WE FIND OURSELVES ON A DESERT ISLAND, AND LITTLE COMFORT BESIDES.
After a while we returned to the place where we lay during the night;
and, looking about us, found that the cruel Cazique had taken away the
keg of powder, the puncheon of rum, ay, the very bread we had brought
for our refreshment on landing; thus robbing us of our present
subsistence and the means of procuring other.
Seeing this, Sir Harry threw himself on the sand and sobbed out aloud;
for as yet he had suffered never any hardship or disappointment. But it
was otherwise with me, for many a time had I endured privation and known
no hope. Yet did it move my heart to see a strong man, and one naturally
light of heart, gay, and of high spirit, so abased; so I sat down beside
him, and, laying my hand on his shoulder, spoke such comforting words as
my tongue, unused to such exercise, could command. And this may seem
strange, seeing that hitherto I had borne him no love, but rather
jealousy and hatred. But you shall notice that misfortune doth engender
kindness in hearts the least susceptible, so that a man who would jostle
another and show no manner of kindness and civility, both being strong,
would yet bend down and gently succor him who fell across his path from
weakness; for our sympathy is with those weaker than ourselves, and not
with those of equal hardiness; and this, I take it, is the reason of the
great love of strong men for weak women, and the wondrous tenderness of
women for those cast down by sickness.
Sir Harry would not be comforted; but shaking my hand from his shoulder
he cries:
"'Tis easy to bear the misfortunes of other people!"
"Nay," says I, "am I better off than you?"
"Ay," says he, "for you have but changed one form of misery for another.
These woods for you are as good as those you left in Cornwall. Your
prospects here as good as they were there. But I! what have I not lost
by this change! All my fortune was embarked in those ships; and with
them I lose every hope--fame and riches--my sweetheart. All! all! What
now have I?"
"The hope of getting away from this place; the hope that--that she may
wait faithfully your return."
"And what if, by a miracle, I get from here, can I hope to recover my
fortune? I must go a beggar back to England; nay, a debtor for the ships
of Sir Bartlemy that I have lost. And think you if my sweetheart in pity
would make me her husband, I would be her pensioner, dependent on her
bounty for the bread I eat?"
To me this seemed an overstraining of sentiment; for I would have been
content to take that dear girl for my wife, rich or poor; nay, I could
not believe that any sense of dependence or bounty could exist in the
union of two who love entirely. But I would not contrary him by speaking
of this, which he would but have set down to want of decent pride and
self-respect on my side.
"There is no hope--no hope!" he continues, bitterly. "I am undone by my
enemies, and you are one of them--a man I have sought only to help--a
base wretch who would not speak a word to save me from my undoing."
I held my peace, as I had before, when he spoke after this sort. For
partly I felt that I deserved reproach, and partly I saw that he was
beside himself with despair. So I let him be that he might vent freely
all his passion. But he said no more; and for some while he lay there
like one who cared not to move again. Then getting upon his feet
savagely, as though ashamed of his weakness, he says:
"Let us go from this cursed spot." Then, looking about him in
bewilderment, "Where shall we go?"
Be a man never so wretched he must eat and drink; so I told him we must
first of all seek a stream to quench our thirst; and the land to the
west looking most promising, I settled to explore in that direction; Sir
Harry being indifferent so that we got away from this unlucky place
where we had been set ashore. We took up our axes and muskets--which the
thieving Cazique had left to us because they lay under our hands, as I
may say, and he feared to awake us--and marched onwards, keeping to the
sand, which was very level and firm, the tide being at low ebb. We kept
on this way for best part of a league, and then the shore becoming soft
with a kind of black mud, we were forced to seek higher ground; and here
our progress was made very painful and slow by reason of the scrubby
growth, which was mighty thick and prickly, so that we were torn at
every step. To add to our discomfort, the sun, being now high, shone
with prodigious heat upon us, and parched us with thirst. There were
woods at hand, but here the thorny bush was so high and closely
interwoven that we had to use our hatchets to make any way at all, and
then were we no better off, but worse; wherefore we were obliged to
return to that part where the earth was less encumbered. Some of these
brambles had thorns two inches long, and curved like great claws; and
one of these tearing my leg gave me much torment. As the sun rose
higher, so our suffering increased, until, after marching best part of
two hours, we were ready to drop with fatigue. Fruit there was in
abundance, spread out temptingly under our feet; for nearly every bush
bore some sort of apples or grapes; yet dared we not eat any for fear of
its being venomous. Of this venomous fruit I had heard the seamen who
had traveled in these parts tell, and how a man eating of it will
presently go raving mad; and I pointed out to Sir Harry, who would fain
have slaked his thirst with this growth, that we had as yet seen neither
bird nor beast, which argued that this food was not wholesome.
However, about midday, when we were as near spent as any living man
could be, we came to a turn in the coast where the character of the
growth changed; and here we found a great herb with leaves spreading out
on all sides; but every leaf was a good twenty feet long and half a
fathom across, so that it gave us ample shade to lie in; and never was
man more content than I to get out of the sunshine. To our still greater
comfort, Sir Harry presently spied at no great distance a low-growing
thicket, in the midst of which grew a fruit that he knew for a pine-nut,
which is a fruit bigger than any that grows in England, of a yellow
complexion, and scaly without, but of excellent condition within.
Cutting it in half with his knife, he gave me one part, and bade me eat
it without fear; and this I did, though not without compunction, but I
found it truly as he said, both meat and drink, and the most delicious
ever man did eat, with no ill effects after.
We rested ourselves some while, and then being much refreshed continued
our journey over very fair ground, but yet keeping very near the water;
and so rounding a headland, and facing pretty nearly due west, we
perceived another headland across the water, but at a great distance,
which led us to conceive that we were upon one of the mouths of the
Oronoque, which, as we know, disembogues itself by many issues into the
sea over a length of a hundred leagues and more along the coast of
Guiana. And that this was a river, and not an inlet of the sea, we
proved by tasting of the water, which was still running out very
troubled; it was not salt and bitter, and yet too thick and brackish to
drink. And now the trees approached the water-side, some hanging over,
with thick growth everywhere; and though I know English trees well, and
the different sorts of herbs, yet all here were new to me, and I saw
none that I could name. For prodigious height and girth I never saw the
like of the trees, which were besides wondrous fair to the eye, but
painful to get through by reason of their great abundance, and the maze
of vines and bramble (as I must call them, knowing not their names)
which netted them together. Surely to one come there for pleasure and to
satisfy his curiosity, there was on all sides something to please and
interest, there being no end to the variety of flowers and fruits, their
colors and forms; but to us, who were mainly concerned to discover where
we were situated, we did wish best part of these trees and shrubs
further.
We made our way onward for two hours more, yet the land on the other
side of the river appeared no nearer, for the rivers in these parts have
no parallel for volume; and then we came (God be praised) to a small
stream running from the interior, which we found at some little distance
inward to be very sweet and good, so that we drank of it our fill. But
what pleased me as much as the discovery of this water was the print of
a cloven foot in a slough, hard by, which I judged, by the form and
size, to be the foot of a swine; and so it proved, for going still
further, but with caution, along the edge of this marshy land, we
perceived a whole drove of this cattle stretched out in the warm mire,
grunting from time to time as pleasantly as any English hogs. Seeing
them thus within range, Sir Harry, ere I could check him, cocked his
piece and let fly; and though he killed one dead on the spot, yet was I
sorry he had spent his fire on this quarry, for I believe I might have
knocked one on the head and done for him with a blow of my hatchet; and
now were we left with only one charge of powder and ball to meet any
emergency.
We dragged this beast, which was a boar pig of some ten score, as I
reckoned, away from the morass, which I dreaded to stay in for fear of
serpents or other noxious beasts; and finding a place near the river
high and dry, we resolved to stay there the night, for the day was
nearly spent, as were we likewise. Here Sir Harry set about to get some
dry fuel and make a fire, the while I skinned our pig, and a marvelous
thick hide he had; and so much the better was I pleased, for I saw that
with this hide cut in thongs I could make us a good gin to entrap other
swine when we had occasion for them, also a sling for killing birds, and
other things necessary to us in our forlorn, destitute condition. Sir
Harry got some dry rotten wood, and grinding a little to powder he set
it in the pan of his firelock, and snapping the cock twice or thrice
succeeded in setting it burning; then blowing the ember gently on other
rotten wood, and that on dry leaves and such-like, he in the end got a
flame to put to his bonfire, and over this on pointed sticks we held
some slices cut from our swine's ham; enough not only for our supper,
but to serve us cold on the morrow; and well it was we did so then, for
the next morning the carcase I had hung on a tree overnight was all
green and so foul we were fain to cast it in the river to be washed away
with the current; but that which we had cooked was sweet and good,
though mighty tough eating.
But I must tell of the strange way in which we were awakened that
morning, which was by the crowing of a cock, and surely nothing in this
land so full of unlooked-for things could be more unexpected than this
familiar, homely cry. We two started up together at the sound, rubbing
our eyes to be sure we were in a strange country and not at home in
England. But again this bird crowed, and casting our eyes about, there
we spied a fine red cock perched in the boughs of a tree with three
pullets on one side of him and two on the other, all as comfortable as
you please, and not yet astir, for the day was scarce broke. Upon this
we concluded that there must be human habitation near, and overjoyed at
the hope of seeing fellow-creatures in a land where we had thought to be
all alone, we started to our feet and hallooed with all our might, not
reckoning that the fellow-creatures might be cruel Indians who might
murder us, and mayhap eat us afterwards for our pains.
However, though we hallooed till we were hoarse and could halloa no
longer, answer came there none, except a clucking of the fowls, who
seemed to be at a loss what we were crowing so loud about. Yet from the
presence of these fowls and the swine--which seemed to us not natural
inhabitants of these parts, we clung to the idea that some sort of
fellow-creatures were near, and so with a more cheerful heart than I,
for one, had yet felt since we were put ashore, we continued our march
when we had eaten and drunk to our satisfaction. But first we took of
the thongs I had cut from the swine's hide and stretched to dry between
two stakes, one apiece to serve as belts in which to sling our hatchets,
another which I had fashioned for a sling, and two or three besides to
serve for what occasion might arise. The rest we left behind us, marking
well the spot. Our ham steaks were covered up in cool leaves to keep
them fresh, and hung them also to the thongs about our middle.
That night we came to a point projecting into the midst of a vast
expanse of water, and seeming to cut the river into two, for we found
that there were, as I may say, two currents--one running to the
southeast, and the other northeast--so that we concluded we were not on
the mainland at all, but upon an island in one of the great mouths of
the Orinoco. This was made evident as we proceeded, for still marching
with the water on our left hand, our faces were turned to the east, and
not to the west as at first; and, in short, on the third day of our
march we came again to the ocean, and about midday on the fourth to the
very spot from which we had started.
In all this time we had seen no human creature, nor had we met--thank
God!--with any serious accident, though inconveniences not a few; and
not the least of these was a multitude of flies and stinging gnats,
especially upwards away from the sea, which were a great plague to us,
and especially to Sir Harry, who had the more tender skin, and was
tormented to that degree that he could get no peace night or day for the
intolerable itching and smarting of their punctures. Nor did we meet any
great beast, save a huge water-lizard that is called a cocodrill, which
lies in the waters of these rivers and looks like nothing on earth but a
log of timber at a distance. Birds there were in plenty, and with my
sling I brought down enough for use, and more; and to speak of all the
fruits here were a waste of time. Suffice to say that we lacked nothing
to satisfy our appetite, and came to no harm by what we ate of strange
things, for we were careful to eat of no fruit or herb but such as we
found the swine and other animals feasted upon.