[Illustration:
MR. CRUSOE SAVES ME FROM A FLOGGING._page 3._.
]
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A NEW ROBINSON CRUSOE
BY W. L. ALDEN
AUTHOR OF
“THE CRUISE OF THE CANOE CLUB” “THE CRUISE OF THE ‘GHOST’”
“THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMY BROWN” ETC.
Illustrated
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1888
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HARPER’S YOUNG PEOPLE SERIES.
=Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00 per volume.=
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THE ADVENTURES OF JIMMY BROWN. Edited by W. L. ALDEN.
THE CRUISE OF THE CANOE CLUB. By W. L. ALDEN.
THE CRUISE OF THE “GHOST.” By W. L. ALDEN.
THE MORAL PIRATES. By W. L. ALDEN.
A NEW ROBINSON CRUSOE. By W. L. ALDEN.
TOBY TYLER; OR, TEN WEEKS WITH A CIRCUS. By JAMES OTIS.
MR. STUBBS’S BROTHER. A Sequel to “Toby Tyler.” By JAMES OTIS.
TIM AND TIP; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A BOY AND A DOG. By JAMES OTIS.
LEFT BEHIND; OR, TEN DAYS A NEWSBOY. By JAMES OTIS.
RAISING THE “PEARL.” By JAMES OTIS.
SILENT PETE; OR, THE STOWAWAYS. By JAMES OTIS.
THE COLONEL’S MONEY. By LUCY C. LILLIE.
MILDRED’S BARGAIN, AND OTHER STORIES. By LUCY C. LILLIE.
NAN. By LUCY C. LILLIE.
MUSIC AND MUSICIANS. By LUCY C. LILLIE.
ROLF HOUSE. By LUCY C. LILLIE.
JO’S OPPORTUNITY. By LUCY C. LILLIE.
THE FOUR MACNICOLS. By WILLIAM BLACK.
THE LOST CITY; OR, THE BOY EXPLORERS IN CENTRAL ASIA. By DAVID KER.
INTO UNKNOWN SEAS; OR, THE CRUISE OF TWO SAILOR-BOYS. By DAVID KER.
THE TALKING LEAVES. An Indian Story. By W. O. STODDARD.
TWO ARROWS. A Story of Red and White. By W. O. STODDARD.
WHO WAS PAUL GRAYSON? By JOHN HABBERTON, Author of “Helen’s Babies.”
PRINCE LAZYBONES, AND OTHER STORIES. By Mrs. W. J. HAYS.
THE ICE QUEEN. By ERNEST INGERSOLL.
STRANGE STORIES FROM HISTORY. By GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON.
WAKULLA: A Story of Adventure in Florida. By KIRK MUNROE.
THE FLAMINGO FEATHER. By KIRK MUNROE.
DERRICK STERLING. By KIRK MUNROE.
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PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
☞ _Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid,
to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price._
Copyright, 1888, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
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ILLUSTRATIONS.
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PAGE
MR. CRUSOE SAVES ME FROM A FLOGGING _Frontispiece._
“‘IT’S ALL RIGHT, MIKE. MY GRANDFATHER RAN 19
HIS RAFT ASHORE IN JUST THE SAME WAY’”
“BEFORE HE HAD GONE TEN FEET HIS SWORD 47
TRIPPED HIM UP”
“HE LOOKED WORSE THAN ANY HEATHEN THAT EVER 59
WAS BORN”
MIKE TAKES THE PART OF “MAN FRIDAY” 67
MR. CRUSOE SUPERINTENDS THE BUILDING OF THE 77
CANOE
THE FOOTPRINT IN THE SAND 99
“HE CALLED THE VISITORS ‘CANNIBALS OF THE 119
DEEPEST DYE’”
“I WAS TOO QUICK FOR HIM, AND THREW HIM DOWN” 131
“‘I MUST HAVE HAD A BRAIN-FEVER, MICHAEL,’ 141
SAID HE”
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A NEW ROBINSON CRUSOE.
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CHAPTER I.
I did not exactly write this story, for I can’t write very much except
my name, but I talked it all, from beginning to end, to a man who writes
just as plain as print, and he wrote it down just as I told it to him.
At least he said he would, and I am pretty sure he kept his word; but if
he did happen to put any mistakes into it, you will know they are his,
and not mine.
My name is Mike Flanagan—my father was Michael Flanagan, and my uncle
was Patrick Flanagan—and I was born in Ireland, in the city of Cork. We
all came to America when I was a baby, and after everybody that belonged
to me died I went to sea. I never saw my uncle Patrick, but I always
thought a great deal of him because I was told he was a pirate, and
that, of course, made the family very proud; but I found out after I
grew up that he was only a pilot in Queenstown harbor, which is very
different from being a pirate.
When I went to sea I was fourteen years old, and I made seven voyages
between New York and ports in England, France, and Germany. I liked the
Atlantic well enough, but I wanted to make a voyage in a deep-water
ship, so I shipped on board the _H. G. Thompson_, a big American ship
that was bound from New York to San Francisco, and then to China. I was
sixteen years old then, and though I shipped as ordinary seaman, I
expected that after the ship got back to New York I would be able to
ship as A. B.
There were twenty-two of us in the forecastle—ten A. B.’s, ten ordinary
seamen, and two boys. The captain and the second mate were very decent,
but the mate was a hard man, and as I was in his watch, I didn’t have a
very good time. He was a Nova Scotia chap, and he was a mean, bullying
fellow. He was no sailor-man either, and I don’t see how he ever got to
be mate of a ship.
We had one passenger. He was a man about thirty years old, and he was
making the voyage for his health because he wasn’t very well. He was
thin and tall, with the brightest eyes you ever saw, and he had a
servant with him to take care of him who was the laziest and most
worthless chap I ever saw aboard a ship. None of us knew exactly what
was the matter with the passenger, except that he didn’t seem to be very
strong. At least we all thought he wasn’t, until one day when the mate
happened to be laying into me with a rope’s end—which he had a way of
doing—the passenger jumped up and snatched the rope away, and told the
mate that if he touched me again he’d heave him overboard. The mate was
twice the passenger’s weight, but instead of killing him on the spot, as
I expected of course he would do, he was actually frightened, and walked
away without saying a word.
That was the beginning of my acquaintance with the queer passenger.
After that he often used to talk to me when we happened to be on deck
together, and was as kind to me as he could be. He told me his name was
James Robinson Crusoe, and that his grandfather was a very celebrated
man, who lived for twenty-eight years on an island all by himself,
having been cast away. The passenger was forever talking about his
grandfather, whose name was Robinson Crusoe, without the James; but I
never could see that the old man amounted to very much, though I never
read the book of travels that he wrote, and perhaps the passenger did
not always tell the truth about him.
I got to like Mr. Crusoe very much, though he afterwards gave me more
trouble than any sailor-man ever before got into through being kind to a
passenger, and being willing to talk to him. However, he meant to do
right, and I shall never forget how he stood up for me when the mate was
arguing with me, though of course, being a passenger, he had no right to
be interfering between the officers and the men.
We sailed from New York on the first day of November, and we had very
decent weather all the way to the Horn, and around it, for that matter.
We all thought we were going to make about a ninety-day passage to San
Francisco, when our luck turned, and we got a strong northerly wind that
lasted till the captain got out of patience, and put the ship to the
westward in hopes of meeting a fair wind. We must have run a long ways
out of our course, but the wind still hung in the north, until one day a
tremendous hurricane struck us all of a sudden from the eastward. It was
about noon, and all hands were at dinner, and the captain and mate had
gone below to work up their observations, when the second mate sung out
for all hands to shorten sail. We were on the starboard tack, carrying
all three top-gallant sails. We got the top-gallant sails rolled up, the
main-sail, the outer jib, spanker, and maintop-gallant stay-sail stowed,
and were furling the fore and mizzen upper top-sails, when the gale
struck us. The captain was on deck long before this time, and as it was
blowing too hard to bring the ship up to the wind with the sail she had
on her, he squared the yards and put her right before it.
We had the worst job I ever saw to get the sail off her. By the time we
had the upper top-sails furled and the fore and aft sails stowed we had
to reef the fore-sail, the fore and main lower top-sails, and to furl
the mizzen-top sail. All hands were on the foreyard for at least an hour
before we could get the sail reefed, and half a dozen times I thought we
should have to give it up. However, we got it reefed and set at last,
and when we were just through with it the sail split and blew away.
By this time it was blowing harder than I ever saw it blow before, and
the ship was taking in green seas on each side over the rail every time
she rolled. The captain knew we had no time to lose, for the ship was
continually burying herself nearly up to the foremast, she still had so
much sail on her; so he ordered the fore and mizzen lower top-sails to
be brailed up, and let them blow away, while we close-reefed the lower
maintop-sail, which we did without very much difficulty, and then
knocked off to get our suppers.
The forecastle was all afloat with the water that had come down the
hatchway before any one had thought to close it, so we had our supper on
the quarter-deck, where all the people except the cook and Mr. Crusoe
were gathered. Mr. Crusoe had got a fall, so I heard his servant say,
and his left leg was a little sprung, so that he didn’t care to come on
deck, but stayed below in his berth.
The wind kept on freshening and the sea kept on getting up, and by the
time we were through with our supper we had to take the top-sail off
her, and bring her down to bare poles. Even then she travelled faster
than she had ever done before in her life, and she must have been making
a good fifteen knots an hour. Nobody could go forward, for the waist of
her was mostly full of water, so all hands stayed on the quarter-deck,
and waited for the hurricane to blow itself out.
It didn’t show the least sign of blowing itself out, and if it had known
how to blow harder it would have done it. It blew for three days and
nights, gradually backing to the northward and westward, until on the
last night the ship was heading nearly south-east. Of course we sailors
liked it, all except the fact that it was impossible to do any cooking.
All we had to do was to take our tricks at the wheel, and then to sit
around the mizzen-mast and wonder if it meant to blow forever. We didn’t
keep any lookout, for nobody could get forward, and the air was so black
with flying spoondrift that you couldn’t see much more than the length
of the ship. Of course the mate growled at us a good deal, but even he
couldn’t think of any work that we could do, so we didn’t mind him.
It was about the middle of the last night of the hurricane that the ship
struck. Without giving us the least warning she struck a reef, and the
fore and main-mast and the mizzen-top mast went overboard together. At
the same moment a sea boarded us over the stern, and swept the captain,
the second mate, and five or six of the men away with it. The rest of us
took to the mizzen rigging, and expected every moment that the ship
would go to pieces.
She held together, however, though she pounded heavily and the seas
broke over her constantly. There was only one boat left that had not
been stove to pieces or swept away, and that was on the top of the
deck-house. The mate and the rest of us watched our chances, and got
safely where the boat was and launched her. We were just going to cast
off when I remembered the passenger, and climbed on board the wreck
again to look for him. The men shouted to me to come back, but the mate
sang out that there was no room for passengers, and shoved the boat off.
I saw a big sea lift her and carry her on out of sight, and then I went
below to find Mr. Crusoe.
I found him crawling up the companion-way, and nearly drowned by the
water which every minute or two rushed down on him. I got him on deck,
and made a rope fast around his waist, and then around mine, and after a
while I got him into the rigging, where we were out of the reach of the
sea.
We had hardly got into the rigging when the ship slid over the reef into
smoother water, and drifted away before the wind. The sea did not break
over us any more, but we stayed in the rigging, for I expected that we
would sink in a few minutes, and there was a chance that she might sink
where the water would be shallow. She swung around and drifted stern
foremost, and I could see by the way she rolled that there was a great
deal of water in her, although her deck was still a good six feet above
the water. Before she had drifted very long her stern grounded quite
gently, and remained high and dry, although the forward part of her, as
far as the stump of the foremast, was under water.
Of course we did not stay in the rigging any longer, but came down and
made ourselves comfortable on the quarter-deck. I got the hand-lead and
sounded the water. I found that we were on a sandy bottom, and that it
shelved so gently that there was no danger that the ship would slide off
and sink in deep water. The wind still blew hard, but the reef protected
us from the sea, and there was no danger that the ship would break up
unless the wind changed. I went into the cabin, which was quite free
from water, and brought up a couple of mattresses and some blankets, and
told Mr. Crusoe that we would turn in and sleep on deck till morning.
He had not said very much since I brought him on deck, except to ask
where the rest of the people were. I told him that the mate might not
have meant to desert us, but that he cast loose so as to prevent the
boat from being stove against the side of the ship; but Mr. Crusoe said
that, whether the mate deserted us wilfully or not, I would have been in
the boat if I had not gone back to try to save a passenger. He put his
hand on my shoulder, and said, “Mike, you have done a generous and noble
action, and I shall never forget it as long as I live.” But I told him
that we had better go to sleep while we had the chance, and that we
could find out in the morning whether we were going to live or be
drowned.
You see, if we were stranded on a sand-bank in the middle of the Pacific
Ocean, our chances would not be worth much; but if we were on an island,
we would be able to get ashore and make ourselves comfortable. Since we
could not possibly tell where we were until daylight, there was no use
in bothering ourselves about it.
Of course I didn’t like it when the boat left me on the wreck, for I
thought I had lost my chance of saving my life; but the more I thought
of it, the more I was sure that the boat could not have lived five
minutes in the breakers, and that every one in her must have been
drowned. I felt pretty certain that the ship must be near the shore, for
you don’t often find sand-banks out at sea, and I made no doubt that Mr.
Crusoe and I could go ashore in the morning. At any rate, we were safe
enough for that night, and could be sure of a good breakfast out of the
cabin stores in the morning. I don’t believe in looking too far ahead,
and a good night’s sleep, with no turning out to come on deck in the
middle of the night, and with a good breakfast waiting for you, and
nobody to set you at work, is a good enough prospect for me. So I rolled
myself up in my blanket, with a good soft mattress under me, and a real
feather pillow under my head, and was asleep inside of five minutes.
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