Part 12 (1/2)

”To be sure we do,” replied William. ”And if anybody dares to doubt it, I will go, like Count Robert, to the crossroad, and give battle for a week to all comers, just as he did.”

”Poking fun at the ancient mariner again,--are you?” said the Captain, trying hard to look serious. ”And so I'll punish you, my boy, by knocking off just where we are, and saying not another word this blessed day.”

CHAPTER XII.

Relates how a Desert Island became a Rock of Good Hope, and other Hopeful Matters which to be understood must be read of.

”You now see,” went on the Captain, when the story was again resumed, ”that the Dean and myself had by this time fallen into a regular course of life. 'What cannot be helped,' said the Dean, 'we must make the best of.'

”Being thus obliged to make the best of it, we became resigned; and here let me say that even now I feel much surprised at the ease with which we dropped into ways suitable to our new life. You have seen already how one difficulty after another vanished before our patient efforts; and now that we had a fire to warm us, and a hut to shelter us, we felt as if we could overcome almost anything. So we gained great courage, and were fast settling down to business, like any other people, feeling that our lives were at least in no present danger.

”The Dean and I had a conversation about this time, which I will try to repeat as nearly as I can. We were seated on the hillside overlooking the sea to the west, attracted by what we at first took for a s.h.i.+p under full sail, steering right in towards the island; but you can imagine how great was our disappointment when we found that what we had taken for a s.h.i.+p was nothing more than an iceberg looming up above the sea in a misty atmosphere. This was the third time we had been deceived in that manner. Once the Dean had come rus.h.i.+ng towards me, shouting at the top of his voice, 'The fleet! the fleet!' meaning the whale-s.h.i.+ps; but he might just as well have saved himself all that trouble, for 'the fleet'

proved to be only a great group of icebergs; but when I told him so he would hardly believe it, until he became at last convinced that they were not moving.

”You must know that these icebergs a.s.sume all sorts of shapes, and it was very natural, since we were always on the lookout for s.h.i.+ps, that our imaginations should be excited and disturbed, and ready to see at any time what we most wanted to see; nor were we at all peculiar in this, as many people might tell you who were never cast away in the cold.

”So it is not surprising that we should cry out very frequently 'A sail, a sail!' when there was not a sail perhaps within many hundred miles of us.

”Well, as I was going to say, the Dean and I sat upon the hillside overlooking the sea, thinking the icebergs were s.h.i.+ps, or hoping so at least, until hope died away, and then it was that we fell to talking.

”'Do you think, Hardy,' asked the Dean, 'that any other s.h.i.+p than ours ever did come this way or ever will?'

”'I'm afraid not,' said I; and I must have looked very despondent about it, as in truth I was,--much more so than I would have liked to own.

”I had not considered what the Dean was about, for he was despondent enough himself, and no doubt wished very hard that I might say something to cheer him up a bit; but, instead of doing that, I only made him worse, whereupon he seemed to grow angry, and in a rather snappish way he inquired of me if I knew what I was.

”'No,' said I, quite taken aback. 'What do you mean?'

”'Mean!' exclaimed the Dean. 'Why, I mean to say,'--and he spoke in a positive way that was not usual with him,--'I mean to say,' said he, 'that you are a regular Job's comforter, and no mistake.'

”I had not the least idea at that period of my life as to what kind of a thing a Job's comforter was. I had a vague notion that it was something to go round the neck, and I protested that I was nothing of the sort.

”'Yes, you are, and you know you are,' went on the Dean,--'a regular Job's comforter,--croaking all the time, and never seeing any way out of our troubles at all.'

”'I should like to know,' said I,--and I thought I had him there,--'how I can see any way out of our troubles when there isn't any!'

”'Well, you can think there is, if there isn't,--can't you?' and the Dean was ten times more snappish than he was before; and, having thus delivered himself, he snapped himself up and snapped himself off in a great hurry; but, as the little fellow turned to go away, I thought I saw great big tears stealing down his cheeks. I thought that his voice trembled over the last words; and when he went behind a rock and hid himself, I knew that he had gone away to cry, and that he had been ashamed to cry where I could see him.

”After a while I went to him. He was lying on his side, with his head upon his arm. His cap had fallen off, and the light wind was playing gently with his curly hair. The sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly in his face, and, sunburnt and weather-beaten though it was, his rosy cheeks were the same as ever. But bitter, scalding tears had left their traces there, for the poor boy had cried himself to sleep.

”His sleep was troubled, for he was calling out, and his hands and feet were twitching now and then, and cruel dreams were weighing on his sleeping, even more heavily, perhaps, than they had been upon his waking thoughts. So I awoke him. He sprang up instantly, looking very wild, and sat upon the rock. 'Where am I? What's the matter? Is that you, Hardy?'

were the questions with which he greeted me so quickly that I could not answer one of them. Then he smiled in his natural way, and said, 'After all, it was only a dream.'

”'What was it?' I asked. 'Tell me, Dean, what it was.'

”'O, it was not much, but you see it put me in a dreadful fright. I thought a s.h.i.+p was steering close in by the land; I thought I saw you spring upon the deck and sail away; and as you sailed away upon the silvery sea, I thought you turned and mocked me, and I cursed you as I stood upon the beach, until some foul fiend, in punishment for my wicked words, caught me by the neck, and dragged me through the sea, and tied me fast to the vessel's keel, and there I was with his last words ringing in my ears, with the gurgling waters, ”Follow him to your doom,”

when you awoke me. ”Follow him to your doom!” I seem to hear the demon shrieking even now, though I'm wide enough awake.'