I QUIT THE ISLAND AND MY FRIEND.
And now, being come back to our starting-place, we had to consider our
position and what we were next to be at.
I say we, but in truth I might say I had to consider these things, for
Sir Harry seemed to have neither care for the present nor hope for the
future, and do what I might to bring him to a more cheerful complexion,
it was all to no purpose.
"What is there to do in this cursed island," says he, "but to eat and
drink and sleep till we die?"
"The more reason," says I, "for devising some means of getting away from
this isle to where we may do better."
He stretched out his hands towards the sea that laid void before us, and
laughed bitterly.
"Nay," says I, not to seem discouraged, though, indeed, my hopes were
but slight; "it is not so impossible as you think. Take it that the day
we left Trinidado the gale was in our favor, we could but have made
twenty or thirty leagues at the utmost. Now say that the river to the
north is three leagues broad, we may yet, by taking the current at our
highest point, contrive to make our way across on some kind of raft,
using a bough for paddle. There is nothing lacking to make us a raft."
"Well," says he, "say by good hap you cross the river and get on another
isle--what then?"
"Then," says I, "will we make our way to the north of that island and
cross to a third, or a fourth, after the same fashion, and so get on
till we come to that part of Guiana due east of Trinidad, whence may we
with no more difficulty cross the strait."
"Suppose, after all," says he, "that we get to Trinidado--what then?
Shall we be better off there than we are here? We run a fair chance of
being captured for slaves by the Portugals, to be sure."
"Also," says I, "run a fair chance of escaping them and being picked up
by some English ship putting in as ours did to revictual."
"Allowing that your fondest hopes be realized," says he, "is our case
mended? Is it worse to sleep away our lives here than to be taken into
England as a raree show for men to laugh at and women to pity? No," says
he, with more passion than he had yet shown; "no, I say! It is not
better, but a hundred times worse, and I for one will never go back to
be scorned for a silly fellow who could not hold his own."
It was not for me to reproach him, for had I not also abandoned myself
under adversity? I was convinced, and so I am now, that a despair is a
malady of mind as much as is ague a distemper of the body; and though
men say one should not give way to despair, but should overcome it by an
effort of will, yet, I say, that if the will be attacked by a great
shock and enfeebled by misfortune, it is powerless to exercise its
function. For such as suffer from this disease of the mind there is no
help from within, but its only succor is from without. Wherefore, the
kindly ministrations of a friend will do as much to restore health in
this case as the help of a doctor in any other. For this reason I bore
patiently with Sir Harry in his morose and sullen humors, and sought all
I could to divert his spirit from brooding over misfortunes not to be
undone. But I think all that I did in this way produced me more good
than it did him; for whereas he continued despondent and dull, I grew
more cheerful and humane. I waited upon him like a servant, and this
service, with my pity to see a young, fine man so cast down, engendered
a feeling of love in my breast such as I had never before felt for any
man. Nay, I even looked to getting with him back to England, and seeing
him married to Lady Biddy Fane, without any feeling of jealousy, being
not only more gentle of heart, but more reasonable of mind.
At this time we stayed on high ground to the south of our territory,
over against that part where we first found the pine-nut; not only
because of the shade we got there from the sun, but by reason that it
was adjacent to the stream of good water, and not far from the fen where
the swine came to wallow, and where there was abundance of fowl and
fruit good to eat.
While we were here, Sir Harry fell sick of a fever, bred partly, as I
think, from his low, desponding spirit, and partly from the vapors that
rose from the marshy valley below. When I found he could no longer sit
upright and began to wander in his speech, I took him on my back, and,
by stages of a dozen yards, carried him away from that unwholesome spot
right down to the sea-shore, and there, finding an easy slope, I laid
him down, and, as speedily as I could, set about making a kind of house
to shield him from the sun. The night being fairly light, by dint of
many journeys to and fro and much toil, I planted a dozen stakes in the
sand, bending them down till they joined at the top, in the form of a
great "A", and binding them to a cross tree, then I thatched
this framework with those long and broad palmetto leaves of which I have
spoken. Here he lay as comfortable as might be for one in his burning
condition, the sea breeze passing through the shelter and tempering the
heat of the sun.
He could eat nothing; however I made shift to stew a fowl in the shell
of a gourd, and when the broth was cold I got him to drink it, for he
had a perpetual thirst; and that his drink might be cool and refreshing,
I went a score of times during the day almost to the source of the
stream, where the water was of the best. Of such fruits as were good
also I gave him, particularly the apples from a low, square-boughed tree
with egg-shaped leaves, which is called, I believe, guava.
And now I prayed to God that this man's life might be spared, and that I
might not be left alone, which more than all proves the great and good
change which had been wrought in my heart since the time when I sought
but to escape from the society of mankind, and wished harm to all men,
and this one above all.
At the end of seven days' very painful watching, Sir Harry's disorder
took a turn, and soon after he began to mend (thanks be to God!) so that
he could take meat instead of slops to his diet. Yet was he greatly
changed, his skin having lost its freshness and healthful color, and his
face much wasted. Also he was very weak, and for days lay exhausted and
unable to move, yet with his eyes wide open and very bright. After a
while I persuaded him to rise in the cool of the morning and evening,
and then would he take a turn, leaning on my arm. And though he said
nothing, I perceived he recognized the love I bore for him, and was
grateful for my care. What pleased me vastly was to perceive that a
change had been wrought in his spirit; it seemed as though his sluggish
indifference had been purged away. When the fever had quite left him,
his eyes continued bright and eager, and there was in his face an eager
expression, telling of an anxiety which only exists where there is hope.
But what his hope was he told me not. This encouraged me to believe that
he designed leaving the island (where there was, as I could see, naught
to hope for), and not dying there, as he had at first resigned himself
to. I again began to meditate on the means of reaching Trinidado, but I
refrained from opening the subject yet awhile, because he was still too
feeble to undertake the fatigue of it.
One day, when I had returned to the hut by the shore from the inner
parts, where I had been planting a snare to catch a pig, I found Sir
Harry absent; but soon after I heard him shouting, and, turning my eyes,
I spied him running towards me along the sand with something in his
hand, which, as he came nearer, I perceived was the stave of a barrel.
"Look at that," says he, with much emotion; "there have been men on this
island before us. Up in the wood there is a broken barrel; this is a
stave of it. Men brought it here."
"Why, for a certainty," says I, "this wood never sprang out of the earth
fashioned thus?"
"No," says he, "nor did the pigs on this island spring out of the
earth."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked, perplexed by this observation.
"I mean," says he, "that the men who came here to fetch water in that
barrel left the swine and the fowls to multiply against the time they
should come here to revictual. I thought as much as I lay there in my
sickness hearing the cock crow, and now I have the proof. Do you doubt
it, man--do you doubt it?"
"Not a whit," says I; "and I wonder I have not drawn the conclusion
before, for I remember now how Rodrigues told me it was the habit of
pirates, who fight shy of towns, to provide for themselves in this
wise."
"Then you think," says he eagerly, "that they are pirates who came
hither?"
"Ay, and not honest men; that is my fear," says I.
"And I trust they be pirates, and not honest men, if they are to come
here again," says he; "for then may I get back all I have lost, and more
to boot."
"As how?" says I, not without trouble in my mind.
"By the same means my fortune was taken from me--by strategy and force."
"Surely you would not become a pirate--you, a gentleman of birth and
breeding?"
"And what was Drake but a gentleman?" says he; "and Candish: what of
him?"
I shook my head, and heaved a sigh to hear this argument from the lips
of my friend, which I had listened to from such a rascal as Rodrigues.
"Why," says he, in a rallying tone, "you were not so squeamish aboard
the _Sure Hawk_."
"No," says I; "but I thank the Lord I have not taken his warning in
vain."
He laughed scornfully, as though thinking my peril had made me
prayerful, and caressing the barrel stave with his hand, lifted his head
and scanned the sea, as already expecting the return of those pirates we
talked of.
"And is your fortune all you expect to get by becoming a pirate?" I
asked, laying my hand on his arm.
"What more do I want, forsooth?" asks he lightly.
"Why, sir," says I, "the peace of mind to enjoy it."
"As for that," says he, "however I get it I warrant it shall bring me
more enjoyment than I can expect stopping here, or going back to England
a beggar."
"Are you so daunted by the outset that you despair of getting gold
honestly in Guiana?"
"Hum!" says he; "I cannot see that it is much more honest to take gold
from the Ingas of Manoa, who have never done us harm, than from the
Spaniard, who has sought to undo us with his flotilla; but, be that as
it may, you will show me how we are to get to Manoa, who are not yet
beyond the mouth of the Oronoque, ere I give that enterprise the
preference."
"Single-handed we can do nothing, but I will answer for it that my
uncle, Sir Bartlemy, instead of being discouraged by our first failure,
will be more inclined to persevere in it. You know his nature as well as
I do. A reverse does but strengthen his determination, as a bite
infuriates a bulldog."
"That is true," says he; "he is an Englishman to the very marrow of his
bones."
"Well, then," says I, "shall he not fit you out another expedition?"
"Why, man, how can he? Nearly all he had was united to my fortune in
buying the two ships I have lost and in equipping them. He is a ruined
man. Ruined by me!"
"If he lacks money, other shall be found. He will move heaven and earth
to save you from the disgrace of sinking to the level of such wretches
as Morgan and Sawkins, and this Rodrigues."
In this sort I argued with him persistently, till at length, seeing that
I was not to be shaken off by argument, he turns about and says:
"Look you, Pengilly, I will never go begging in England, even for a
second chance to be cast away on this island. I can not easily consent
that another should beg for me; for a craven I must appear in either
cases. But since your mind is set on this thing, go you to England
without me; and if any, for my sake, will make this venture, lead them
hither; then, if I be still here and alive, I will attempt this
expedition to Manoa. Nay," he adds, interrupting me, when I began to
protest that I would not quit him; "leave me here and go about this
business as you will, you shall still be the more generous of the two;
for I swear to you that if the worst pirate that sails the seas comes
here I will cast in my lot with him, whether you accompany me, or
whether you refuse to take part with us."
Seeing him very stubborn and resolved upon this point, I then began to
think seriously of getting away as best I could; for, thinks I, 'twere
more humane to leave him here alone, with the chance of bringing him
succor and the means of honestly escaping from his solitude, than to
rest here inactive until perchance there comes some villainous sea-rover
with whom he shall take his departure. For my own part I had no leaning
to piracy; for, though I love the Spaniard no more than any other true
Englishman may, yet I knew full well that Rodrigues and such fellows
would not question closely whether their prey was Spanish, but would
pillage and sink any craft that sailed so that it had not the strength
to resist attack.
So, going along the border of that upper stream, which in my ignorance I
will call North River. I came upon a great tree that was dead and
decayed about the roots, so that it needed but little cutting to make it
fall, and that close to the water. This tree was fully three fathoms in
girth, and proportionately tall, straight, and fair, decayed only where
the humors of the earth had attacked its base, light and very proper in
all ways to my use. Wherefore I set to work, and, cutting on that side I
wished it to fall, I felled it with no very great difficulty. When it
was down I found the upper part sound, as I expected, and not so hard
but that with patient labor I succeeded in cutting two lengths each of
five fathoms long. These two lengths I set side by side, the thicker end
of one against the thinner end of the other; then I got a quantity of
those long vines which the Indians call lianas, which are very stringy
and tough as good, hemp rope and with this I bound my timbers together
in a hundred places, but separately, so that if by chance one broke the
rest would still hold. But I must tell you that for the greater
convenience of working these huge logs I launched them separately into a
shallow before I began to bind them about, which was well, for I could
never have moved them else. After that I sought out two slight trees of
hard growth that were not more than thirty feet high, and cutting them
down, I trimmed them into two poles, each four fathoms long. Then,
midway in the length of my logs I made two holes--one in each, and
parallel one with the other. To do this I jagged the mouth of my musket
barrel about, grinding each jag into a sharp tooth with a hard stone, by
which contrivance I made a tool to serve in place of an augur. When I
had pierced the logs right through I enlarged the holes by making my
musket-barrel red hot in a fire, and working it about in the holes. Into
these sockets I fitted my two poles, using every device I could think of
to make them firm and secure; and this being done, and both poles
standing bolt upright, I turned the logs on their side so as to get the
ends of the poles within reach, and these ends I bent until they met,
and so bound them together with lianas to make them bite still closer in
their closets, and also to be a support one to the other against the
gale, for they were to serve me as a mast. For, by the time my logs were
cut, launched, and bound together, as I have shown, I had come to the
conclusion that it would be better to venture the whole voyage by water,
keeping as near as might be to the main, and taking advantage of
favorable breezes, rather than to abandon my raft on the other side of
the river and make my way onward by land to that point nearest
Trinidado, as I had first meditated on, for I knew not what other great
rivers there might be to cross, nor how many rafts I might have to make
ere I got to my journey's end; and the difficulty of making such a raft,
rude as it was, no one can conceive but those who have had a like
difficulty to contend with. It cost me four months and ten days of
painful labor to achieve that which I have set down.
During this time Sir Harry had not been idle; and though he could not
honestly encourage me with a hope of bringing my business to a happy
issue, yet he helped me with a willing heart, and said nothing which
might discourage me neither. But he was as firmly fixed in his intent as
I on mine, and rarely worked up the river with me, lest in his absence
the ship he expected might come and go away again. Anything he could do
within sight of the sea he did, and this was no trifle. Here every day
he provided food for our necessity, and in his spare time he fashioned
me a long yard for my mast, and, which was more, he made a
shoulder-of-mutton sail--to rig on my mast like a lateen on a zebec--of
long reeds very ingeniously woven together. Also he devised two vessels
to contain fresh water for my use by stripping a couple of hogs from the
neck downward without cutting the skin. These skins he turned inside
out, scraped off all the fat carefully, and then steeping them in the
sea until they were cured, and afterward washing them some days in the
stream of fresh water, they were found good and sound, each holding a
good hogshead of water.
Besides this, he cut a vast quantity of pork steaks and cured them in
the sun, which may be done without corrupting the flesh if it be laid
where the sun is hot and the air dry. Moreover, he saved all the
bladders of hogs that he killed, blew them out, and coated them over
with a sort of pitch to preserve them from the attacks of flies and
insects. This pitch comes from the sea of those parts, and is washed
ashore by the tide, and being melted before a fire, it is as good a
pitch as any in the world. These bladders I tied on to the extremities
of long poles lashed crosswise to my raft to serve as a sort of buoys to
bear up that side to which the sail inclined, and prevent the raft from
capsizing in a sudden squall.
I bound some bundles of these transversely to the logs to serve me as a
deck, and many other provisions I made, such as a great stone at the end
of a line for an anchor, a paddle to serve as a rudder, etc. In
fine--not to weary the reader with tedious descriptions--just ten months
to a day from the time we were set ashore all was made ready for my
departure.
And now, taking Sir Harry's hands in mine and pressing them close, I
begged him to come with me.
"Look you," says I, "this offer is not unpremeditated on my part. All
through I have borne it in mind, and for that reason have I measured my
boat and all things to serve two rather than one. Here is provision for
both and to spare; the breeze is favorable, and all things promise a
prosperous outcome. Do, then, be persuaded by me, dear friend, to share
my fate; if not for your sake and mine, then for those who love you in
England and are eagerly hoping for your return."
He was not unmoved by this address, and the tears sprang in his eyes as
he wrung my hand in silence; but he shook his head the while.
"No," says he, presently; "no, Pengilly; you know not the pride of my
heart. It would kill me with shame to show myself a beggar there,"
turning his eyes toward the north. "I am a ruined man--ay, ruined body
and soul--for I feel that I am unworthy of your love. Go!"
"Nay," says I, "let me stay that my persuasion may work on you. I left
my offer to the last, hoping--"
"I know," says he, interrupting me. "You hoped that the prospect of
being left alone, coming to be reviewed suddenly, would shake my
resolution. But I have foreseen this. I saw that you were preparing for
two to make voyage on the raft. I knew that you were not dwelling
cheerfully day by day on the prospect of escape, but to excite a desire
in me to escape with you. I know what is in your heart, and have just
sensibility enough left in mine to value it. But I will not go. I am
resolved, and naught can shake my resolution from its centre. Go; and
may God bless you."
So with a very sad heart I was fain to accept his decision; and shoving
out into the stream I went down swiftly with the current, and had not
the courage to look back for that poor lonely man I was leaving behind.