unobserved.  He said that the men
had been grumbling ever since we left the island where we had stayed.
They had a hearty dislike to the purpose of our expedition, and a great
scorn as well, deeming the search for a southern continent to be merely
a fool's quest.  I own it caused me vast surprise to learn that
Wabberley was the most scornful of them all, saying that, having been
with Captain Cook on his first voyage, he knew there was no such
continent, or the captain would have found it, and telling the others
dreadful particulars of the tribulations they suffered: how some of
them spent a night of terror and freezing cold (though 'twas midsummer)
on a hillside of Tierra del Fuego, and how, out of a company of eighty,
the half died of fever or scurvy.  And in contrast to these ills he
told us of the lovely island of Savu, and of Otaheite, where there was
everything that man could wish for--a genial climate, the earth
yielding its fruits without labour, or at least with the little labour
that a man might demand of his wives (for he could have as many wives
as he listed); in a word, a paradise where men might live at their ease
and never do a hand's turn more.  Furthermore, Billy told me (and this
was the most serious part) that he had overheard the men talking, a
night or two before, of deserting in a body when we next went ashore
(provided the island was one of the fruitful sort, for there were some
barren), and leave the officers to navigate the vessel as best they
might.  Great as my surprise had been to hear that Wabberley was one of
the moving spirits of this conspiracy, still greater was it when Billy
told me that this purpose of deserting was mooted by Joshua Chick the
boatswain.  I had never been drawn to that obliging person; nay, his
very obligingness had annoyed me, just as sometimes I am nowadays
annoyed by a person over-officious in handing cups of tea; and when I
came to put two and two together, I could not doubt that this scheme
had been in the man's mind from the first.  In short, he and Wabberley
had taken advantage of my uncle's hobby to beguile him upon setting
this expedition on foot, for no other reason than to find a means of
returning to these southern islands, where they might live in sloth and
luxurious ease.

Bidding Billy to be silent on what he had told me, I went to the
captain, who, as I have said, was ill in his bunk, and acquainted him
with this pretty plot that was a-hatching.  He was in a mighty taking,
I warrant you, and swore that he would hang the mutineers at the
yard-arm, at the same time handing me a sixpence to give to Billy
Bobbin for his fidelity.  He called Mr. Lummis and Mr. Bodger into
council, and could hardly prevail on the former not to fling the
ringleaders into irons at once.  Mr. Bodger, whom I had always regarded
as a man of mild disposition, suggested that they should be put ashore
among cannibals, and so be disposed of in the cook-pot (the natives,
for the most part, boiling their meat), which led Mr. Lummis to
declare, with a volley of oaths, that if the calm lasted much longer
they would want food aboard the vessel, and Wabberley would cut up
well.  I own such talk as this seemed to me very ill-suited to the
occasion, though when it came to the point the officers were not barren
of practicable schemes for dealing with the mutineers, as will be seen
hereafter.




CHAPTER THE THIRD

OF THE NAVIGATION OF STRANGE SEAS; OF MUTTERINGS AND DISCONTENTS, OF
DESERTION, OF MUTINY AND OF SHIPWRECK.


We lay becalmed for several days longer, during which time there was no
further outbreak among the men, for the captain bestirred himself and
came on deck, though in truth he was not fit for it.  His mere presence
seemed to make for peace and quietness.  He had counselled the officers
to alter nothing in their conduct, yet to be watchful; and I think he
never feared a mutiny on board the ship, expecting no danger until we
should set foot to land again.

At length the mist cleared, the sails once more filled, and we set our
courses again towards the south-west.  The men went about their duties
at first cheerfully, for the mere pleasure of action after so long
idleness; but when, after about a week, they perceived that the captain
held steadily on his course, without offering to touch at any of the
islands we sighted, their looks fell gloomy again, and there was some
grumbling, though subdued.  Though our fresh food was now all gone, we
still had great stores of the common victuals--biscuit and pease and
oatmeal, besides salt junk, a sufficiency of rum, and water for two
months.  This was sparingly used, every man of us washing in salt
water, which made my skin smart very much until I was used to it.

Day by day, as we approached the high latitudes, the air became
sensibly colder, and in the morning we sometimes saw icicles on the
rigging.  The sky was for the most part gloomy; showers of sleet and
hail beat upon us, and I own I felt a pity for the sailors at these
times, having to spend so many long hours below decks in darkness and
stench.  For days at a stretch we crept through thick fogs, and by and
by came among icefloes, and then among icebergs, against which we ran
some risk of being shipwrecked, so that we had to keep a very careful
look-out.  When I marked the growing discontent of the men, I feared
lest they should rise in mutiny and take the navigation of the vessel
into their own hands, and I verily believe we were only saved from this
by the captain's change of mind.  He made it a point of honour to
fulfil the desires of my uncle so far as he might, and would have
continued the search for the southern continent against all risks; but
when the ice grew constantly thicker, and our fresh water began to lie
perilously low, he concluded that it was folly to try any more for that
season, and so steered north.

Our men were greatly rejoiced at this resolution, and their
cheerfulness was such that I began to lose my fear of untoward
happenings.  When I said as much to the captain, however, he observed
that our particular danger would arise when we came to a land of
plenty.  It was his ill hap again to be seized with sickness at this
time, and he seldom left his bunk in the roundhouse.

[Sidenote: The South Seas]

One fair day--I think it was about a year after our sailing from
Deptford--we sighted an island which did not appear on our chart, but
which, on our nearer approach, gave promise of furnishing that
refreshment of which we were in need.  It was very well wooded, and we
knew while still a great way off that it was inhabited, seeing through
our perspective glass a good number of canoes about its shore.  When we
came within a little distance of it some of the canoes put off towards
us, and a crowd of people stood on the beach, inviting us as well by
their gestures as their loud cries to land.  The captain, who had come
out of the roundhouse and sat on a stool by the door, considering that
the fertility of the place and the friendliness of the natives favoured
us, ordered the vessel to be hove to, and a boat to be made ready, with
casks for bringing back a supply of water.  He then appointed a dozen
of the crew to man the boat, calling them before him, and commanding
them very strictly that they should not stray far from the
neighbourhood of the beach, but fill their casks at the nearest spring
or freshet, and purchase what vegetables and fruit they could in
exchange for such trifles as I have before mentioned.  I observed that
the captain had not chosen Wabberley and Hoggett, or any other of the
men whom we certainly knew to be disaffected: indeed, both Hoggett and
Chick, with several more, were then sick of the scurvy.  The captain
set Mr. Bodger over the boat's crew, and he went with a cutlass and two
pistols in his belt, but the men were without arms.

As soon as they set off, being accompanied by two canoes which had by
this time reached our vessel, Mr. Lummis, at a word from the captain,
commanded the men that remained on board to collect all the arms that
were in the ship and bring them into the roundhouse.  It was plain from
their looks that they were amazed and confounded at this order, which
they obeyed very sullenly, Mr. Lummis having in sight of them all stuck
a pistol in his belt.  As they went to and fro they eyed the captain
suspiciously, and cast many a glance towards the shore, where their
fellows were beginning their task amid a great uproar of the natives.
It had been arranged between the captain and Mr. Lummis that this
precaution regarding the arms should be taken when the crew was thus
divided, so that we should have the means of coping with any mutinous
outbreak.  The captain also insisted that I should take a pistol, which
I was loath to do, having never fired one in my life.

The arms had all been bestowed in the roundhouse before the boat
returned with its first cargo.  When the men came aboard they began to
tell their messmates of the exceeding richness of the island, as far as
they had seen it, but they had gone but a little way in their tale
before the other men broke in with an account of what had been done in
their absence, which made them dumb with astonishment.  Being conscious
of their guilty designs, they perceived that we knew them too, though
they were not able in their first surprise to divine the means by which
we had obtained our knowledge.  However, it was not a time to take
counsel together, with the officers about them, and as they had
performed but a small part of their task on shore, they went back into
the boat with as meek a look as ever I saw.

[Sidenote: Mutterings]

When they came again to the island, they set about their work as
before, though more sluggishly; but having filled a cask or two, and
brought them to the boat, I observed them, all but one, go up the
strand again without another cask to be replenished.  I supposed that
they were now going to procure vegetables, but Mr. Lummis, who was
standing at my side, suddenly let forth a great oath, bidding me
observe that the men went empty-handed.  And then we saw Mr. Bodger,
who had been left at the boat, hastily following them, and though we
were too far off to hear any words distinctly (besides, the native
people still made a great clamour), we could tell by his motions that
the mate was calling after them, and we saw two or three of them turn
round and laugh at him, and then go on up the island amid a concourse
of the natives.  Mr. Lummis cried out to him to use his pistol on the
mutinous dogs, but he could not hear, and indeed he was a timid man,
besides being apprehensive, perhaps, that the natives, many of whom had
long spears, would turn upon him if he offered any violence.  This
notion of ours had some colour when we saw him return hastily to the
boat, and endeavour, with the only man of them all that was left, to
launch her.  This, however, they were unable to do, the boat being
beached high on the sand, and heavy with the full casks already laid in
her.

Mr. Lummis went into the roundhouse, whither the captain had retired,
to acquaint him with these proceedings.  They thought, and so did I,
that the men were putting in act the plot of which Billy Bobbin had
told us, though it seemed to me strange that they should have gone
without the ringleaders, who were still on board the vessel.  We were
considering of this when Mr. Lummis, with another great oath, cried out
that he saw through the rascals' plan, which was, he said, to tempt us
to send another boat's crew after them, and then, having both the mates
ashore, to overpower them, as they would easily do with the aid of the
natives, in spite of the pistols.  But he swore that he would prove one
too many for them, and having trained on the beach one of the six
swivel guns we carried, he commanded two of the men to lower the
dinghy, and then to come to the roundhouse for the captain's orders.

This being done, and the men coming in, the captain looked very
severely upon them, and said that he was about to send them with Mr.
Lummis to bring off the boat with Mr. Bodger in it, and that if they
should attempt to join the rascals on shore, who had flatly disobeyed
orders, Mr. Lummis would shoot them instantly.  This he said in a very
loud tone of voice, so as to be heard by the rest of the crew, who had
sneaked up out of curiosity to learn what was toward.  The two men with
Mr. Lummis then descended into the dinghy, Mr. Lummis taking with him a
large piece of bright-coloured cloth, two small looking-glasses, and a
new sailor's knife.

When they came to the shore, Mr. Lummis stepped out and waved the cloth
above his head, at which a number of the people came running to him,
making strange and uncouth cries.  I had afterwards, as will be seen,
to learn how hard it is to communicate with men who have no common
speech with us; but even as the beasts are able to hold converse with
their kind, so the great Creator of all things has given to man the
power to make his thoughts plain to folk sundered in speech by the
iniquity of Babel.  Mr. Lummis contrived to make these poor savages
understand his wishes, and when, with the aid of them and of the
seamen, the large boat was launched, and was rowed back to the ship,
taking the dinghy in tow, one of their canoes came also, with some of
their chief men in it.

At the invitation of Mr. Lummis, the savages came aboard our vessel,
and then, with much pains, he acquainted them further with his desires.
He pointed to the seamen who were gathered on deck, and then to the
island, with gestures signifying that the men of their kind who had
first landed must be brought back.  He made them understand that a
price would be paid for each man that was recovered, either a piece of
cloth, or a knife, or a looking-glass like those he showed to them.
And then, bethinking him that it were profitable to impress them with a
sense of his power, he ordered the gun to be fired with a blank charge,
at whose roar the savages fell flat upon their faces, and lay for some
while quaking in a great fear.  After this they made haste to get into
their canoe and paddle to the shore, which was now deserted, all the
people having fled away at the sound of our gun; and they ran very
fleetly up into the wooded country and disappeared from our view.

We saw nothing more of them or of our seamen that day; but early the
next morning, almost as soon as it was light, we heard a great
commotion on the shore, and soon perceived a vast throng flocking to
the beach, with our men among them.  There they were cast with some
roughness into three of the canoes, and I perceived by the manner of
their falling, like as sheep when they are cast into a cart, that their
limbs were tied, which, without doubt, sorely ruffled their tempers,
being Englishmen.  When the canoes came alongside our vessel, the
natives shouting and yelling like mad things, Mr. Lummis let down a
sling over the side, in which our men were hoisted one by one to the
deck.  It was as much as I could do to keep from laughing, so sorry was
their look, their faces being scratched and bruised, and their garments
very much tattered, and indeed on one or two hanging mere shreds.  Mr.
Lummis heartily cursed each one as he came up, with many quaint
derisive observations which mightily vexed them.  We had taken seven or
eight aboard when Mr. Lummis, looking over those that were left in the
canoes, perceived that there were only ten in all, when there should
have been eleven, the party having numbered twelve at the first, of
whom one had returned with Mr. Bodger.  Mr. Lummis flew into a rage at
this, supposing that the natives had kept back one man, with a design
to chaffer for a higher price; but when he demanded of the rest where
Wilkins was (that being the name of him who was missing), they answered
sullenly that he was dead, for he had offered a stout resistance when
the savages attempted to tie his hands, and had the temerity to fell
the chief himself with his fist.  This spirited act, which was in truth
worthy of a true-born Englishman, cost him his life, for he was
instantly thrust through with spears.  I doubt not his death was the
means of saving the lives of the rest, for seeing what had befallen
their comrade, and being unarmed, they submitted (though surely with an
ill grace) to be bound, and were so brought back to their vessel, as I
have said.  The savages having received the presents promised them
returned to the island, where they immediately fell a-quarrelling about
the apportionment of their wages, and we saw that the strip of coloured
cloth was very soon torn into a hundred little pieces.

[Sidenote: Mutiny]

As for the seamen, they were by the captain's orders immediately put
into irons and laid in the hold.  Though we had not taken aboard near
as much water or provision as we intended, yet the captain would not
risk the sending of another crew to the island, albeit he might safely
have done so, I think, the men being for the time sufficiently tamed.
We had to wait the best part of the day for a breeze; then we weighed
anchor and stood away to the north.  While the island was still in
sight, the wind suddenly shifted its quarter, and blew first a gale and
then a hurricane, so that we had to shorten canvas.  While this was
a-doing the sea was lashed to a fury, prodigious waves sweeping over
the deck and buffeting the vessel so heavily that her timbers shook,
and we feared the masts would go by the board.  With ten men in irons
and about as many weakened by the scurvy, the crew were pretty hard
pressed, and though they worked with a will, since their very lives
depended on it, they railed without measure against the captain and Mr.
Lummis, heedless of what punishment might be dealt to them when the
storm abated.  Presently a cry arose that the vessel had sprung a leak,
and since none of those above could be spared to man the pumps, Mr.
Lummis ordered the men in irons to be brought up, and made them work at
the pumps in turn.  The storm rather increased than diminished in fury,
and the seamen were seized with a fear that the vessel would founder,
and I heard them mingle prayers and curses in a breath, reviling the
captain for taking them from the hospitable island, and crying out
"Lord, have mercy on us!" again and again.  Darkness fell upon us while
we were still battling with the storm, which added to our terrors, for
the vessel would not obey the helm, and we knew not but we might be
cast upon some coral reef, such as abound in those regions, and there
be clean broken up.  In this extremity of peril I own I was dreadfully
afraid, and prayed very fervently that we might be saved, thinking too
of my uncle and aunt, and the happiness I had enjoyed with them,
casting my mind back over many things in my past life, almost as a
drowning man does, at least I have heard so.

I was inexpressibly relieved when at last the violence of the tempest
abated, in the wind first, for it was long before the turbulence of the
sea was sensibly diminished.  About the middle of the night, however,
we were able to stand once more upright on the deck without clinging to
the shrouds or other things for support, and then, being utterly worn
out, we sought repose, but not before the leak had been discovered and
stopped, which took a long time, and the unruly seamen who were in
irons once more confined in the hold.  I gave hearty thanks to God who
had so mercifully delivered us, and went to my bunk in as peaceful a
frame of mind as if it were my bed at home.

I was awakened, how long afterwards I know not, by Mr. Bodger breaking
into my cabin, which was on the maindeck, and calling on me to come
instantly to the quarterdeck, and bring my pistol, for the crew had
risen in mutiny, and having made a rush to the hold had liberated the
men in irons.  I sprang up and cast my coat, which was still dripping
wet, about me, and seizing my pistol, followed the man up to where Mr.
Lummis and the captain stood in front of the roundhouse.  But a moment
after I joined them we were aware that the crew were advancing to
attack us, judging by the sounds of their shouting, for the night was
so black that we could see but little, the men having put out the sole
lantern.  We were in a very desperate case, being but four against the
whole crew, saving some few who were sick, not one of the men having
come to our side; the captain, moreover, being very feeble from his
illness.  But we had all the firearms at our command, and Mr. Lummis
trusted by means of these to do such execution among the mutineers that
they would lose heart, and while the worst of them would be cowed, the
better-disposed would yield to authority.  Thus we four stood side by
side, and as the men drew near Mr. Lummis called to them in a loud
voice, warning them that we had weapons which we would use upon them if
they did not instantly return to their duty.  There was silence for a
space; the shuffling of bare feet on the deck ceased; then a voice
called out (I think it was Hoggett's) that the captain should return to
the island we had lately left, and let 'em rest and recruit themselves,
they being dead sick of sailing without end.  He finished by saying
that if the captain did not consent to this course, they would slit his
weazand and cast him to the sharks, and serve all of us the same, and
we had best make our choice without delay.  Mr. Lummis, to whom the
captain left all this matter, roared out a string of oaths and
commanded the men to seize that rascal who had the insolency to order
the captain's goings.  There was a great laugh, very horrid to hear,
being rather the sound that wild beasts would make than men; then there
was again silence, or rather we heard the low murmurs of the men
talking among themselves.  Mr. Lummis cursed again, but this time under
his breath, and muttering "They mean mischief," he bade Mr. Bodger in a
whisper put out the lantern that swung from the roof of the roundhouse
behind us, and so made a light against which our forms, as we stood on
the threshold, could be distinctly seen by the men.  This was no sooner
done than there came a single shrill blast on the sea-pipe, and the men
rushed up towards us with fierce shouts that made my flesh creep.

"Fire!" cried Mr. Lummis loud enough to be heard above all the din.  As
I have said before, I had never in my life fired a pistol, and what
with excitement and flurry, my finger fumbled a little at the trigger,
so that I was a thought behind the others; but even in that little
moment I heard terrible screams as the bullets from the officers'
pistols flew among the crew; and though I fired mine immediately after,
I could not tell whether 'twas pointed up or down, or in what direction
soever, and I was seized with a fit of shuddering when the thought came
to me in a flash that peradventure I had slain a fellow-creature.  You
may think I was a coward, and perhaps I was; but yet I think I was not,
but only new at such kind of work, because I do not recollect that ever
I felt the same way again when I had to defend myself, as will appear
in order.

This first discharge of our weapons caused the mutineers to draw back,
and we instantly seized other pistols which Mr. Lummis had laid in
readiness within reach.  He called out, "Have ye had enough, you dogs?"
and from the silence I really thought they had, especially as Mr.
Bodger whispered that he heard no groans, and so believed that the men
who were hit must be dead.  But all of a sudden, without any kind of
warning, except a slight whistling in the air, and then it was too
late, there was a crash a little to the left of me, where the captain
stood, and looking round I saw him lying in a heap against the wall of
the roundhouse, and heard him groan.  "Fire!" shouted Mr. Lummis again,
but I was on my knees beside the captain, who told me very faintly that
he had been struck on the head by something; and, indeed, when I felt
along the deck with my hand I found the marlin-spike which had done the
mischief.  He bid me stand and help the officers, whose shots I had
again heard; but scarce had I risen to my feet when Mr. Lummis staggers
against me and cries that his arm is broken.  At the same moment there
was a great crash of breaking glass, which made us know that another
missile had smashed the skylight of the roundhouse; and then, when
there came a perfect clatter of heavy things, belaying pins and the
like, striking the timbers of the roundhouse, Mr. Lummis said that we
must withdraw into that place, or we should be battered to pieces.
Accordingly Mr. Bodger and I, we dragged the captain within the sliding
door and shut it fast, and taking the table and bench we drove them
against the door as a barricado, which we had scarcely done before the
men, guessing by the cessation of our fire what had happened, came
outside and hammered on the wood, shouting with triumph and derision.
"Send a bullet through the door, sir," cries Mr. Lummis, which I did,
and there was a howl of pain, and the men scuttled away, for being
without firearms they were still at a disadvantage against us.

Mr. Bodger having relit the lantern, we saw that the captain had
fainted clean away, and there was a great cut in his head from which
the blood was flowing.  While I dashed some water upon his face and
poured a little rum between his lips, Mr. Bodger looked to the hurts of
the chief mate, who was roaring as much with fury as with pain.  It
proved that his arm was indeed broken, as he had said, and I never
heard anybody howl as he did when Mr. Bodger made shift to set it and
bind it up.  Meanwhile the captain had come to, but his face was
ghastly pale, and I feared the worst from the enfeebled state in which
he was.

I was already aware, from the altered motion of the vessel, that her
course had been changed, and could not doubt that the mutineers were
purposing to sail back to the island we had quitted.  In this matter we
were wholly at their mercy, but I thought it a very hazardous
proceeding in the blackness of the night, especially as they had no
chart and could not have the least notion of how to set the course
truly.  It would have been at least the act of reasonable men to heave
to and wait for morning light; but I had already observed that seamen
have little forethought, being like children in that respect, and they
were so eager to attain the haven of their desires as to be ready to
brave the perils of striking a reef or running aground on a shoal.  We
talked together of what we should do if the vessel arrived at an
island, Mr. Bodger saying he feared they would murder us or maybe hand
us over to the savages, for though we were secure against them while we
remained in the roundhouse, 'twas clear that we must needs issue forth
some time, or starve for want of food.

[Sidenote: Shipwreck]

Some time had passed, I know not how long, when we became aware of a
marvellous perplexing change in the atmosphere.  I felt a strange
tingling in my fingers; Mr. Bodger declared he was all pins and
needles, and Mr. Lummis cried out with an oath, without which indeed he
seldom spoke, that some one was walking over his grave.  Almost as the
words left his lips a tremendous shock, as of an immense wave striking
the vessel, sent us all spinning to the deck, and immediately
afterwards there was a mighty crash, and Mr. Lummis cried that the
mainmast had gone by the board.  The vessel had so listed that we
expected she would instantly founder; but she righted herself, and then
we heard a great hubbub outside, the men calling one to another in
accents of affright and dismay.  It being plain that the vessel was in
a desperate case, I thought the seamen would be too intent on saving
their own lives to have any notion of taking ours; so with Mr. Bodger's
help I pulled away our barricado and opened the door.  By the light of
the lantern I saw the seamen most frantically cutting away the
wreckage, in the midst of which there came a great shout that the leak
had opened again, only much bigger than before, and that water was
pouring into the hold.  Instantly there was a cry to lower the boats;
none thought of manning the pumps, which indeed would have been vain,
as we saw pretty soon.  We had three boats aboard, but one of these had
been smashed by the fall of the mast, and the men were cutting the
lashings of the other two, some also casting into them whatever things
they could lay hands on, never stopping to consider whether they were
useful or no.  They lowered the boats over the side, not without great
danger, for the vessel was rolling heavily, and then began to jump into
them.  I could not believe that they would be so heartless as to leave
their officers to go down with the ship, though they had proceeded
hitherto without so much as a look towards us; and rushing among them,
I cried out that the captain and Mr. Lummis were severely hurt, begging
them to wait just so long as to rescue them.  But they thrust me away,
and Chick with a brutal laugh shouted that the officers might drown for
all he cared, and when I still urged him he dealt me such a buffet that
I fell sprawling among the wreckage.

When I rose to my feet, having lain stunned for a space, there was not
a man to be seen.  I was for a little while like one demented, running
to the side of the vessel--which had no bulwarks, but only a timber
railing--with the intent to fling myself into the boat, and so escape.
But then I thought of the officers, and could not bring myself to
desert them in their extremity, and so ran back to the roundhouse, to
see if by any means we could devise a raft of spars sufficient at least
to keep us afloat.  I found Mr. Lummis stretched on the deck, having,
it seemed, stumbled over some of the wreckage and hurt his arm again,
so that he fainted.  There was a figure standing by the door, which I
at first took to be Mr. Bodger, but on running up to ask him concerning
that matter of the raft, I perceived with amazement that it was not the
second mate at all, but Billy Bobbin.  I looked around, but no Mr.
Bodger could I see; I called aloud for him, but there was no answer,
nor could I tell whether he had fallen overboard or been taken away
among the men.  I rushed again to the side, hoping that even at the
last the seamen might have repented; but it was all one blackness; the
boats were clean gone.

I went back, and seeing both Mr. Lummis and the captain still lying
motionless on the deck, I was well-nigh overcome with the horror of our
situation, and sat me down on a coil of rope and buried my face in my
hands.  But in a moment I sprang up; I could not consult with the
officers, but there was Billy Bobbin, whom I supposed the men had
refused to take with them--I learnt afterwards that he had not offered
to go, but had remained of set purpose to stand by me who had treated
him kindly.  He told me, too, that Mr. Lummis had not fainted, but had
been thrown down by the men, who came rummaging in the roundhouse for
arms, of which they took several, and powder and shot.  I cried to
Billy to help me build a raft, for, little of a seaman though I was, I
perceived that the vessel was already beginning to settle down.  We had
but a single lamp to assist us, and to add to our trouble, a great
storm of wind and rain beat upon us, causing the ship to labour so
heavily that we could scarce keep our feet.  I was fairly at my wits'
end.  If it had been daylight, and calm, we might have heaved some
spars and planks overboard and lashed them together, but that was
impossible in the darkness.  Moreover, if we made a raft strong enough
to hold us four, we could not by any means, Billy and me, lift it and
launch it from the deck.  All that we could do was to lash together
what spars and planks we could find there on the deck, and trust that
when the vessel foundered we might contrive to cling to it, though how
we were to fasten the helpless officers to it I was not any way able to
see.

While these perplexities were tossing in my brain my hands were not
idle; indeed, I wrought so desperately, and Billy too, that the skin
was torn from our fingers, though we did not know it until the dawn
showed them to us all sore and bleeding.  It was growing misty light,
and we had finished our raft, a poor makeshift thing, but the best we
could do, and were considering of how to fasten the officers to it,
when all of a sudden the ship gave a great lurch, and while we were
endeavouring to save ourselves from being cast into the sea, the deck
beneath us was riven asunder with a noise as of a great gun.  Of what
happened then I know nothing; but when I had again possession of my
senses, I found myself struggling in the sea, in desperate straits for
breath.  For some while I could see nothing, in such confusion was I;
but presently, breathing more easily, and keeping myself afloat, I
perceived that the ship had totally disappeared, and I was amid a
strange assemblage of all manner of small objects bobbing up and down
on the surface.  In a little I spied our raft, and near by it the wreck
of the mainmast, which had been cut almost clear by the seamen before
they took to their boats; but never a sign was there of Mr. Lummis or
the captain or Billy.  I struck out for the raft, wondering within
myself whether I had strength to reach it, for I was marvellously
exhausted, having, as I came to think afterwards, been drawn down to a
great depth by the sinking vessel.  All at once I saw a head rise above
the further edge of the raft, and a moment after Billy scrambled on to
it, and flung himself down as utterly spent.  I strove to strike out
more lustily, feeling a great joy that one at least of my comrades was
saved; but my strength was so far gone from me, and the sea so
disturbed, that I made scarce any progress, and in an extremity of
despair, gasping as I was, I raised my head above the water and shouted
Billy's name.  He lifted himself and looked about him amazedly; then
spying me at a distance of six fathoms or more, as I guessed, he leaped
into the sea and came swimming towards me.  I was at the point of
sinking when, with inexpressible joy, I felt his arm placed beneath me,
and thus sustained by him I plied my limbs again, though with great
effort, and came at length to the raft, which I seized eagerly, and
rested a while until I should recover strength enough to clamber upon
it as he had done.  However, when I made the essay, the side of the
raft sank beneath my weight, and I know not what I should have done had
not Billy bid me still cling to it while he swam round to the other
side, and then, both heaving ourselves up at the same moment, we
contrived to get aboard of it, and sank utterly fordone at either end,
and Billy burst into tears.




CHAPTER THE FOURTH

OF THE MEANS WHEREBY WE CHEATED NEPTUNE AND CAME WITHIN THE GRIP OF
VULCAN; AND OF THE INHUMANITY OF THE MARINERS


We sat, or rather crouched, on the raft, and 'twas a mercy the sea was
not now so tempestuous, for had it been, I am sure we should have had
no strength to battle with it.  The rain had ceased, but a white mist
lay over the water, and, dripping wet as I was, I shivered and my teeth
chattered and I felt desperately sick.  All around us floated sundry
bits of wreckage--planks and spars, a hencoop, some pots and pans and
empty barrels, and near at hand a something that caused me a sharp pang
at heart: it was Captain Corke's wig, and I thought of that good
seaman, and of Mr. Lummis too, both gone to their long account.  For a
time, as I contemplated the flotsam by which we were surrounded, I gave
never a thought to the unhappy posture of Billy and me; but all at once
it came upon me with a great shock that we were castaways on the wide
ocean, far away from land, clean out of the track of any likely vessel,
and with no food, nor any means of procuring it, to be the sport of
wind and wave.  I was even considering whether it were not better to
plunge overboard at once, before the pangs of hunger and thirst got
hold upon us, when Billy, who had raised himself upon his elbow,
suddenly gave a shout and stretched his hand towards me.  "Land! land!"
he cried.  I turned myself about, so quickly that I almost lost my
balance, and sure enough, through the mist I saw a long dark line,
which on this waste of water could betoken nothing else but land, as
Billy had said.  And in that moment I blamed myself for my gloomy
thoughts and stark hopelessness, considering for the first time that
the good hand of God had preserved us hitherto from the dreadful fate
of the officers, and might have further mercies in store.

[Sidenote: The Island]

It was impossible to guess, because of the mist, how far the land was
from us, but with our hearts full of this reviving hope we took thought
by what means we might propel our raft thither.  We did not consider
whether it was a barren or a fruitful land, or what perils we might
encounter of wild beasts or wild men; all our mind was bent upon
escaping from our present danger.  The raft was composed of spars and
staves of the boat which had been shattered on the deck of the _Lovey
Susan_, lashed together with ropes.  I felt in my pocket for a knife
wherewith to cut one of the spars loose, designing to use it as an oar,
but my pocket was empty save for one solitary button, which I
remembered having put there a day or two before when it started from my
breeches, intending to have it sewn on.  I asked Billy if he had a
knife, and he, feeling in his pockets, confessed them likewise to be
empty, having left on the deck the knife we had used in making the
raft; but when I told him what I had in mind, he at once fell to
pulling at one of the knots with his fingers, which being hard, as a
seaman's always are, he contrived in a wonderfully short time to loose
the short spar, and began to thrust it into the water in the manner of
paddling.  To our great joy the raft moved, as I could tell by its
passing some of the floating articles of wreckage, which it did so
close to some that I might have seized them by stretching forth my
hand, and I wished I had when I thought of it afterwards, for they
would have been of great use to us, and saved us a deal of labour, as
you shall see.

We moved, I say, towards the shore, Billy keeping our course pretty
straight by plying the spar now on the right side, now on the left.
And then I perceived a shine upon the water, and, looking back, saw the
blessed sun as a ruddy disk, but like the moon in size, glimmering
through the mist behind us.  Billy hailed the sunrise with a cheerful
shout, which did my heart good to hear it, and cried to me that the
mist was lifting, and we should soon see the land clear.  And so it
was, though when we did behold it, we did not much like the look of it.
From the edge of the sea it rose to a considerable height, and it was
of a grey colour, or rather slate, and yet not quite that either, but
approaching to black.  To the right the slope was covered with
vegetation, and about half way-up there was what in the distance--for
we were, as I reckoned, near a mile from the shore--looked to be a
dense wood, as indeed it afterwards proved.  Still further to the right
a promontory of a reddish colour jutted out into the sea, and I
perceived that the water ran right through it by an archway, which I
suppose the sea had cut for itself, for I could not conceive it had
been made in any other way.  This promontory also was green at the top
with plants and trees, and beyond it we could see a rock of the same
red colour, which appeared to be of very great size, like to an immense
iceberg, but much broader than any I have seen.  To the left of the
blackish slope that I have before mentioned there were other patches of
green, and I was much exercised in my mind to know why the centre
portion was thus barren when there was vegetation on either side.

We could not yet see the top of the slope, for the mist still lay upon
it; but as we drew nearer a pretty gentle gale sprang up, which with
the sunbeams drove the mist away, leaving only a small portion, which
hovered like a thick white cloud, or a nightcap, over the dark summit.
While I was gazing at it, wondering why it stayed so constantly just
there, I was amazed to see a part of this cloud shoot up to a
prodigious height, and while I was still in that amazement, we heard a
dull booming noise, like the discharge of a great gun far away.  At
this Billy ceased paddling and looked at me as one affrighted, and
asked me very fearfully whether we had come to a country where the
French were fighting with the native people.  But I perceived now that
the sea was in commotion around us, and it suddenly came into my mind
that this mountain we saw before us was a burning mountain, or volcano,
like to what I had read of in my lesson books, though I had thought
that they sent forth fire and smoke and burning streams of lava.  And
then, remembering the great wave which had struck our vessel and caused
the panic among the seamen, I bethought me that it was maybe due to an
earthquake, which affects as well the sea as the land.  I told Billy
what I thought, and he was much relieved that we had not happened upon
the French, but said very gloomily that we should not be much better
off on land below a burning mountain than on the sea, and for his part
he would sooner drown, that being, as 'twas said, an easy death, than
be burned alive.  However, I said that we had as yet seen no fire, and
perhaps the furnace in the mountain was dying out, and we could at the
least put it to the test.  In short, I persuaded him to take up his
paddle again, which he did, and so brought us a little nearer to the
land.

But we now perceived that the raft was taken in a current, which bore
us to the right hand towards the promontory I have mentioned above, but
obliquely, so that we were like to be carried past it without being
able to land.  The wind was blowing against the current, and we hoped
it might stay our course long enough for us to come at some haven; but
though we loosed another spar, which I used very diligently though with
little dexterity, the current gained upon us, and I saw that we should
never do it.  In that predicament it came into my mind that we might
use our coats as a sail, and we instantly stripped them off and joined
them together by the sleeves, and then we lashed them to the spar I had
been plying and held it upright, Billy drawing the loose end taut by
two short lengths of rope which he fastened very quickly to the
extremity of the raft.  The sail made a very extraordinary appearance,
as you may believe, but Billy laughed merrily when he saw it fill with
the wind, and so, he working his paddle, and me holding the mast--with
no little difficulty, for the wind was blowing more strongly--we drew
nearer and nearer to the land.

And now, when we were, as I guessed, about two furlongs from the beach,
I spied all of a sudden two boats lying close together near a small
spit of land.  I might have noticed them before but for being so busy
with the sail.  Billy saw them too, and cried out that they were our
own boats, and was for steering instantly out to sea again, for he
would sooner have faced a tempest than Hoggett, or any other of the men
who had ill-used him.  But even before I could answer him we were aware
of a strange trembling of the raft beneath our feet, in no wise like
the wonted heaving of the sea, and while we were in the article of
wondering what it might be, the raft seemed to sink under us, as if a
great gap had opened beneath it and it was falling through empty air.
I was in a terrible fright, and catched at my breath, but still keeping
my feet, and in a moment we heard a strange rushing behind us, and,
turning about, beheld a great wall of water bearing down upon us.  With
one consent we flung ourselves on our faces, clutching at the ropes
that bound the raft together, and had barely got a grip of them when
the mountainous wave crashed upon us, and we were completely engulfed.

What happened to us then neither Billy nor I could ever perfectly tell,
though we talked about it often; but I must suppose that the raft was
rolled over and over, with us a-clinging to it.  I had scarce got a
little breath into me again, after a greater space of time even than
when I had been sucked under at the sinking of our vessel, when the
return wave smote upon us, and we were hurled back, and while we were
still gasping after this, another green wall fell upon us from
seawards, though not so high as the first, and, its force being spent,
we found ourselves, sore bruised and breathless, on the landward side
of a small group of rocks of about seven or eight feet high, and not
above thirty yards from the beach.  We had been carried clean over it,
and the raft, to which we had clung as by a miracle, was floating in
two or three feet of water.  This we discovered afterwards, for we were
as near dead as any one could be, and, indeed, I wonder that we were
not killed outright, as we should have been beyond doubt but that the
raft prevented us from being dashed upon the ground.  We had had
battering enough as it was, but coming to our senses, and very sick
from the water we had swallowed, we sprang off the raft and hauled it
ashore, Billy crying out that his feet, which were bare, were cut to
pieces on the beach, which was very hard and jagged, though I escaped
hurt, having my boots on.

We were immediately aware of a deep rumbling from the hill above, and
lifting our eyes, we beheld prodigious quantities of smoke or steam, we
could not tell which, belching from the top, and then a vast torrent of
water pouring down towards us, with steam rising from it in clouds.  We
were near paralyzed with the sight, but recovered ourselves in time to
skip back to the rocks over which we had been cast, and clambered to
the top of them with what haste we might, Billy's feet being all red
with blood from the sharpness of the beach.  The torrent spread out as
it flowed downwards, and, coming straight towards us, I was in a great
fear lest, even though we were perched up, we should not escape it, and
we were, indeed, on the point of casting ourselves into the sea.  But I
was thankful we did not do it, for the stream did not rise higher than
within three feet of our perch, but dashed up a great shower of spray,
which was scalding hot.  It also hurled our raft with great violence
against the rock beneath us, breaking off a good portion of it; but it
did not carry it out to sea, the rocks preventing it.

Then, as we looked up towards the summit of the hill, we saw a number
of figures, very small in the distance, hasting pell-mell downwards.
At first I thought they were savages, who had espied us, but within a
little I knew them for seamen of our crew.  They ran at the edge of the
torrent, avoiding the clouds of steam, but this they could no longer do
when they came to where the water had spread over the beach, and we
heard them uttering very great yells of pain, as well from the scalding
water as from the jagged edges of the ground, their feet being unshod
save for one or two of them.  They skipped from point to point,
endeavouring to find a safe way, and I recollected afterwards the
strange antics of Wabberley, who, being of a ponderous shape, was very
unfit for such feats of agility.  The men gave no sign of having seen
us, but bore away towards their right and our left towards a small
tract of sand which, being protected by the slope of the hill, had not
been covered by the lava from the mountain top, for such I concluded to
be the constitution of the hard, blackish soil of which I have before
spoken.

The seamen who came first to the beach disappeared from our sight
behind a number of rocks like to those upon which we sat, and
immediately afterwards we heard loud cries of alarm proceeding from
that quarter.  Those behind hasted on with even greater expedition than
before, and when they joined their comrades there arose a perfect
chorus of execration, which puzzled us a good deal, until, glancing
seaward beyond the rocks that hid the men from our sight, I descried
the nose of a boat, and shortly afterwards made out that it was empty.
Without doubt it was one of the two boats we had seen laid up on the
beach, and a wave had carried it out to sea, and it was this had
provoked the cries we had heard.  But I did not see the second boat,
and wondered why the men did not put off in this to pursue the truant
instead of spending their breath in vain outcries.  When some little
while had passed, and the boat was still drifting out, none pursuing
it, I was taken with a great curiosity to see what the reason might be,
and descended from my perch to creep towards them, taking care as I
went to haul our raft to a safe place on the beach.  As for Billy, he
refused to budge, saying that he would not go a foot nearer to the men,
because he was sure they would do him a mischief, a thing which I could
by no means believe, their minds being taken up with other matters.
However, he would not come, so I left him there, and went on alone.

It being my purpose to see without being seen--at least, until I knew
what mind the men bore towards us--I went softly, and coming to the
rocks beyond which they were, I peeped round one of them with great
caution.  And then I understood both why they did not pursue the boat
and why they had let out so lamentable an outcry.  The second of the
two boats had a great hole stove in her bottom, without doubt by that
huge wave which had well-nigh struck the breath out of us.  The men
were at their wits' end what to do, for the other boat was drifting
further and further from the shore, and was at this time, as I
reckoned, at least a hundred yards distant.  One of them, as I looked,
cried out that he would swim out to it; otherwise they were undone, for
they were in peril of being boiled or burnt alive; and he plunged into
the water and made a stroke or two.  But immediately afterwards another
of the men cried out that he saw the fin of a shark, at which the first
man--his name was Pumfrey, and he was the ship's carpenter--instantly
turned about and swam for the shore, splashing most vehemently with his
arms and legs and bellowing like a bull, as much to frighten away the
shark as from fear.

Seeing this their last hope of recovering the boat altogether dashed
away, the seamen did nothing but walk to and fro in great agitation of
mind, letting forth the most dreadful curses that ever I heard.  As for
Mr. Bodger, whom I spied among them, he sat down on a rock, being a
timorous creature, as I have before said, and setting his face in his
hands, groaned and sighed in pitiful fashion, as did those that were
sick and wounded among them.  It came into my mind--what I had not
thought of before--that Billy and me, being partners with them in their
unhappy situation, were no better able than they to leave this terrible
place, at least with any prospect of success, for I knew very well that
our raft would be a poor vessel for any voyage.  And since it appeared
to be our doom to live or die with them, I saw no benefit that could
arise from any attempt to hide our presence.  Accordingly I walked
round the rock into their midst.  It was Wabberley that spied me first,
and when he saw me his jaw dropped and his face went green, as having
beyond doubt believed me to be now at the bottom of the sea.  He
uttered a strange cry, which the others hearing, they looked towards
him, and at the same instant beheld me, and after a sudden brief
silence came running at me, demanding with the greatest eagerness how I
had come ashore.  When I told them, on a raft, they shouted for joy,
and Hoggett catching me roughly by the arm, cried to me to say where
that same raft was, or he would dash my head against the rocks.  I
answered that there was no need of threats or violence, for the raft
lay but a short distance away, and he might perhaps use it to overtake
the boat, and at the same time I pointed to the further rocks.  Without
more ado he set off at a run, and spying Billy still sitting upon the
rock he asked whether we had the captain and Mr. Lummis also with us.
But he did not wait for an answer, running very swiftly until he came
to the place where our raft lay, the other men following him in a crowd.

When he saw what a poor shattered thing the raft was, he broke out
again into cursing, thinking that it would be useless for his purpose,
as indeed it might have been, he being a very ponderous man.  But then
bethinking himself he catched hold of Billy, and, Joshua Chick coming
up, swore that Billy and he, being of no great weight, should go on the
raft and pursue the boat, which, as we now perceived, had come into the
current that had nearly carried us past the further extremity of the
shore.  Billy cried out that he would not go, but Hoggett took him by
the middle, and when Chick had launched the raft, he threw the boy
fairly on to it, bidding Chick fling him into the sea if he made any
bones about it.  And then, wrenching up two of the planks of the broken
boat to serve as paddles, he gave them to the boatswain and Billy, who
thereupon began to ply them with the utmost vigour.

We watched them as they went further and further from the shore, the
seamen shouting with excitement, and even laying wagers one against
another, though, being bereft of everything save their weapons and some
few articles that were in the boat, it seemed to me great folly.  And
when after a long chase the boat was overhauled near the archway in the
red rock of which I have spoken, they fell into a perfect ecstasy of
joy, clapping each other on the back and shouting like frantic people.
We saw Chick baling out the boat, Billy helping him, and as they were a
long while doing this, it was plain that she held a great quantity of
water and would most likely have foundered in no long time.  Whilst
they were at this work of baling, the raft floated away, and neglecting
it they began to pull back to the beach.  But they had not taken many
strokes before we saw them turn again, and the men around me burst
forth into horrible execrations, supposing in the first moment (so base
of mind were they, as well as witless) that Chick was purposing to row
away and desert them.  But I told them that Billy had only remembered
the raft, and so it proved, for they rowed after it, and having catched
it up, fastened it by a rope to the boat's stern and so headed again
towards the shore.

While they were yet some distance off, the ground beneath our feet
trembled and we heard a great rumbling, and the sea was mightily
troubled, whereupon the men fell into their panic again, fearing that
an earthquake would swallow them ere ever they got clear away.  They
cried in great terror to Chick to haste, and while the boat was yet
some fathoms' length from the beach, Wabberley and two or three more
dashed into the sea, and wading out, scrambled into the boat, with such
violence that they were not very far short of overturning it.  Which
seeing, all the rest of the seamen rushed to do likewise, Hoggett and
some others carrying all the articles that were in the broken boat, and
then I saw that the boat, being the smaller of the two, could not
possibly contain us all, and indeed the men saw that too, and there was
such a fight to win places that I thought the boat would fill with
water and sink.  As for me, I stood watching in a kind of amazement,
now in the mind to rush towards the boat with the others and fight for
a place, now deeming it better to wait until I saw to what issue things
came.

[Sidenote: Abandoned]

All this time Mr. Bodger had remained by my side, no doubt expecting
that he as an officer would be given a place as of right.  But now
there came a mighty roar from the mountain; more terrible than any we
had yet heard, and I saw belching out of it not merely steam and water,
but smoke of a lurid darkness, the sky above becoming perfectly black
with a shower of ashes shot forth from the top, intermixed with fire.
At this the fight about the boat waxed still more violent, and Mr.
Bodger, darting from my side, sprang out into the sea.  Then I saw
Hoggett fling Billy out of the boat, and three or four of the weaker
men who had been beaten from it mounted on to the raft, upon which also
Mr. Bodger scrambled in his desperate haste.  The men upon it, finding
it likely to sink with the weight of them all, thrust him back again
into the water, and I heard him scream with terror when, striving to
regain his place, and clinging desperately to the edge of the raft,
they beat upon him with their fists and sought to loosen his hold.  He
was on the point of being cast off when Hoggett, in the boat, which now
stood some little way off, shouted "Take him aboard, you fools; we may
want him," and they did as he said, though grumbling, one of them
saying that Hoggett was safe himself, and had taken mighty great care
not to overload _his_ craft.

And then, as Billy came out of the water towards me, and I saw both the
boat and the raft moving away, and knew that we were to be left alone
on this dreadful shore, with the volcano vomiting forth fire--then, I
say, I was shaken out of the amazement which had held me, and being
perfectly frantic with terror, I rushed into the water, thinking
nothing of Billy or aught else than my own safety.  With desperate
strokes I swam after the boat, shouting to the men to take me aboard.
She was moving but slowly, being greatly overladen, and having the raft
in tow, so that I was able to overtake the latter.  But the men cried
that there was no room on it, and commanded me roughly to sheer off,
and when I still clung to it, one lifted the plank that had been used
as a paddle, and aimed a furious blow at my head.  The violence of his
movement causing the raft to sink towards one side, he failed of his
brutal design, yet not wholly; for the plank as it descended grazed the
side of my head, inflicting such a cut that I was well-nigh stunned,
and was forced to loose my hold.  I tried to set to swimming again, but
my strength was gone from me, and in my daze I might have gone to the
bottom if Billy had not swum after me.  With his help I was able to
reach the shore, and when we stood up on the dry land and saw that the
seamen had beyond doubt abandoned us, we flung ourselves down on our
faces, in all the misery of wild despair.

[Illustration: "ONE LIFTED THE PLANK ... AND AIMED A FURIOUS BLOW AT
ME."]




CHAPTER THE FIFTH

OF CLAMS AND COCOA-NUTS AND SUNDRY OUR DISCOVERIES; AND OF OUR
REFLECTIONS ON OUR FORLORN STATE


I think I lay for a time in a kind of lethargy, for I was perfectly
unconscious of anything that might be happening about me, and it seemed
to me that my mind was a total blank.  Whether it was the heat of the
sun, which had mounted well-nigh to the zenith, or the pangs of hunger
that roused me, I know not; but when I did arise I was aware of a
prodigious aching in my inwards, which was very natural, seeing that I
had not eaten for sixteen or twenty hours.  And then I discovered that
Billy had risen first; indeed he told me that he had not lain long,
being not near so much overcome as I was, his harder life having
indurated as well his feelings as his skin.  When I beheld him he was a
hundred yards or more away, sitting on a low flat rock, and eating with
a great appearance of relish.  Seeing me get to my feet, he called to
me to come and eat likewise, and when I reached his rock I found a
great array of shells beside him, some broke apart and empty, others
still closed up.

[Sidenote: Clams and Cocoa-nuts]

"They ain't bad, master," he said, for so he commonly called me, "but
they do make a body uncommon dry."

I was amazed, and indeed almost angry, because he seemed so
comfortable, not reflecting that after the dog's life he had led aboard
the _Lovey Susan_ his present posture was, at least, one of ease and
security, the mountain having done no harm as yet.  My gorge rose when
I saw him take out the slimy inhabitants of the shells and eat them
raw; I had never eaten shell-fish at all, much less uncooked, and for
all my famishment my stomach refused this sort of food.  The horror of
our situation smote upon my mind: here were we, little more than boys,
left on a strange shore with no food but what we could pick up, no
clothes but what we stood in--and they were but shirt and breeches, for
the coats we had used as a sail had been washed from the raft when the
great wave struck us--and no implements or tools of any kind, not so
much as a jack-knife.  As yet we knew nothing of the land whereupon we
had been cast, though I guessed it must be an island, but whether large
or small, peopled or desolate, fertile or barren, all remained to be
discovered.  The sum of our knowledge was that we were at the foot of a
burning mountain, and that was a very terrible thing to contemplate.
The thought of it drew me to look aloft at the summit, where there
still hung a cloud of steam, though not so large as before, and the
fire and smoke had ceased, but a stream of hot water was still flowing
down the side, yet not in a great volume.

The sky was now very clear, and my head being uncovered, I found the
heat of the sun very discommoding, and withal my throat was parched,
and I had a great thirst, though Billy's must have been greater after
the salt things he had been eating.  When he saw me turn from them with
loathing, he got up and said that we had better find a spring of fresh
water, so we walked along the hard beach, going to the right hand with
the design to ascend to the woods above, where I thought we might find
a spring, and certainly shelter from the sun.  Billy groaned as the
sharp edges cut his bare feet; nevertheless he would not suffer me to
go alone, for which I was sorry, for when we had gone a little way we
came to some cliffs, which rose up so straight and forbidding that we
did not think fit to scale them, at least until we had sought an easier
way.  Accordingly we went back again, crossing the stream of hot water,
which was now only trickling, and so continued until the lava ended at
the strip of sandy beach.  I was now minded to strike up from the
shore, but was a little timid of approaching so near the course of the
hot flood, not knowing but that we might meet another torrent and
suffer a scalding.  But, having come to the end of the sand, we arrived
at more cliffs, which, though not so high as the first, were no less
steep, so that we had to make a choice between scaling them and
ascending by the lava slope.  Taking counsel with Billy, I determined
to venture on this latter, hoping that before we had gone far, we might
find a means of reaching the woods either on the right hand or the left.

When we had gone a good way up, very toilsomely, I saw with great
thankfulness a slope to our left hand, which seemed to lead away from
the barren lava to living soil.  We struck up this and found ourselves
by and by on a mossy plateau, on which Billy danced, so joyful was he
at feeling so soft a carpet beneath his feet.  The wood was just beyond
us, not above a hundred yards away.  When we came to it we were pretty
well blown, and exceeding hot, having never rested nor even looked back
since we left the beach.  But now we bethought us to turn and gaze over
the sea, having some hope--at least I had--that the seamen might even
at the last have repented and put back to take us off.  We saw the boat
indeed, but it was a mere speck, and the raft we could not see at all,
being in doubt whether it had sunk, or whether it was only the distance
that made it invisible.  But far beyond the boat, we saw a dark line
which a landsman might have supposed to be a cloud, but which we, our
eyes being accustomed to ranging over wide spaces, knew at once to be
land.  It did not seem likely that the seamen could yet have discovered
it, since it had escaped us when we were at the sea level; I considered
it to be a happy chance for them that they had directed their course so
truly, though when I said so to Billy, he said he hoped they would find
the land full of cannibals, who would cook and eat them all, and
Hoggett first.  This mention of cannibals set up an apprehensiveness in
my mind, and I was chary of entering the wood, lest we came upon
savages, but Billy said very sturdily, that savages or no savages, he
must drink, and so went on among the trees, with me close at his heels.

We looked about us eagerly, both for water and for fruits wherewith to
stay our hunger: but as for the former we saw none, and for the latter,
though we saw many plants bearing berries, and some trees with fruits
hanging upon them, we did not recognize at first any that we had seen
on the island where we recruited, and durst not, hungry as we were,
attempt anything strange lest they should be poisonous, and our first
meal prove our last.  At one point we were startled by a small animal
leaping across our path, and Billy, crying it was a rabbit, without
thinking dashed after it, a very useless thing to do; but it had this
good result, that, tumbling headlong over something, he picked himself
up ruefully, and then shouted with delight, the obstacle being a large
cocoa-nut which had fallen from a tree.  We were in a quandary at first
how to break it open, having no knife or other tool to pierce the husk;
but Billy bethought him of the buckles on our belts, and taking these
off, we cut and scraped at the husk until we came to the inner nut, and
then broke this open by hammering it very hard against the tree-trunk,
finding it the more easily breakable because it was over ripe; and
though we lost some of the liquid thereby, there remained enough to
furnish us with a very refreshing draught.

While I was digging my teeth ravenously into the kernel, Billy shinned
up the stem, which was straight like the mast of a ship, to obtain some
more of this precious fruit.  Having cast down two or three at my feet,
he cried out that he was going to the masthead to take a look round.
He went almost to the very top, and when he came down, told me that the
hill we were on was not the highest in the island, the highest being
the mountain, whose peak was still covered by the cloud of steam; but
except what might be hidden by this mountain, he could see all the rest
of the island, which by his reckoning could not be above two miles
long.  He told me of the high red rock which we had seen through the
archway as we approached the land, and which lay now on our right hand.
On the left he discovered a little bay, with a strip of yellow sand,
though he could not tell how wide this was because of the cliffs.
Beyond the bay the land went to a point, and beyond this again, some
distance out in the sea, were two red rocks, not very large, standing
up like the posts of a gate, or, as I thought when I myself saw them,
like sentinels.  All the country to the left of the burning
mountain--that is, to the west--was covered with vegetation, either
woods or grasses, which I was very glad to hear, since there was
promise of food, at least of the vegetable kind.  I concluded that the
streams of lava cast forth by the mountain had flowed only towards the
beach at which we had landed, or at any rate had flowed no other way
for a long time, since otherwise the land could not have been so
fruitful.  I asked Billy anxiously whether he had seen any wild beasts,
or any sign of the habitation of men; but he said that he had seen
neither the one nor the other, but only some birds, at which I was
vastly relieved.

We sat for some while appeasing our appetites, scarcely speaking, for
Billy was not a talkative boy, and I was still too much under the
oppression of our lonely situation.  All at once I set up a laugh, at
which Billy stopped munching at his cocoa-nut and looked at me in
astonishment.

"Oh, Billy," I said, "if you had catched that rabbit, what could we
have done with it?"

"Why, eat it, to be sure," says Billy.  "I like rabbit meat."

(We knew afterwards that there were no rabbits on the island, and
thought the animal we had seen must be a rat, though it did not run
like one.)

"But how could we cook it?" I said.

At that he looked startled, and felt again in his pocket, which, as I
have said, was empty.  He had quite forgot that we had neither flint,
steel, nor tinder, so that we had no means of making a fire.  He looked
very sober for a space, and then reminded me that we had seen the
savages make fire at the island where we stayed, by the very rapid
twirling of a stick, and he was sure he could do the like.  However,
there was no need of a fire at that time, for the very good reason that
we had nothing to cook, and so we fell to again on our cocoa-nuts, and
ate a great quantity before we were satisfied.  We saw that we had come
into a grove of those useful trees, and with their fruit, and the
shell-fish on the shore, which if it came to a pinch I must eat raw, as
Billy had done, we should be in no immediate danger of famishing.  We
saw about us, too, many birds which we might eat if we could only snare
them and make a fire, though they were quite strange to both of us,
excepting parrots.  The most of them were something larger than a
sparrow, but with brighter plumage, and they came flying about us very
tamely, yet never near enough to catch.

Though we had no anxiety for the present in the matter of food, I was
still far from easy in mind about our situation, for there might be
wild beasts and men on the island, though we had not as yet seen any,
and I was troubled about our utter defencelessness.  So after we had
eaten our fill and rested a while, I thought it behoved us to go
through the wood and see what there might be on the other side.
Accordingly we got up, feeling plaguy stiff from the many wettings we
had had, though the sun had dried our clothes, and went on until we
came to the edge of the wood, where we found another slope very much
steeper than the first, fairly open, but with saplings growing here and
there.  Before we descended I bethought me it were well to have some
weapon in our hand in case we should meet any enemy, man or beast, so
Billy swarmed up a tree and broke off two branches, which, when
stripped of their twigs and leaves, made very fair clubs, though to be
sure of a rough appearance, and little likely to avail us much if we
encountered men in any wise armed.  Still they were better than
nothing, and with these in our hands we descended the slope until we
came to another thick wood, which stretched on our right hand half way
or more to the summit of the smoking mountain.  We went through this
wood, which differed very little from the first, and then all at once
we came upon a shining sheet of water, above two hundred yards long and
near as broad, with a few ducks swimming on it.  The moment Billy saw
this he let forth a great shout, and bounded towards it, falling on his
knees and drinking very heartily.  I was as glad as he was, for the
juice of cocoa-nuts is very agreeable, but not near so good as water
for quenching the thirst; but I was not so quick as Billy, nor did I
gulp it so eagerly, but took a mouthful and tasted it before drinking
more.  The water was cool and seemed to me good to drink, though it had
a taste like the sulphur water my aunt Susan always gave to us in the
spring; she said it cleared our skin.  I drank a few mouthfuls more,
and then we went on, skirting the base of the mountain on the further
side.

[Sidenote: Wood and Water]

We found the ground here very rough; indeed, nowhere on the island, as
we afterwards discovered when we came to explore it thoroughly, did we
find a stretch of level ground above twenty yards in length, even in
the parts where the vegetation was thickest.  There were not many trees
growing on this side of the mountain, but we continued our journey in
as near a straight line as we could, observing more woods on our right
hand which I thought to examine another day.  At length we came to a
high cliff overlooking the sea, and when we came to the top of it,
suddenly we saw towering over us the monstrous red rock of which we had
already had a glimpse when we first drew near to the shore.  It rose
sheer out of the sea to the height of four or five hundred feet, as I
guessed, and was very broad too; at least, the side that fronted us
was, being full a quarter of a mile long.  Between the rock and the
cliff on which we stood there was a narrow strait, through which the
sea rushed at a furious pace.  I felt quite dizzy as I gazed down upon
it from our great height, though Billy, being used to climbing to the
masthead, went to the very edge of the cliff and stood there without
the least tremor.  Indeed, he gave me a fright by saying that he would
leap across the strait to a ledge that jutted out from the rock towards
our island, approaching so near to it that he declared he could do it
easy; but I sprang to him and pulled him back, overcome with horror at
the thought of the terrible risk he would run and his dreadful death if
he missed his footing, and also of my solitude if I lost my only
companion.

I now saw that his face was very pale, and I thought that he was
frightened at his own daring; but he suddenly bent his body double, and
when I asked him what was the matter he said that he had a very bad
pain.

"That comes of eating those slimy things raw," I said.  "I didn't eat
any."

He made no answer, but flung himself on the ground, groaning, and I
stood over him, condoling with him, and very much concerned lest he was
poisoned.  I had stood thus for the space of a minute or two, when all
at once I felt a terrible pain myself, and soon was beside him,
groaning full as loud as he.  Since I had eaten none of the shell-fish,
and cocoa-nuts had never done us any harm before, I concluded, when I
was able to think, that our sufferings were caused by the sulphurous
water of the lake, which indeed turned out to be the true explanation;
for after we had drunk of it next day we were both afflicted with the
same violent colic, so that we resolved never to taste it again.  Billy
was worse than me, having drunk the greater quantity, and it was a good
while before we were able to stand, and then we trembled so much and
felt so weak that we wished for nothing but to lie down and sleep.  And
that put us on thinking of what we should do in the night.  We had come
so slowly across the island that the sun was already sinking, and we
must needs find some secure place for repose before darkness fell upon
us.  We were both used to discomforts aboard the _Lovey Susan_, but
there we had at least a bunk or a hammock and security from all but the
storm, whereas here there was no shelter save the woods, and we did not
know what strange perils might beset us there.  And I know not whether
'twas the oncoming of the dark that made me more fearful, but certain
it is that I found myself looking about me timorously, and at one point
I was so sure that I saw a man that I clutched Billy hard by the arm
and whispered him to look too.  Which doing, he cried out in a
perfectly loud voice, "Why, master, 'tis but an old stump of a tree.
'Tain't nothing to be scared on."  Billy, I will say now, was never
affrighted at imaginary perils so much as at real ones.

[Sidenote: Night]

We had to consider, I say, of how we should pass the night.  I was not
the least disposed to trudge back over the island, and indeed there was
no need, for no part, so far as I knew, was better than any other; in
short, we were both pretty tired, so that we determined to take shelter
in a small wood on the edge of the cliff on the opposite side of the
burning mountain from that where the lava had flowed.  Our entrance
caused a great disturbance among the birds, which flew out in great
flocks and making shrill cries.  We saw some brown rats, too,
scuttering among the undergrowth, and these put Billy in mind of the
rats in the _Lovey Susan_, which sometimes ran across the face of the
seamen in the forecastle when they slept.

"I don't like them things, master," he said, "and we'd best climb up
into a tree and sleep on a bough."

But it seemed to me that a bough of a tree would be a most uneasy
resting-place; I should assuredly lose my balance and topple to the
ground, though Billy, being accustomed to dizzy perches in the rigging
of the _Lovey Susan_, might find it comfortable enough.  Yet I had no
mind for a lodging on the ground, without any defence from rats, to say
nothing of wild animals, of which there might be some on the island,
though we had not seen any.  We talked about it for some time, and the
end of it was that we set about collecting some broken branches that
lay on the ground, and snapped off others that were within our reach,
and so piled up a little shelter round about a thick trunk.  By the
time we had finished this work it was perfectly dark within the wood.
We sat ourselves down on the mossy carpet, with our cudgels close to
our hands, and then, bethinking us of the custom of setting watches on
board ship, we determined that one of us should watch while the other
slept.  Being the older, I took the first watch, and Billy was soon
fast asleep, and I sat very melancholy by him, thinking of our lonely
situation, and of my good uncle and aunt at home, whose thoughts were,
I doubt not, fondly busy about me.

There was no way whereby I might tell the time, and it might have been
two hours or three had passed when, feeling my head very heavy, I waked
Billy and told him to take his turn, which he did very willingly,
though he rubbed his eyes and yawned in the manner of one who has not
had his sleep out.  In the midst of my slumber I was wakened by Billy
grasping my arm, and when I sat up, he whispered to me, as if greatly
affrighted, to listen.  Since I heard nothing but the rustling of the
wind in the trees, it having got up while I slept, I thought that Billy
must have fallen into a doze and been visited by a nightmare.  But all
at once there came a strange howling sound, that seemed to be near at
hand, and then it went into the distance, at one moment being quite low
and soft, the next very loud, though it never altered in pitch.  We
clutched our cudgels and sat very close to each other, and Billy
whispered that he felt a cold shiver running down his back, as I myself
did, but I forbore to tell him so.  The sound was very dreadful, as of
some creature in agony, though it was not the least like any sound I
had ever heard before, except once, when I heard a man tuning, as they
say, the organ in our parish church; and falling upon our ears in
pitchy darkness it made us very uneasy, as you may think.  We were too
much affrighted to rise and seek for the cause of it, even if it had
been possible to find it in the dark; and so we listened to it, huddled
thus together, for a very long time, as it seemed, until, being quite
overcome with fatigue, we both fell asleep, and so remained until
morning light without keeping any guard.

[Sidenote: Wild Dogs]

I awoke first, and was instantly aware of a scratching at some part of
our barricade of branches.  I sat up, grasping my cudgel, and in a
moment, it being broad daylight, I saw a little opening in the
barricado, and the nose of some animal pushing through it.  I lifted up
my cudgel and, thrusting myself forward, aimed a blow at the intruder
so well that I hit him clean upon the point of the nose.  There was a
sudden yelp and a snarl, and the nose withdrew itself, and when we
sprang to our feet--Billy having wakened at the sound--we spied a pack
of small dogs, above a score, at some little distance from our shelter.
They were of a strange kind, the like of which neither Billy nor I had
ever seen, being of a yellowish brown in colour, and with smooth coats,
not hairy like our dogs at home.  Billy roared at them, asking whether
it was they that had made such uproar in the night; and when they did
not budge, but only looked at him without the least alarm, we both
sprang over our fence and ran towards them, brandishing our cudgels and
shouting very fiercely.  Then they turned tail, and ran away yelping
and snarling; but as soon as we stopped, thinking that we had put them
to flight, instantly they stopped also, and sitting upon their
haunches, gazed at us very solemnly again.

They did not offer to attack us, and, being of a small size, we did not
fear them as if they were great hounds or mastiffs; but the very number
of them making us somewhat uneasy, we set forward again to drive them
away.  It happened as at first: they ran while we ran, but the moment
we stopped, they came to a stand also and gazed upon us in the same
saucy manner as before.  Billy shook his fist at them, and called them
by a foul name which he had learnt, I suppose, from the rough seamen of
the _Lovey Susan_; but I will say this, that on my telling him it was
not a pretty word, he immediately promised never to use it again, since
it offended me, and I never heard it from his lips but once after,
which I will speak of in course, if I remember.

But to return to our dogs: when we saw that it was useless to pursue
them, though we could scare them easily enough, we determined to go on
our way as if they were not there.  And as you may believe, we set our
course first for the cocoa-nut grove, being amazing hungry, and as we
went thither we saw some trees of the bread-fruit, and Billy climbed
one of them, the trunk being no more than two feet thick, and threw one
fruit at me and another at the dogs, which had still followed us,
dogging us, as we say.  They scampered after it as it rolled down the
hill, like as kittens chase a ball of worsted, which amused Billy very
much.  As for me, I picked up the fruit he had cast at my feet--it was
near two pounds weight, I should think--and having broken the rind, not
without difficulty, for it was very tough, I tasted the milky juice and
afterwards the pulp, but found them both so unpleasing that I cast it
from me, very sorrowfully, for it seemed that we should never have any
other food but cocoa-nuts, unless we could devise some means of
cooking.  We went on thence until we came to the palms, the dogs
following us again, except two that found the fruit I had thrown away,
and they stayed for a while sniffing at it, but finding it as
unpalatable as I had done, they by and by left it and joined the pack.
I observed that when Billy climbed up the cocoa-nut palm they drew in
closer, as if they guessed him to be more violent than me, and supposed
it no longer needful to keep at so great a distance.  Indeed, when he
flung down a cocoa-nut, they dashed towards it, as if he did it merely
for their sport; but then I ran among them, striking at them smartly
with my cudgel, though I never hit them, for they immediately fled, but
came back when Billy and I sat down upon the ground to eat the fruit,
and watched us with such gravity that I could not contain myself, but
laughed very heartily.

When we had finished our breakfast, we went down the hill to drink at
the lake, and the dogs still following at our heels, we began to feel
it a persecution, and resolved to make another attempt to rid ourselves
of them.  The ground, as I have said before, was rough, and at one side
of the lake, nearest the mountain, we saw many pieces of rock scattered
about, and having collected them in a heap we began to throw them very
briskly at the dogs, which kept so close together that we could not
fail of hitting several.  These ran yelping away, and after a while
those that were not hit became aware of the discomfiture of their
fellows and withdrew to a greater distance; but I observed that they
went no farther than the range of our cast, from which I concluded that
they were possessed of a certain intelligence.  However, since their
hovering was now at a more convenient distance, we paid them no further
attention, and had freedom to think of other things.

We had been so much taken up with these creatures that we had given
scarce a thought to our situation; but now, casting my eyes towards the
summit of the mountain, I saw with great delight that the cloud of
steam was altogether gone.

"See, Billy," I cried, "we are not like to be burnt alive.  The
mountain is quiet; yesterday's work has tired him out."

"He's only pretending, belike," says Billy.

But then I told him of what I had read in my lesson-book--I liked
reading the Latin part, but did not much relish the putting the English
back into Latin--about the mountain Vesuvius, that had been quiet so
long as that people made great cities at its base, and lived there very
merrily, the story being told very well by Plinius.

"This is a different sort, then," says Billy, "because there ain't no
cities here, nor people neither."

[Sidenote: The Mountain]

I laughed at this, and then proposed that we should climb up the
mountain from the place where we stood, namely, the edge of the lake,
in which we had already drunk.  For a great while Billy would not be
persuaded, but I prevailed with him at last, and we set off up the
mountain side, finding it a great toil, so steep was it, and rugged;
and being shod myself, I did not think enough of the pain to Billy's
bare feet, which he endured nevertheless without a murmur.  There were
many pieces of jagged flint lying on the mountain-side, and Billy
seeing one that was flat and had a sharp edge, he picks it up and slips
it in his pocket, saying that we could break open our cocoa-nuts more
easily with it than by striking them against the tree-trunks or the
rocks.  We had not gone above half way up the mountain when we were
seized with the same violent pains I have before mentioned, which made
us helpless for some while, and caused us, as I have said, to forswear
the water of the lake.  But recovering by and by, we continued on our
way, and, taking heart from the perfect stillness, there being no
rumbling nor any shoot of boiling water as on the day before, we came
at last to the very top, and stood at the brink of the cup, or the
crater, as we say.

We were so much terrified at our own boldness that, having reached the
top, we immediately ran some way down the slope, as if some dreadful
monster were at our heels.  But coming to our senses again, we
resolutely made our way once more to the summit, and, holding each
other by the hand, we crept to the edge and peeped over.  I own I was
very much surprised at the seeming innocence of the crater.  The walls
were very steep, and made of some massive sort of stone, and so jagged
that we could easily have climbed down, as on steps, for a depth of two
hundred feet at least.  But then the sides of the crater drew in
towards the centre, and we could see that it had no floor, but a hole
that looked very black and terrible; and the thought that one slip
might hurl us down, we knew not how far, into the bowels of the
mountain amid fire and brimstone, made us shrink back.  Our curiosity
was satisfied, and I do not remember that we ever looked into that
yawning pit again, though we had occasion to climb the mountain more
than once.

We then turned about and looked back over the island and across the sea
beyond.  It was a magnificent fair day, the sky of a light blue colour
and very clear, and from our high perch we could see a prodigious great
distance on every side.  Far away, like a cloud on the horizon, and
south-by-east, as we knew by the sun, was the island whereto the seamen
had set their course, and the remembrance of them set Billy in a rage,
and he cried out on them for taking away our raft.  To the westward we
spied two or three islands close together, and nearer to us, though not
much, than the island to the south-east.  I could not think that all
these islands were uninhabited, and became again not a little uneasy in
my mind, for supposing our own island had no people on it, of which I
was by no means assured, yet it might be visited sometimes by savages
from other islands, and it would be a fearsome thing for us if any
should land and discover us.  Billy scoffed when I spoke out my thought.

"Why," he said, "d'ye think, master, they'd be such fools as to come
here to this old smoker?  And water what gives you the gripes too!  No,
we shan't see nobody, black or white, never no more, and we shall live
here for ever and ever, if we gets enough to eat and drink, and then
when we're very old we'll be dead, and no one to put us away decent,"
and at that he burst into tears, and begged me not to die first,
because he couldn't bear it.  I was a good deal touched by the honest
boy's trouble, but I bid him cheer up, for we were both sound and well,
though I own I felt a great lump in my throat as I thought of our
present solitude and of my dear friends at home.  To divert his
thoughts, and my own too, I pointed to the big red rock of which I have
spoken before, and which seemed more monstrous still, seen from this
side.  There were birds sunning themselves on its bare top, and the
sight of them set me thinking that there were many birds on our island,
and there must also be eggs, which we could use for food, though I
remembered afterwards that having no fire we could not cook them, and I
could not eat them raw as I had seen some do.

We walked round about the crater, observing, but not at first with any
minuteness, the many rocks and boulders of strange shape that were
scattered about, having been cast up at some time, I suppose, from the
depths of the mountains.  Billy laid his hand on one great boulder, and
immediately started back in a fright, crying that it was burning hot,
which somewhat alarmed me too, not supposing that the mountain sent
forth aught now but hot water.  But in a moment I saw that we had no
cause for terror, for the sun was by this time high in the heavens, and
the stone was made hot thereby, and by nothing else.  When I said this
to Billy he was in a rage with the stone for giving him a start, and
shoved it very hard, and it being poised insecurely, it set off
a-rolling down very fast until it struck another boulder of even
greater size, and split with a mighty crash.  "Serves you right," says
Billy, and we both clambered down to see what had happened to it.  We
were surprised to see some bright streaks in the rock where it had been
fractured, and Billy declared that there must be iron in it; indeed, it
was of the brightness of steel.  This set me on to think of the great
wealth that might lie a-hiding in our island, and of the great delight
it would have given my uncle if his adventure had gone as he wished;
but the discovery brought no comfort to us in our helpless situation;
indeed, it only made me the more sad.

We had gone but a little farther when we saw a spring of hot water
bubbling out of the rock and running down in a cloud of steam.  We
followed its course, picking our way very slowly, for the side of the
mountain was steep, until we came to a place where it dropped over a
sheer cliff, and fell a perfect cascade into the sea.  Then we crept
round from this side of the mountain until we overlooked the long slope
of blackish rock that ran down to the beach on which we had landed, and
we descended slowly on the left side until we came to a strip of
woodland.  Here we found more bread-fruit trees, at which we were not
so well pleased as if they had been cocoa-nut palms, because we had no
present means of making a fire for cooking.  Billy offered to make fire
in the native way, but I said that he might do that afterwards, as I
wished to see what this end of the island was like.  So we went through
the wood, and came out at the edge of a cliff, and saw below us the
promontory with the archway through it, of which I have spoken.  Here,
too, we had another view of the monster rock, and observed that this
face also was steep and straight like the others, so that it must be
quite impossible to scale the rock unless its seaward face were more
practicable.

[Illustration: PALM TREE ISLAND]

[Sidenote: Reflections]

We had now traversed the whole of our island except the north-east
corner, and having seen no living things except birds and small
animals, we began to be pretty sure that we were the only human beings
upon it.  This, while it put away from us the present fear of being
slain by savages, or despitefully used, yet brought home to us the full
meaning of our loneliness.  We sat down on the cliff, and looking over
the sea, which stretched away without any sign of land, nor even the
sail of a ship, we gave ourselves up to gloomy meditation.  I knew that
but few ships ever ventured into this southern ocean, and the chance
that any ship would sight this tiny island was very small indeed.
Still less was it likely that a vessel would draw in so close as to
observe any signal that we might make.  I remembered how Alexander
Selkirk had lived four years on his desolate island before a friendly
ship hove in sight, and that island was near the mainland, whereas ours
was in the midst of a vast ocean, remote as well from populous lands as
from the track of merchant ships.  It seemed to me that we were doomed
to a lifelong imprisonment, and though I had before bid Billy to be of
good cheer, I was now myself utterly cast down, as one without hope.

Being thus a prey to wretchedness I sat with my head in my hands, not
heeding the heat of the sun, which was now beating fiercely down upon
us, until I felt very sick and dizzy, and then I got up and looked for
Billy, who had disappeared.  But he had only gone into the wood to find
food, it being nigh dinner-time.  He came back and told me that there
was nothing but bread-fruit, and that we could not eat, so we had to
make our way to the cocoa-nut wood, which we did by descending to the
beach and climbing up the slope as before.  In going along the beach
Billy picked up two or three shell-fish which he called clams, the
purple kind, not the larger sort, which were very heavy; indeed, one of
them would have made a meal for a family.  We saw, too, several crabs
of a very large size, some above two feet long; and Billy, idly poking
his cudgel into a hole beside a rock, he could not draw it back, and
when he peeped in to see what held it, he cried out that it had been
seized by a great crab, and though he pulled very hard, he could not
draw it out.  When we came to our wood we ate cocoanuts and quenched
our thirst with the juice, Billy striking them open with the sharp
flint he had in his pocket; but I could not forbear wondering how we
were to live without fresh water, of which we had seen none but what
was in the lake, and that was a medicine we were by no means inclined
to.  Having appeased our hunger and thirst we were too listless to walk
any more, and too miserable to talk to each other, and so we laid
ourselves down and fell asleep.

[Sidenote: Weapons]

When I awoke I saw that Billy had been fashioning for himself a new
club in place of that which had been seized by the robber crab, only
this time he had made a better one.  Having observed that the sharp
flint, of which I have before spoken, had two notches on its blunt
side, he had conceived the notion of binding it to his club, and so
using it as an axe-head.  At first he was much exercised, as he told
me, how to fasten the two together, and sighed for some iron-wire, or
at least some stout cord; but glancing around he spied a creeping plant
with very long and slender tendrils, which he proved to be very tough,
and breaking off some lengths of this with his flint, he had nearly
finished binding the flint to his club.

"What d'ye think of that, master?" says he, very proud of his
achievement.  I told him it was a villainous, murdering instrument, and
asked him what he purposed doing with it.  "Why," says he, "fight, to
be sure.  It would kill a savage, or even a lion."  At this I laughed,
saying that we had seen no lions or other wild beasts, and as for
savages, if we encountered them they would certainly shoot him with
their arrows or pierce him with spears before ever he was near enough
to strike them with his club.  But he answered stoutly that a club was
better than bare fists, and an axe than a club, and as for its
ugliness, he would like to see me make a prettier one, on which I said
no more.

[Illustration: Billy's Axe]

I had fallen into a doze again, when I was suddenly awakened by Billy,
who shook me by the shoulder and when I sat up, pointed through the
trees to a little open space at the edge of the wood.  I looked and saw
a number of little pigs--strange little creatures, with heads very much
too large for their bodies--grubbing in the ground with their snouts,
and a monstrous big sow near by.  Billy springs up, and whispers he
will catch one of the piglets, and then he starts off and begins to
steal quickly through the wood towards the family group.  I got up on
my feet to follow him, and seizing the club that lay nearest, found
that I had taken Billy's instead of my own, he having taken mine in his
excitement.  Billy had just arrived at the open space when, being very
simple in his nature, he gave a great shout, and instantly the pigs set
off scampering away, with him hot-foot after them.  However, he had
gone but half-way across the clearing when I saw a great boar with
monstrous curved tusks charging from the left-hand side.  Billy caught
sight of the beast just in time, and turning about, he brought my club
down upon the beast's head very sharply; but it was not heavy enough to
do any great mischief, and, indeed, though it caused the boar to turn a
little aside, it did but increase its fury.  The beast wheeled about,
and rushed upon Billy, who, though he smote it again, was carried off
his feet and lay sprawling, the club being struck from his hand as he
fell.

[Illustration: "THE BEAST WHEELED ABOUT, AND RUSHED UPON BILLY."]

[Sidenote: Billy has a Fall]

When I saw the unhappy posture of my companion, I ran towards him as
fleetly as ever I could, being in a terrible fright lest the boar
should rend him with its tusks before I could come up with him.  My
very speed incommoded me when, coming to the spot where Billy lay on
the ground, with the boar over him, I brought the flint-headed club
down upon the beast's skull, for the blow was not near as straight and
heavy as it might have been had my rush not been so headlong.  However,
it served to make the boar turn round to spy at its new adversary; and
having now come to a standstill and collected myself, I dealt it such a
blow behind the ear, with a full swing of the club, that it fell over
sideways, and I did not observe that it made any movement after.  I
picked Billy up, and saw with great trouble that the boar had rent a
great hole in his breeches and made a gash in his leg, which was
bleeding very freely.  "That's nothing, master," says he, when I asked
him if he was much hurt; "but what d'ye say about my ugly murdering axe
now?  Ain't it a good one?" he asked triumphantly.  "Wouldn't it kill a
lion or a savage?"  I owned that it had proved a very serviceable
instrument indeed, and said that I would certainly make one like it for
myself; but first I begged Billy to bathe his wounded leg in the lake,
which he did, and in a little the bleeding stopped, and we went back to
the wood, Billy declaring that he would certainly make fire in the
native fashion, and we should have pork for supper.  But when we got
back to the dead boar, we found it already surrounded by a pack of
dogs, which were tearing its flesh very gluttonously.  They snarled and
growled savagely when we essayed to drive them away, and knowing that
it is an ill matter to part a dog from his bone, I did not think it
prudent to provoke the rage of such a fierce regiment, though Billy
cried out valorously that he would fight them all sooner than allow
them to eat his pork.  However, he gave in to my entreaty, vowing that
he would have pork to eat before many days were past, and as for the
dogs, he would teach them a lesson, that he would.




CHAPTER THE SIXTH

OF OUR SEARCH FOR SUSTENANCE AND SHELTER; WITH VARIOUS MATTERS OF MORE
CONSEQUENCE TO THE CASTAWAY THAN EXCITEMENT TO THE READER


This little adventure with the pigs was, I verily believe, the means of
saving us from the lethargy into which we had like to have been cast by
brooding on our solitude.  The knowledge that there were on our island
animals that might be formidable, and were certainly good for food,
proved to us at once the necessity of being watchful, and of setting
our wits to work to devise a means of cooking.  And a thing that
happened the same night showed to us that if we were to make the best
of our situation, and have any comfort in our solitary life, we must
take some measures for our shelter.

[Sidenote: A Storm]

This event was nothing less than a violent storm of wind and rain which
sprang up suddenly in the middle of the night.  We had returned to our
first shelter, the make-shift hut, or rather lean-to, which we had
constructed of boughs and leaves around a great tree.  The wind broke
this down utterly, scattering the materials of it far and wide, and the
rain drenched us to the skin, or I should say, soaked us to the bone,
we having no garments but our shirts and breeches.  That night was the
most miserable of all my life, I assure you.  We huddled together for
shelter under the thickest trees, listening to the howling of the wind,
and sometimes hearing great crashing noises that made us fear almost to
remain under shelter at all, lest the trees should fall upon our heads
and kill us.  Never a wink of sleep had we that night, and when
daylight came, we staggered forth from the wood, two shivering
miserable mortals, who would have given the world for a roaring fire
and a hot posset to comfort us.

We needed not to climb trees for our breakfast, for the wind had
strewed the ground with cocoanuts, and had indeed uprooted many trees,
one of which had narrowly missed the very spot where we had lain.  As
we ate our food, very wretched, we considered how we were to construct
some sort of hut, in case another storm should visit us.  There was
timber in plenty, but neither Billy nor I had any knowledge of sawyers'
or carpenters' work; nor if we had should we have been much better off,
having no tool save the rough axe of Billy's fashioning.  Necessity,
they say, is the mother of invention, and so it proved in our case, as
will be seen more fully hereafter.

After breakfast the first thing that Billy did was to try his axe on
one of the big fallen trees.  He was able after very great labour--I
taking my turns when he was tired--to lop some of the branches off, but
the flint was so much blunted by it that we saw it would serve us
little longer.  Accordingly we set off up the mountain-side to find
other flints of which to make axe-heads, and on this little expedition
we were followed by the pack of dogs, which watched our proceedings as
if they took a great interest in them, but always remained at a
reasonable distance.  By midday we had collected a fair number of
sharp-edged flints, small and big, and Billy having made me an axe like
his own--he would not let me do it, saying that he was sure he could
make a better one than me--we felt a deal more comfortable both in body
and mind, being satisfied that we should not lack tools, though rough,
and our clothes being dried with the sun.  Indeed, we found the sun
rather oppressive, especially upon our bare heads, and we wished very
heartily that our hats had been spared to us; coats we could do without
in the daytime, though they would have been a great solace o' nights.

[Sidenote: Plans]

Having thus furnished ourselves with axes, we had to determine the site
for the hut we purposed building, and we talked very seriously about
this when we had eaten our dinner.

"One thing is sure," says Billy; "we must build it a good way from the
old smoker" (so he called the mountain, above which we observed that a
cloud of steam had again gathered, though it had been clear yesterday).
If remoteness from the mountain had been the only point to be
considered, we might have been content with the wood in which we had
made our lean-to; but after our experience in the storm we did not
regard it as suitable for a permanent habitation when it might be
shattered any day or night.  It was certain we could not build on those
parts of the island that were bare rock, for we could not by any means
dig foundations in it, and a hut without foundations, in an exposed
place, might be carried away in a hurricane, and hurled into the sea,
and we in it.  And then it came into my mind that if we built too high
upon the island, our dwelling might be spied by the savages of the
neighbouring islands of which I have spoken, for we could not doubt
that they were inhabited, and the people would certainly put to sea
sometimes in their canoes.  This set me on thinking that it would be
well to make our dwelling less a house than a fortress, in which we
could take refuge in case savages should at any time land upon our
island.  It seemed to me, then, that we ought to seek for a remote
spot, very hard of access, and bethinking me of such a spot which I had
seen in our course towards the north-east, I had almost resolved to
choose that spot when I recollected all at once that there was no water
in that neighbourhood, which was a very serious matter.  Indeed, this
lack of water gave us much concern, for as yet we had found none but
what smacked of brimstone, and Billy said that we didn't need
physicking every day, nor yet every week.  We spent the rest of that
day, therefore, in roaming over the island once more in search of fresh
water, and made a more thorough exploration of the western end, in
which the vegetation was wilder than in the other woodland parts.
There was never a spring that we could see, and we should have had our
search for nothing but for a discovery that Billy made.  He had climbed
a bare and very rough hillock, just beyond a patch of wood at the
south-west corner of the island, and I saw him suddenly stoop, and when
he rose to the erect posture he held something white in his hand, and
began to caper with every token of delight.  Then he came running down
towards me, and shouted a word that sounded like "aig! aig!" which
puzzled me exceedingly, until when he came close to me and opened his
hand I saw what was certainly the likest to a hen's egg that I had ever
beheld, and concluded that "aig!" was the manner of calling it at
Limehouse.  I could scarce believe it was indeed a hen's egg, for we
had seen no fowls save those I have mentioned before, nor had we heard,
amid the noises of the island, the clarion voice of any cock; yet it
was like nothing else, and Billy declared with great positiveness that
there must be roosters, as he called them, on the island, whose eggs
would form an agreeable addition to our fare.

[Sidenote: Eggs]

He was not by any means cast down when I said that we had no fire for
cooking, avouching that he had sucked 'em raw many a time, but added
that this being the first egg we had found, it belonged by right to me
as king of the island (so he called me in sport), and he would at once
set about making a fire, as he had often said he would do, and roast it
for me, we having no pan for boiling.  When he spoke of boiling, I
remembered all of a sudden the spring of hot water we had seen on the
other side of the mountain, and thought it might very well serve to
cook the egg; so we made all haste to that spot, Billy saying that if
the water would cook an egg, it would also cook pig, and boiled pork
was very good, though not so good as roast.  We came to the spring, and
laid the egg in the bottom of a cup-shaped hollow through which it
flowed, and having neither watch nor sand-glass, Billy set himself
patiently to count the seconds as well as he could, saying that the egg
must not be overdone nor underdone, but boiled just proper.

"We will give it four minutes, master," says he, "instead of three,
'cos we ain't sure the water is on the boil, not what you would call
real boiling."

Accordingly, the four minutes being expired (though I think he missed
count when just past a hundred and fifty), he took out the egg and,
breaking the shell at one end, gave it to me to taste, which I did, but
instantly spat it out of my mouth, and cast the egg down upon the
rocks, bespattering them with white and yellow.  I told Billy with much
spluttering that the egg was addled, and indeed the taste of it was
very foul, and remained in my mouth a long time, till, having returned
to our wood, I cured it with a copious draught of cocoa-nut juice, the
acid of which was very grateful.  Billy was much cast down at this
unfortunate beginning of his cookery, and wanted to go instantly and
kill a sucking-pig; but since it was already growing late, and would be
dark ere he could go and come and finish cooking, even if he found a
pig at once and caught it without trouble, I persuaded him to return
with me to the wood, where we had to rig up another shelter for the
night, in place of the one that had been shattered by the storm.

I will say here that we found more eggs afterwards, always in places
that were hard to get at--on ledges in the land side of the cliffs, and
in hollows of rocky eminences; and though we for some time saw no fowls
and were much puzzled in consequence, we discovered by and by that they
roosted high up in the trees, and concluded that they did this to take
refuge from the rats and dogs, and kept silence for the same reason.
There were very few of them on the island, their broods being no doubt
much preyed upon when young and unable to fly.

I had almost forgot to mention a strange discovery we made while we
were yet on the mountain.  It chanced that Billy, prodding the ground
with his axe, dislodged a lump of rock which rolled down into the
spring, and had no sooner touched the water than it set up a great
hissing noise, and we saw a cloud of dirty yellow smoke rise up from it
into the air, with such a horrible stench that we choked and coughed,
and ran away to some distance until the fizzing and smoking ceased.  I
had never seen or heard of the like before, and as for Billy, he said
that Old Smoker was worse than he thought him, carrying such poisonous
stuff in his inside.  This made us careful how we trod, for we did not
know but there might be rocks of other kinds, which might "go off," as
Billy said, when we touched them.  However, we did not find any such,
and we almost forgot about the fizzy rock, as Billy called it, until a
time came when we discovered a use for it.

[Sidenote: The First Hut]

To come back to the matter of our house.  Having sought in vain for a
suitable site in the rougher parts of the island, we went down next day
to the lake-side, where we should at least be within reach of water,
though unpalatable.  We found that the lake was very much swelled with
the recent heavy rains, and the water was not near so clear as
formerly, though it was much less nauseous to the taste, and we had a
good drink of it without suffering any ill effects.  This quite
determined us in our choice, for we supposed that it would rain very
frequently, as in England, so that the lake would be constantly
replenished and the sulphurous character of its water be thus
qualified.  We found in course of time that rain did not fall near so
often as in England, though usually much heavier; and that the effect
on the lake was not quite so great as we expected, at least in regard
to the taste, for the many rills and rivulets that carried water from
the high parts of the island ran over sulphurous soil, some of which
they washed down into the lake.

[Illustration: Our Flint Scraper for Sharpening Axes]

Being set on building a substantial house, or rather fortress, as I
said, we saw that with our rude tools it would take us a very long
time, and so we first took in hand to make a small hut which would
shelter us while the other was a-building.  This we determined to place
at the edge of the wood above the lake, and we found much material in
the trees which had been uprooted in the storm, and in young straight
saplings which we could either pull up, the soil being thin, or cut
down with our stone axes.  These axes of ours soon became blunt, but we
found a means to sharpen them by whetting on the hard rocks by the
shore, and it became our constant practice to begin each day with
bathing in the sea, and then sharpening our axes, which sharpened our
appetites also, I do assure you.  Having got a sufficiency of these
slender poles for our walls, we stuck them in holes which we made with
our axes, and held them together with tendrils of the creeping plants
that grew very plentifully in the woods.  We thus made walls about ten
feet high, about a space twelve feet square, and it was not until the
walls were up that we began to consider of how to put a roof to them,
having no ladders nor any means of mounting to such a height.  This
made us see how needful it was to take thought beforehand, though we
never succeeded in foreseeing all the difficulties that we should meet
with, and I suppose no one ever did.  All we could do about this roof
of ours was to carry up small rocks from the shore, and pile these one
on another until we made a stand high enough for us to lay saplings
from wall to wall.  Since it was clear that this roof would protect us
but little, the rain being able to come through the interstices, we put
up stands of rocks inside the hut, and supported on these we made shift
to weave grasses and creepers among the poles, finding it very hard
work, and very long too, we having to take the stands down and build
them up again as we moved from place to place in the hut.  As for the
walls, we filled up the interstices in them with earth from the
hill-side above us, which we found to be of a clayey sort, and soon
hardened in the sun, though after a little it began to crack and
crumble.  We carried this earth in our hands, a very troublesome and
slow manner of doing it, but we had no vessels, nor did we at that time
think of making any.

This hut took us above a week in building, at least I think so, for
after the first day or two we neglected to take any account of the
passage of time.  It was a poor sort of thing when finished, and could
not have stood against a hurricane; but the weather was very fair, and
besides, the place we had chosen was not near so much exposed as our
first habitation, on higher ground.  We hoped it would serve us until
we should have made our proposed fortress, and the building of it was
exceeding useful to us, for it took up, with the getting and eating of
our food, every minute of the daytime, and by keeping our thoughts
busy, as well as our hands, hindered us from dwelling on our loneliness.

I had almost forgot to mention two or three things: first, that every
morning and evening one or other of us went up the mountain-side, to a
spot whence we had sight of the sea all around, to spy whether a sail
was visible.  The second thing is, that Billy went out one day, and
brought back a little sucking-pig, which he had killed with his axe.
We cut off its hinder legs, and carried them to the hot spring, and
found that they cooked very well; and though the meat had a slight
savour of brimstone, it was vastly more agreeable than the salt junk we
were used to have aboard ship.  Indeed, Billy said that it only wanted
pease-pudding to make a meal fit for a king, and he ran all the way to
the wood and back again to fetch a bread-fruit, to see if that, when
boiled, would supply the place of pease; but the fruit only boiled to a
pap, and when Billy tasted it, he declared that it spoiled the flavour
of the pork, so we ate the meat by itself.

[Sidenote: Failure]

This failure made Billy determine again to try his hand at making fire,
which we had no time for when building our little hut.  He picked up a
straight twig, that seemed to promise well for his purpose, and
sharpening his flint axe, he peeled the twig and cut it so as to make a
stick about a foot long, one end of which he brought to a point.  But,
finding the wood too soft for the use to which he designed it, he went
prowling about to discover a tree hard enough, testing them with his
axe, and after a long search, lighted upon a tree that was very hard,
and whose sap was of a blood-red colour.[1]  Having cut a stick of
this, he sharpened one end to a point, and then took two chunks of
wood, one of a soft kind, the other of the new-discovered tree, which
we called redwood, and in each of these chunks he made a little hollow,
one in the soft wood for the sharp end of the stick, the other for the
blunt.  Then, fitting the stick into these hollows, he gave me all
three pieces of wood to hold, and while I held them tightly clamped
together, he began to twirl the stick between his hands as fast as he
could, as he had seen the savages do, though often they used a
bowstring.  He continued this for a good while, until his hands, hard
as they were, grew sore and his face was running with sweat; but
whether that the wood was damp, or that Billy was not dexterous enough,
I know not, only that there was never a sign of smouldering, though the
wood was hot when we felt it.  Billy insisted that I should take a
turn, which I did, and twirled the stick even faster, I believe, than
he did, though not so long; but it was all no good, and at last we
threw the wood from us, concluding that if we were to obtain fire, it
must be in some other way.  I do not mean that we never tried the
native way again: we were not so easily discouraged; we tried more than
once in the intervals of doing other things, and I think that with
perseverance we might have succeeded at last, only it was not
necessary, as will be seen hereafter.

[Sidenote: Building Materials]

This failure, though it annoyed us at the time, was of use to us,
inasmuch as it set us on noticing



[1] This appears to have been what botanists call _Rhizophora
mucronata_.--H.S.



the differences between woods, which until that time we had thought
little about, but was now become a matter of importance, with our
fortress in view.  We needed a hard, strong wood, yet not too hard to
be worked with our clumsy tools, and we spent a day or two in testing
the varieties of trees that grew on our island.  The cocoa-nut palm was
by far the most plentiful, and the bread-fruit tree came next: but we
did not think of cutting down either of these to make posts of, because
they were food trees, and, being ignorant how often they bore fruit, we
did not venture at the first to diminish the source of our provision by
so much as one.  Besides, we found, when we tried to cut a cocoa-nut
tree which had been cast down in the storm, that the wood was exceeding
hard, and so heavy that it sank in water.  After this testing, I say,
we discovered a tree on the hill-side whose wood was neither too hard
nor too soft, and as it existed in great numbers, and bore no fruit,
none that was edible, at least, we determined on this as the material
for our house.  I never knew the name of it, but it seemed to be a kind
of pine.

I had now, as I say, clean lost count of the days, and had no means of
keeping a journal, even if I had had the patience.  You must therefore
think of us as getting up every day with the sun, and going to bed
every night when it became dark.  I say, going to bed, though indeed we
had little that deserved the name, our couch consisting of nothing but
the bare ground and such leaves and grasses as we found serviceable.
It was a mercy that the climate was so even, and the nights were not at
all cold, or I do believe we should have perished, our clothing being
so light.  Indeed it was not long before we began to look with concern
upon our garments, which were much rotted already by the drenchings
they had had, and were becoming rent and frayed from hard usage.  We
had no means either of repairing them, or of making others, and we
could only think that in course of time we should have to go naked,
like the savages.  However, this did not trouble us at the moment,
since we had so much to do and to think about, what with getting our
food, and preparing our house, and fending off the dogs, which were
very troublesome, keeping at a distance, indeed, by day, but prowling
around our hut at night, and scratching at the walls so that they often
disturbed our sleep.  Between sunrise and sunset we worked very
diligently, and resting one day in seven--or it might be five, or six
sometimes, since we kept no strict count; but I did not think God would
be angry with us if we were not very exact in this, since we did as
well as we could.

We set to work getting material for our big house, as we called it,
immediately after our little house, or hut, was finished.  At first we
were greatly disheartened, for though we chose small trees of which to
make our logs, both for easiness of felling and of moving when they
were felled, we found that our clumsy axes were very poor tools.  Not
only did the flints need sharpening every few minutes, like a mower's
scythe, but being attached to the handles only with creepers, and not
very skilfully, they continually worked loose, and we had to desist in
order to bind them again, which mightily exasperated us.  At the end of
the first day, seeing what little progress we had made, we were ready
to despair.  "It will take us a hundred years, master," says Billy,
"and the corner posts will be rotted before we get the roof on.  I
don't believe in none of your Robinson Crusoes; and we'd better have
been drownded; and I warrant you Hoggett and Chick and great fat
Wabberley are just enjoying themselves somewhere, and I'm sick of my
life."

[Sidenote: Billy Scoffs at Romance]

I have forgot to say that when we were eating our meals, or resting, I
had told Billy the surprising story of Robinson Crusoe, of whom he had
never heard, encouraging both him and myself with the tale of how that
good mariner, after tribulations like to our own, came at length
happily to his own land again.  But I own I thought our case was much
worse than Crusoe's, for he had clothes, and corn food, and good
liquors, and firearms, and good tools, though few; and, indeed,
everything he needed save company, and that came to him at last;
whereas we had absolutely nothing except the fruits of the island and
what things we could make for ourselves.  Yet in reckoning up our
situation and his, I felt very thankful that I had a companion, for the
worst of evils are tolerable if we have some one to share them, and I
wonder that Crusoe did not go stark mad, being alone for so many years
till his man Friday came.  Billy often scoffed when I told him what I
remembered of Crusoe's story, and said he wasn't near so badly off as
we were, and if he--that is, Billy--only had what Crusoe had, he would
do as much as he, or more, especially if he had a forge and
blacksmith's tools.  And in particular, when I told him of Crusoe's
horror when he saw a footprint in the sand, he burst into a laugh, and
asked why there was only one footprint, and made me go down to our
little bit of sandy beach there and then, and showed me the prints he
made with his own feet, and asked me triumphantly whether the man whose
mark Crusoe saw was a one-legged man, or what.

Another thing I must mention, before I forget it, was that the first
time we went down to the shore we saw that the second boat, which,
being broken, the mariners had left, had been washed away.  We were
very much vexed at this, and wished we had had the forethought to drag
it higher up, where the waves could not reach it.  I do not think we
could have mended it enough to make it seaworthy, but we might have
tried; and it would at least have provided us with planks which we
should have found useful.  However, it was gone, and there was no use
repining.

But to come back to our house.  We were, I say, in despair at the small
result of our first day's hard labour, especially as we saw no way of
improving our tools, and had no other means of felling the trees.  It
came into my mind that if we only had fire, we might have burned them
down, and we tried again for a good while to make fire with the stick
and the chunks of wood.  But we had no more success than before, and
Billy cried out that he wished he could get some of the fire that set
the mountain water a-boiling, but he supposed he would be burned alive
if he tried to get any.  I smiled at his simplicity, and to ease his
thoughts a little, I asked him to accompany me up the mountain, it
being my turn to take our nightly look-out over the sea.  It chanced
that as we strayed over the mountain-side we lighted upon one of the
splinters of the boulder which Billy had broken before, and the gleam
of metal in it catching my eye, I said to Billy that it was desperately
plaguy to be where metal abounded, and not be able to use it.

[Sidenote: Making Fire]

"Why, master," says he, "who knows as how we can't use it?  We ain't
tried.  Why didn't we think of it afore?"  And straightway he picks up
the splinter, and I found a flint, and he struck them together, and
fairly danced with delight when he made a spark, though he stopped
dancing and howled next moment, having hurt his bare feet on the sharp
rock.

I felt as great a delight as Billy, it being plain that we now had the
first means of making fire, and if only we could discover anything to
serve as tinder we might soon have a fire as large as we pleased.  We
went back to our hut by the wood very quickly, being eager to try
before it was dark; but though we collected plenty of dry grass and
struck spark after spark out of the flint, we could not kindle a flame,
and, to our great disappointment, ate cold supper again.  The next day
also we were no more successful, though we neglected our work while we
tried again and again, and should have been very sorry for the loss of
time but that time mattered very little to us.  However, in the
afternoon, when we went into the wood to get cocoa-nuts, I sat myself
down on the trunk of a great tree which had been thrown down by a
storm, I suppose--not our storm, but earlier, for the leaves were all
withered.  I sat myself down, I say, but went lower than I intended,
the trunk, that appeared solid, giving way under me, so that I toppled
over backwards in a cloud of dust.  When we looked at the tree, we saw
that the inside of it was completely rotted away, with the dry rot, as
we say, and we both cried out at the same moment that this might be our
tinder.  We immediately broke off a strip of the bark, and collected
some of the dust upon it, and then striking a spark, we caught it on
the tinder, which was, however, so dry that it flared up and burnt out
in an instant, without kindling the bark.  We remedied this very soon
by mingling some dry grass, rubbed small, with the wood dust, and this
burning more slowly, it caused the bark to smoulder, from which we blew
up a flame, and in a few minutes had a very pretty fire of sticks.
Billy leapt around it in an ecstasy, and I could not help but liken him
to a fire-worshipper, whose religion I understood better now than
before, after all the trouble we had had.

"Now we can bake some bread," said I.

"And roast some pork," says Billy.

"We had better make bread first," said I.

"My mouth is watering for the crackling," says Billy.

"Bread will be the sooner done," I said.

"But the taste of pork stays in the mouth longer," says Billy.

It nearly came to a quarrel between us, as to which should be cooked
first, meat or bread; but when we were in the heat of the argument we
perceived that our fire was going out, and that brought us to our
senses.  We piled more sticks on it, and broken cocoa-nut shells, and
Billy, yielding to my desire for bread, went out into the wood and soon
returned with two or three fine large fruits, weighing, I should think,
about three pounds apiece.  We had seen the native way of cooking this
fruit, paring off the rough rind and baking the inner part, between the
rind and the core, in an oven; but having no oven, though we promised
ourselves to build one soon, we laid the fruits as they were on a red
part of the fire, turning them about as you do chestnuts, and after a
while we took them up and, having broken away the rind, ate the bread
hot, and I do think I had never in my life before made such a hearty
meal as I now did, though, to be sure, the bread had a slight flavour
of burnt wood.  However, we ate a good supper, and went to bed much
happier than at any time since we first came to the island.

[Sidenote: Bread]

We made our breakfast in the same way when we awoke, but finding that
it took some time to get a fire, we considered whether we could not
keep it constantly alive, yet without needing to replenish it too
frequently with fuel, which would have been a trouble, as well as a
hindrance to our work.  After some thought, we devised a kind of
covered-in grate, which we built four-square of stones and pieces of
rock, filling up the spaces between them, where they did not fit, with
the clayey earth I have before mentioned, which we moistened with
water, fetched from the lake in half a cocoa-nut shell, and then worked
with our hands into a kind of mortar.  We made a cover to this grate
with small boughs plaited with grass and smeared all over with earth,
and at the bottom of the grate we left two small holes by which air
might enter, not a great current, but enough to keep the fire
smouldering without burning much fuel.  This device answered our
expectations very well.  We found that by casting into the embers a
quantity of dry brushwood, and blowing upon them, we could obtain a
brisk fire in a very little time, and when we had no more need of it
for the present, we laid on a heap of grass and twigs, not too dry, and
shut down the lid, and so found that we could keep our fire alive for a
whole day with no more tending.  We discovered, moreover, that by
making a second enclosure about our grate, and covering this in also,
we had a very convenient oven, in which we could lay in the morning the
bread-fruit we needed for our dinner, and at midday find it very well
cooked, neither too much nor too little.  I must not forget to say that
our neighbours the dogs watched these proceedings very curiously, and
the first time we left the grate they went to it, to investigate with
their noses; but the stones being very hot, their noses were burnt, and
they ran yelping away, and came to it no more except the first time we
roasted some pig's flesh, and then, being in a perfect frenzy at the
savoury smell, they scratched down the walls of our oven and ran away
with our meat, hot as it was, so that we had none for dinner.  At this
Billy flew into a fine rage, I assure you, and we had to consider of
some way of preserving our meat from these greedy maws, of which more
in its place.

[Sidenote: Wood-cutting]

Having now fire at our command, we set about putting it to the use for
which we had so greatly desired it, namely, the felling of trees for
our big house.  We kindled fires against the trunks of four trees of a
fair size which we selected for our corner posts, at first setting the
fire all round, until we saw both that the wind, which was fairly
strong that morning, blew the flames all one way, and also that it
would be more convenient to burn the tree on the opposite side from the
direction in which we wished it to fall; then we put out the fires
except on the windward side.  We found it no easy matter to keep the
flames at a just height, so that they did not burn more of the trunks
than we desired.  Every now and again we chipped away the charred wood
with our axes, and so the fire ate deeper and deeper into the trees,
and we cut deeper and deeper also, until by the close of this day the
trees stood, as it were, but by a thread.  We wished we had ropes,
wherewith we might pull the trees to the ground, but having none we
threw ourselves with great violence against the trunks, and so cast
them all down but one, which we left for a little more burning on the
morrow, and went to our hut very well satisfied with our day's work.

We were sitting at our supper when of a sudden Billy gave a jump and
cried out, "What if any savages have seen our smoke!"  Our fires had
given a good deal of smoke, especially the damper woods with which we
fed them; but I said that even the nearest island was too far off for
our smoke to be easily seen from it, and as for any savages who might
be cruising in canoes, they would suppose it came from the mountain.  I
could not doubt that our island was an object of terror to the peoples
of the neighbouring islands, and I said we ought to be thankful to God
that it was so, since it was better to be lonely than to be made
slaves, or eaten by cannibals.  This comforted Billy, though he said
that we had better use the driest woods we could find for our fires, so
that the smoke would be less.




CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

OF THE BUILDING OF OUR HUT, TO WHICH WE BRING MORE ENTHUSIASM THAN SKILL


I have not said anything about the plan of our big hut, but it must not
be supposed that we began to work without any design.  We often talked
about it, and so made a general plan, though we forgot many things and
did not foresee others.  What this plan was will be made clear as I go
on: if I set it down here all in one place it would be like writing the
same thing twice over, which would be tedious.

Having felled the four fairly large trees we designed for our
corner-posts, the next thing was to bring them down from the wood to
the level plateau where we intended to build.  We lopped off some of
the branches and burnt off the rest, but then found that the trunks
were too heavy for us to drag, even though it was downhill.  Thus we
were put to it to make rollers, which was not such a tedious matter as
felling the trees, for there were many young trees of a shape and size
fit for this use when we had taken off their branches.  But when we
came to place the rollers under the first of our trunks we could not at
first by any means do it, the tree being so heavy that the two of us
together could not raise it an inch from the ground.  How to get over
this difficulty puzzled us for some time; indeed, we might never have
thought of a way but for what I may call an accident.  We had gone down
to the shore for our morning swim, and as we walked over the beach we
spied a crab scuttling away under a small rock.  Billy had felt a
grudge against crabs ever since one had robbed him of his club: so he
cries out, "We'll have this old crab for dinner, master," and with that
he takes his axe and prises up the rock, and then gives the crab a
great knock, which did it not the least harm, it being large with a
thick shell.  However, he was not to be baffled, so, setting down the
rock again, he bids me watch it, and runs off to the wood, returning
presently with a long bit of creeper, in which he had made a loop or
noose at one end.  This noose he slips over one of the claws of the
crab, and drew it tight, and then set off at a run, dragging the crab
after him.

[Sidenote: A Crab]

We ate the crab for dinner, and liked it very well, but the more
important matter was that seeing Billy prise up the rock gave me a
notion of the right manner of moving our trees.

"We must carry two rocks up to the wood," I said, "and cut two stout
poles, and then I will show you how the trees can be moved."

"'Tis desperate hard work, master," says Billy with a prodigious sigh.
"We don't get on very fast.  I wish we could find a cave where we could
live like that old Robinson Crusoe, without any building at all."

"But he built all the same," said I.

"But not without tools," says Billy.

However, he agreed to my proposal, and we carried a rock between us,
with a great deal of sweating, up to where the fallen trees lay, and
then Billy says, "Ain't we fools!" and showed me that we could save a
deal of labour by fastening strands of creeper to the second rock, and
dragging it up instead of carrying it in our arms.  This being done we
cut two stout poles, which took us a long time, and then, putting the
rocks one on either side of the first trunk, we took a pole each, and,
resting them on the rocks, put the one end under the tree and pressed
heavily on the other, and so contrived to lift the weight which our
unaided strength was quite unequal to.  I do not mean that we had never
seen levers before, but we might never have thought of them unless
Billy had prised up the rock after that crab.  The use of levers was
indeed a mystery to him, I mean the explanation of them, he saying that
we were no stronger than before, and there was certainly no strength in
two dead poles, and when I reminded him of the pulleys and the windlass
on board ship, which also helped to raise things, he said that poles
were not pulleys, nor a windlass neither, and he didn't see what that
had to do with it.  However, there was the trunk lifted, and while I
held it so with my pole, Billy slipped a roller under it, and working
thus from the end towards the middle, we brought the roller along by
degrees, and then found that we could slip the second roller under the
other end without the help of the poles.

Then, with much pushing and hauling, we set the trunk a-moving on the
rollers down the slope.  It was still hard work enough, for where the
earth was soft, the rollers sank into it under the heavy weight of the
tree, and when we came to a part that was hard and pretty smooth, the
trunk set to a-rolling so fast that it almost ran away with us, and
Billy, who was in front, was very nearly sent headlong down, which
would have been very terrible if he had fallen plump into our grate.
We brought the other three trunks down to our plateau in the same way,
and thus had the four stout posts which we intended for the corners of
our house, though there was a great deal to be done to them before they
could be erected.  They were about the same thickness, being sixteen or
eighteen inches across, but not the same length, and we had first to
make them equal, which took us a long time; I think we were ten days at
the work.  When we had finished it, the trunks were about fourteen feet
long, that being the height we had determined on for our house,
allowing for some portion of the posts to be driven into the earth.  We
did not peel the bark off the trees, but left it on, thinking it would
do no harm.

[Sidenote: Choosing a Site]

We marked out the lines of our house, on the level plateau near the
lake, which was almost the only even spot on the island, and allowed us
a space of about twenty feet square, which I thought was large enough,
thinking besides of the great labour we should be put to if we tried to
make too big a house.  But when it came to erecting our corner-posts we
were in a great quandary.  The ground was pretty soft, and deeper than
at other parts of the island, which I guessed was due to the heavy
rains washing earth down from the hill above.  With spades or shovels
we might have dug holes to a considerable depth, and then slipped the
trunks in, and having thus disposed of a part of the dead weight of
them, we might have raised them to an erect position with levers, or by
pushing them up with our hands as men raise a long ladder.  But with no
tools save our blunt axes we saw that such excavation would demand
unconscionable toil, and besides, after we should have accomplished it,
we should be hard put to it to make the earth around the timber
sufficiently firm and compact; so we had to consider another way, which
gave us a great deal of trouble.  Indeed, it baffled us for several
days, in which, however, we were not idle, but occupied ourselves in
other concerns.

[Sidenote: A Flagstaff]

One of these was the erecting of a signal-post.  Although, when we
talked matters over--as we often did, both in the daytime and
especially at night before we fell asleep--when we talked things over,
I say, we always concluded that there was little or no chance of being
rescued, and made our plans as if we were to remain on this island for
the rest of our lives; yet we thought it right to take our measures for
attracting any friendly ship that might heave in sight.  We must not,
of course, attempt to raise any permanent signal, for such a thing
would beyond question be discovered by the savages of some neighbouring
island when going about in their canoes, and the last thing we could
wish was to bring savages into our peaceful domain.  On the other hand,
unless we had some means of signalling, a ship might easily pass us by
before we could communicate with it, for the island was so small that
no vessel would heave to on the mere chance of finding water, since its
most important river, if it had one, could not be more than a mere
brook in size.  Being thus decided that we ought to have some kind of
signal ready, in such a case, we determined that nothing could be
better than a flagstaff, even if we should never have a flag.

As for the spot where to erect it, we had no difficulty in choosing
that; no better could be found than the wooded hill above the lava bed,
whither we climbed every morning and evening to take our lookout.  At
the top of this hill, and somewhat apart from the rest of the trees,
there stood a tree very straight and tall, overtopping the others, so
that it formed a very clear mark.  Since our flagstaff was not to be
permanently in sight, it seemed best that we should have one that we
could take to pieces, and put together when it was necessary to hoist
it, and I had already seen, at the edge of the lake, what I thought
would serve our purpose to a marvel.  This was a cluster of trees, or
rather shrubs, like what is called bamboo, the stalks being tough and
hollow, with joints or knuckles here and there.  We cut down three or
four of these stalks, choosing them all of different diameters, and
having burnt out the pith inside them, for some distance from the top,
we contrived to make a kind of telescope tube by fitting them together,
it reaching a length of near thirty feet.

This being made, we cut, in the top of the trunk of the tall, straight
tree before mentioned, a groove large enough to form a socket for the
bottom end of our flagstaff, and when we had fitted it to our
satisfaction, we ventured just before sunset to raise the staff, and it
made a sort of topmast to the tree, standing some twelve feet above the
summit.

"This is prime," says Billy.  "Now all we want is an ancient or a
pendant to fix to the top of it, and there you are."

"We have nothing but our shirts," said I, "and those we cannot spare."

"But we don't need to raise our flag until we see a ship over yonder,"
says Billy, "and if we do see one I can strip off my shirt 

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