Part 4 (2/2)

[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 fas.h.i.+on, 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-s.h.i.+ft 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 s.h.i.+rts and breeches. That night was the most miserable of all my life, I a.s.sure you. We huddled together for shelter under the thickest trees, listening to the howling of the wind, and sometimes hearing great cras.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+vering 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 fas.h.i.+oning. 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 c.o.c.k; 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-gla.s.s, 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 sh.e.l.l 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Our Flint Sc.r.a.per for Sharpening Axes]

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