Part 3 (2/2)

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 gra.s.ses, 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 appet.i.tes, 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 quant.i.ty before we were satisfied. We saw that we had come into a grove of those useful trees, and with their fruit, and the sh.e.l.l-fish on the sh.o.r.e, which if it came to a pinch I must eat raw, as Billy had done, we should be in no immediate danger of famis.h.i.+ng. 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 sh.o.r.e. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 sh.e.l.l-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 quant.i.ty, 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.suredly 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+ver 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 pus.h.i.+ng 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, brandis.h.i.+ng 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, d.o.g.g.i.ng 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.

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