_By_ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
I went down, and drank my fill; and then came up, and got a blink at the
moon; and then down again. They say a man sinks the third time for good.
I cannot be made like other folk, then, for I would not like to write
how often I went down or how often I came up again. All the while, I was
being hurled along, and beaten upon and choked, and then swallowed
whole; and the thing was so distracting to my wits, that I was neither
sorry nor afraid.
Presently, I found I was holding to a spar, which helped me somewhat.
And then all of a sudden I was in quiet water, and began to come to
myself.
It was the spare yard I had got hold of, and I was amazed to see how far
I had traveled from the brig. I hailed her, indeed; but it was plain she
was already out of cry. She was still holding together; but whether or
not they had yet launched the boat, I was too far off and too low down
to see.
[Illustration: I FOUND I WAS HOLDING TO A SPAR]
While I was hailing the brig, I spied a tract of water lying between us,
where no great waves came, but which yet boiled white all over and
bristled in the moon with rings and bubbles. Sometimes the whole tract
swung to one side, like the tail of a live serpent; sometimes, for a
glimpse, it would all disappear and then boil up again. What it was I
had no guess, which for the time increased my fear of it; but I now know
it must have been the roost or tide-race, which had carried me away so
fast and tumbled me about so cruelly, and at last, as if tired of that
play, had flung out me and the spare yard upon its landward margin.
I now lay quite becalmed, and began to feel that a man can die of cold
as well as of drowning. The shores of Earraid were close in; I could see
in the moonlight the dots of heather and the sparkling of the mica in
the rocks.
"Well," thought I to myself, "if I cannot get as far as that, it's
strange."
I had no skill of swimming; but when I laid hold upon the yard with both
arms, and kicked out with both feet, I soon began to find that I was
moving. Hard work it was, and mortally slow; but in about an hour of
kicking and splashing, I had got well in between the points of a sandy
bay surrounded by low hills.
The sea was here quite quiet; there was no sound of any surf; the moon
shone clear, and I thought in my heart I had never seen a place so
desert and desolate. But it was dry land; and when at last it grew so
shallow that I could leave the yard and wade ashore upon my feet, I
cannot tell if I was more tired or more grateful. Both at least, I was;
tired as I never was before that night; and grateful to God, as I trust
I have been often, though never with more cause.
With my stepping ashore, I began the most unhappy part of my adventures.
It was half-past twelve in the morning, and though the wind was broken
by the land, it was a cold night. I dared not sit down (for I thought I
should have frozen), but took off my shoes and walked to and fro upon
the sand, barefoot and beating my breast with infinite weariness. There
was no sound of man or cattle; not a cock crew, though it was about the
hour of their first waking; only the surf broke outside in the distance,
which put me in mind of my perils. To walk by the sea at that hour of
the morning, and in a place so desert-like and lonesome, struck me with
a kind of fear.
As soon as the day began to break, I put on my shoes and climbed a
hill--the ruggedest scramble I ever undertook--falling, the whole way
between big blocks of granite or leaping from one to another. When I got
to the top the dawn was come. There was no sign of the brig, which must
have been lifted from the reef and sunk. The boat, too, was nowhere to
be seen. There was never a sail upon the ocean; and in what I could see
of the land, was neither house nor man.
I was afraid to think what had befallen my ship-mates, and afraid to
look longer at so empty a scene. What with my wet clothes and weariness,
and my belly that now began to ache with hunger, I had enough to trouble
me without that. So I set off eastward along the south coast, hoping to
find a house where I might warm myself, and perhaps get news of those I
had lost. And at the worst, I considered the sun would soon rise and dry
my clothes.
After a little, my way was stopped by a creek or inlet of the sea, which
seemed to run pretty deep into the land; and as I had no means to get
across, I must needs change my direction to go about the end of it. It
was still the roughest kind of walking; indeed the whole, not only of
Earraid, but of the neighboring part of Mull (which they call the Ross)
is nothing but a jumble of granite rocks with heather in among. At first
the creek kept narrowing as I had looked to see; but presently to my
surprise it began to widen out again. At this I scratched my head, but
had still no notion of the truth; until at last I came to a rising
ground, and it burst upon me all in a moment that I was cast upon a
little, barren isle, and cut off on every side by the salt seas.
Instead of the sun rising to dry me, it came on to rain, with a thick
mist; so that my case was lamentable.
I stood in the rain, and shivered, and wondered what to do, till it
occurred to me that perhaps the creek was fordable. Back I went to the
narrowest point, and waded in. But not three yards from shore, I plunged
in head over ears; and if ever I was heard of more it was rather by
God's grace than my own prudence. I was no wetter (for that could hardly
be), but I was all the colder for this mishap; and having lost another
hope, was the more unhappy.
And now, all at once, the yard came in my head. What had carried me
through the roost, would surely serve to cross this little quiet creek
in safety. With that I set off, undaunted, across the top of the isle,
to fetch and carry it back. It was a weary tramp in all ways, and if
hope had not buoyed me up, I must have cast myself down and given up.
Whether with the sea salt, or because I was growing fevered, I was
distressed with thirst, and had to stop, as I went, and drink the peaty
water out of the hags.
I came to the bay at last, more dead than alive; and at the first
glance, I thought the yard was something further out than when I left
it. In I went, for the third time, into the sea. The sand was smooth and
firm and shelved gradually down; so that I could wade out till the water
was almost to my neck and the little waves splashed into my face. But at
that depth my feet began to leave me and I durst venture no farther. As
for the yard, I saw it bobbing very quietly some twenty feet in front of
me.
I had borne up well until this last disappointment; but at that I came
ashore, and flung myself down upon the sands and wept.
The time I spent upon the island is still so horrible a thought to me,
that I must pass it lightly over. In all the books I have read of people
cast away, they had either their pockets full of tools, or a chest of
things would be thrown upon the beach along with them, as if on purpose.
My case was very different. I had nothing in my pockets but money; and
being inland bred, I was as much short of knowledge as of means.
I knew indeed that shell-fish were counted good to eat; and among the
rocks of the isle I found a great plenty of limpets, which at first I
could scarcely strike from their places, not knowing quickness to be
needful. There were, besides, some of the little shells that we call
buckies; I think periwinkle is the English name. Of these two I made my
whole diet, devouring them cold and raw as I found them; and so hungry
was I, that at first they seemed to me delicious.
Perhaps they were out of season, or perhaps there was something wrong in
the sea about my island. But at least I had no sooner eaten my first
meal than I was seized with giddiness and retching, and lay for a long
time no better than dead. A second trial of the same food (indeed I had
no other) did better with me and revived my strength. But as long as I
was on the island, I never knew what to expect when I had eaten;
sometimes all was well, and sometimes I was thrown into a miserable
sickness; nor could I ever distinguish what particular fish it was that
hurt me.
All day it streamed rain; the island ran like a sop, there was no dry
spot to be found; and when I lay down that night, between two boulders
that made a kind of roof, my feet were in a bog.
The second day, I crossed the island to all sides. There was no one part
of it better than another; it was all desolate and rocky; nothing living
on it but game birds which I lacked the means to kill, and the gulls
which haunted the outlying rocks in a prodigious number. But the creek,
or straits, that cut off the isle from the main land of the Ross, opened
out on the north into a bay, and the bay again opened into the Sound of
Iona; and it was the neighborhood of this place that I chose to be my
home; though if I had thought upon the very name of home in such a spot,
I must have burst out crying.
I had good reasons for my choice. There was in this part of the isle a
little hut of a house like a pig's hut, where fishers used to sleep when
they came there upon their business; but the turf roof of it had fallen
entirely in; so that the hut was of no use to me, and gave me less
shelter than my rocks. What was more important, the shell-fish on which
I lived grew there in great plenty; when the tide was out I could gather
a peck at a time: and this was doubtless a convenience. But the other
reason went deeper. I had become in no way used to the horrid solitude
of the isle, but still looked round me on all sides (like a man that was
hunted) between fear and hope that I might see some human creature
coming. Now, from a little up the hillside over the bay, I could catch a
sight of the great, ancient church and the roofs of the people's houses
in Iona. And on the other hand, over the low country of the Ross, I saw
smoke go up, morning and evening, as if from a homestead in a hollow of
the land.
I used to watch this smoke, when I was wet and cold, and had my head
half turned with loneliness; and think of the fireside and the company,
till my heart burned. It was the same with the roofs of Iona.
Altogether, this sight I had of men's homes and comfortable lives,
although it put a point on my own sufferings, yet it kept hope alive,
and helped me to eat my raw shell-fish (which had soon grown to be a
disgust) and saved me from the sense of horror I had whenever I was
quite alone with dead rocks, and fowls, and the rain, and the cold sea.
I say it kept hope alive; and indeed it seemed impossible that I should
be left to die on the shores of my own country, and within view of a
church tower and the smoke of men's houses. But the second day passed;
and though as long as the light lasted I kept a bright lookout for boats
on the sound or men passing on the Ross, no help came near me. It still
rained; and I turned in to sleep, as wet as ever and with a cruel sore
throat, but a little comforted, perhaps, by having said good-night to my
next neighbors, the people of Iona.
Charles the Second declared a man could stay out doors more days in the
year in the climate of England than in any other. This was very like a
king with a palace at his back and changes of dry clothes. But he must
have had better luck than I had on that miserable isle. It was the
height of the summer; yet it rained for more than twenty-four hours, and
did not clear until the afternoon of the third day.
This was the day of incidents. In the morning I saw a red deer, a buck
with a fine spread of antlers, standing in the rain on the top of the
island; but he had scarce seen me rise from under my rock, before he
trotted off upon the other side. I supposed he must have swum the
straits; though what should bring any creature to Earraid, was more than
I could fancy.
A little later, as I was jumping about after my limpets, I was startled
by a guinea piece, which fell upon a rock in front of me and glanced off
into the sea. When the sailors gave me my money again, they kept back
not only about a third of the whole sum, but my father's leather purse;
so that from that day out, I carried my gold loose in a pocket with a
button. I now saw there must be a hole, and clapped my hand to the place
in a great hurry. But this was to lock the stable door after the steed
was stolen. I had left the shore at Queensferry with near on fifty
pounds; now I found no more than two guinea pieces and a silver
shilling.
It is true I picked up a third guinea a little after, where it lay
shining on a piece of turf. That made a fortune of three pounds and four
shillings, English money, for a lad, the rightful heir of an estate, and
now starving on an isle at the extreme end of the wild Highlands.
This state of my affairs dashed me still further; and indeed my plight
on that third morning was truly pitiful. My clothes were beginning to
rot; my stockings in particular were quite worn through, so that my
shanks went naked; my hands had grown quite soft with the continual
soaking; my throat was very sore, my strength had much abated, and my
heart so turned against the horrid stuff I was condemned to eat, that
the very sight of it came near to sicken me.
And yet the worst was not yet come.
There is a pretty high rock on the northwest of Earraid, which (because
it had a flat top and overlooked the sound) I was much in the habit of
frequenting; not that ever I stayed in one place, save when asleep, my
misery giving me no rest. Indeed, I wore myself down with continual and
aimless goings and comings in the rain.
As soon, however, as the sun came out, I lay down on the top of that
rock to dry myself. The comfort of the sunshine is a thing I cannot
tell. It set me thinking hopefully of my deliverance, of which I had
begun to despair; and I scanned the sea and the Ross with a fresh
interest.
On the south of my rock, a part of the island jutted out and hid the
open ocean, so that a boat could thus come quite near me upon that side,
and I be none the wiser.
Well, all of a sudden, a coble[381-2] with a brown sail and a pair of
fishers aboard of it, came flying round that corner of the isle, bound
for Iona. I shouted out, and then fell on my knees on the rock and
reached up my hands and prayed to them. They were near enough to hear--I
could even see the color of their hair; and there was no doubt but they
observed me, for they cried out in the Gaelic tongue and laughed. But
the boat never turned aside, and flew on, right before my eyes, for
Iona.
I could not believe such wickedness, and ran along the shore from rock
to rock, crying on them piteously; even after they were out of reach of
my voice, I still cried and waved to them; and when they were quite
gone, I thought my heart would have burst. All the time of my troubles,
I wept only twice. Once, when I could not reach the oar; and now, the
second time, when these fishers turned a deaf ear to my cries. But this
time I wept and roared like a wicked child, tearing up the turf with my
nails and grinding my face in the earth. If a wish would kill men, those
two fishers would never have seen morning; and I should likely have died
upon my island.
When I was a little over my anger, I must eat again, but with such
loathing of the mess as I could now scarcely control. Sure enough, I
should have done as well to fast, for my fishes poisoned me again. I had
all my first pains; my throat was so sore I could scarce swallow; I had
a fit of strong shuddering, which clucked my teeth together; and there
came on me that dreadful sense of illness, which we have no name for
either in Scotch or English. I thought I should have died, and made my
peace with God, forgiving all men, even my uncle and the fishers; and as
soon as I had thus made up my mind to the worst, clearness came upon me:
I observed the night was falling dry; my clothes were dried a good deal;
truly, I was in a better case than ever before since I had landed on the
isle; and so I got to sleep at last, with a thought of gratitude.
The next day (which was the fourth of this horrible life of mine) I
found my bodily strength run very low. But the sun shone, the air was
sweet, and what I managed to eat of the shell-fish agreed well with me
and revived my courage.
I was scarce back on my rock (where I went always the first thing after
I had eaten) before I observed a boat coming down the sound and with her
head, as I thought, in my direction.
I began at once to hope and fear exceedingly; for I thought these men
might have thought better of their cruelty and be coming back to my
assistance. But another disappointment such as yesterday's was more than
I could bear. I turned my back, accordingly, upon the sea, and did not
look again till I had counted many hundreds. The boat was still heading
for the island. The next time I counted the full thousand, as slowly as
I could, my heart beating so as to hurt me. And then it was out of all
question. She was coming straight to Earraid!
I could no longer hold myself back, but ran to the seaside and out, from
one rock to another, as far as I could go. It is a marvel I was not
drowned; for when I was brought to a stand at last, my legs shook under
me, and my mouth was so dry, I must wet it with the sea water before I
was able to shout.
All this time the boat was coming on; and now I was able to perceive it
was the same boat and the same two men as yesterday. This I knew by
their hair, which the one had of a bright yellow and the other black.
But now there was a third man along with them, who looked to be of a
better class.
As soon as they were come within easy speech, they let down their sail
and lay quiet. In spite of my supplications, they drew no nearer in, and
what frightened me most of all, the new man tee-hee'd with laughter as
he talked and looked at me.
Then he stood up in the boat and addressed me a long while, speaking
fast and with many wavings of his hand. I told him I had no Gaelic; and
at this he became very angry, and I began to suspect he thought he was
talking English. Listening very close, I caught the word, "whateffer,"
several times; but all the rest was Gaelic, and might have been Greek
and Hebrew for me.
"Whateffer," said I, to show him I had caught a word.
"Yes, yes--yes, yes," says he, and then he looked at the other men, as
much as to say, "I told you I spoke English," and began again as hard as
ever in the Gaelic.
This time I picked out another word, "tide." Then I had a flash of hope.
I remembered he was always waving his hand toward the mainland of the
Ross.
"Do you mean when the tide is out----?" I cried, and could not finish.
"Yes, yes," said he. "Tide."
At that I turned tail upon their boat (where my adviser had once more
begun to tee-hee with laughter), leaped back the way I had come, from
one stone to another, and set off running across the isle as I had never
run before. In about half an hour I came out upon the shores of the
creek; and, sure enough, it was shrunk into a little trickle of water,
through which I dashed, not above my knees, and landed with a shout on
the main island.
A sea-bred boy would not have stayed a day on Earraid; which is only
what they call a tidal islet; and except in the bottom of the neaps, can
be entered and left twice in every twenty-four hours, either dry-shod,
or at the most by wading. Even I, who had the tide going out and in
before me in the bay, and even watched for the ebbs, the better to get
my shell-fish--even I (I say), if I had sat down to think, instead of
raging at my fate, must have soon guessed the secret and got free. It
was no wonder the fishers had not understood me. The wonder was rather
that they had ever guessed my pitiful illusion, and taken the trouble to
come back. I had starved with cold and hunger on that island for close
upon one hundred hours. But for the fishers, I might have left my bones
there, in pure folly.
And even as it was, I had paid for it pretty dear, not only in past
sufferings, but in my present case; being clothed like a beggar-man,
scarce able to walk, and in great pain of my sore throat.
I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both; and I believe
they both get paid in the end; but the fools first.