I AM EXCELLENTLY SERVED BY MY FAMOUS INVENTION, AND COME TO ENGLAND NOT
MUCH THE WORSE FOR IT.
By making vigorous employment of my paddle, first on one side and then
on the other, I continued to keep well in the midst of the river, and
the tide then ebbing fast, I was quickly swept across the shallows at
the mouth, and so out to sea.
And now I thought it proper to hoist my sail; so, laying aside my
paddle, I drew up the lateen between my two masts till it was taut, and
then making fast the liana found it acted well enough, for at once it
filled out very full and fair to the breeze, which was blowing pretty
brisk from the southeast.
But now my difficulties and troubles began, for I had no experience in
the governing of a sailing boat, and ere I had got to work at my paddle,
my raft veered round before the gale, the sail flapping to and fro
between the masts, and I had all the pain in the world to get her head
round and my sail full again. And when this was achieved, I found a
fresh fault, and this was that my buoys were nothing near sufficient to
resist the pressure of the sail, so that they dipped deep into the
water, the poles to which they were fastened bending to such a degree
that I expected nothing less every moment but that they would snap under
the strain, and the raft capsize utterly, to my final undoing. Wherefore
I was fain to abandon my paddle, and reef the lower part of the sail to
lessen the pressure, in which time I again lost the wind, so back to my
paddle and more labor to bring me round once more before the breeze.
By this time I perceived that the current of the sea and my bungling
together had swept me far from the coast, and rather to the south than
to the north. And to my great perplexity I found that I could not get
the wind in my sail without drifting still further from the shore to the
west, for if I steered to the north, then would the wind go out of my
sail, and the craft, losing way would drift with the current to the
south, so that if I did nothing matters could be no worse. At last I was
constrained to lower my sail altogether and seek to make head against
the current by vigorous use of my paddle, first on one side and then on
the other, as I say, And, lord! no man could be more encompassed with
troubles than I was, or sweat more to overcome them than I did at this
time. At length, from sheer exhaustion, I was fain to give over, and let
my raft, without sail or oar, go whither it might. I set me down on my
deck of rushes, and casting my eyes toward the land was dismayed to find
it but an indistinct line on the horizon (I have been out to sea now
four hours or more), and to the best of my belief I stood further from
Trinidado, after all my trouble than ere I started forth. And let this
be a warning to all men that they put not to sea ere they have learned
to sail.
When I had refreshed myself with some water and one of my dried pork
steaks (which, that they might not be perished by the sea water, I had
hanged conveniently high on one of my masts), I rose up, and with a kind
of desperate fury essayed again to make a proper course. First, I went
at my sail once more, and when I found that of no avail but rather the
contrary, I seized my paddle, and worked at it like any galley slave,
and though I could see no improvement, yet did I persevere diligently.
Then, fancying the breeze was a little abated and blew from another
quarter, I went (with a prayer) and once more lifted my sail, but that
would not do, and so (with a curse) I dropped it and back to my paddle.
In fine, to cut a long story short, I wasted my pains all that day, and
had the mortification as I sat down once more to rest my aching limbs,
to find the land no longer in sight; nor anything else but the water all
around me.
Seeing it was useless to work when I could no longer see for want of
light (though not more useless than before, may be), I lay me down on my
reeds (the sea, God be praised! having subsided when the wind dropped to
an agreeable calm), and presently fell asleep.
The next day there was no need to experiment with my sail, for not a
breath of air stirred; so I worked steadily at my paddle pretty nearly
the whole day, but I was forced to desist in the noon for some time
because of the great heat of the sun, and that while I sheltered myself
under the sail, which was, God knows, all the use it ever served me. All
that day I heard not a sound but such as I made with my paddles, and the
sea was like so much glass extended about me, and a mist all around the
horizon caused by the sun sucking up with his great heat the vapors from
the water. When the sun set, this mist settled over the whole sea, so
that I could see never a star to cheer me, and this made me very sad and
prayerful, for it seemed as if a death-pall were being spread over my
unhappy being. Then would I gladly have been back with Sir Harry on the
island; and thinking of him and our miserable estate, both alone, and
like to perish without ever again hearing the sound of a cheerful voice,
the tears began to flow from my eyes as from a woman's; and I do think I
fell asleep weeping.
About midnight (as I reckon) I was awakened by the freshening of the
breeze; yet nothing could I see. I groped my way along very carefully to
my masts, that I might have them to hold by, for already the sea was
rising; and it was well that I did so, for in an amazingly short space
of time the breeze quickened to a gale, and beat the waters so high that
I was like to have been swept away by the waves as they burst. I will
not dwell on the increasing terrors of that night, for no words can
describe the fury of that hurricane, or my dread lest the binding of my
logs should be rent asunder and my frail resting-place part under me.
And here let me observe that, no matter how a man may desire death at
other times, yet in the hour of peril will he ever cling desperately to
life.
When morning broke, my case was no better than in the night; and looking
around me at the billows that threatened every moment to engulf me, I
was appalled, and could but say, over and over again, "God be merciful
to me!" For a long while I experienced neither hunger nor thirst but
only great fear and terror; but when nature began to crave within me,
and I looked to see if I could get at my water vessels, I perceived that
they had been washed away in the night, for I had taken no precaution to
lash them to the raft for safety. And also I noticed that my deck of
rushes was clean gone and my outriggers broken. My only comfort was that
the bonds of my raft still, for the most part held good, though the
straining of the timbers had loosened them, and it was clear they could
support the rubbing of the logs and the wrenching of them but a little
longer. I saw that if one or two at the end went, then all must go;
therefore, as I crouched between the masts I watched these bonds as a
man may watch the preparing of a gallows from which he is in the end to
be swung off into eternity. And after my raft had been shot down into a
great hollow, and thence rising up, met the fearful buffet of another
huge wave, I saw that the end liana was burst asunder. "God be merciful
to me!" says I again, and with the greater earnestness that I felt I
might the next moment be in his presence.
At this moment, above the bustle and rush of the waves and wind, I heard
a report like the firing of a small piece of ordnance, and, casting my
eye in that direction, I saw, to my great amazement, a great ship
bearing down upon me, and not two fathoms off. And that noise I heard
was made by the splitting of her topmast and its striking the side of
the vessel as it fell. Scarce had I seen this when the ship, riding down
on the wave, ground its foreside against the end of my raft, and the
next instant I found myself entangled in the wreck of the broken mast
with its yard, which still hung to the ship by its cordage. Some of this
cordage passing right athwart me, I sprang up and clasped it; then,
though as how I can not tell, but as I best might, I climbed like any
monkey upwards, getting no more than a dozen or so good thumps against
the ship's side, and knocking the skin off my knuckles, by the way,
until I got my head above the bulwarks, where already two stout seamen
were severing the wreck from the cordage with hatchets. When these two
saw me rise as it were out of the grave over the bulwarks, I say, they
were stricken with greater terror than the fury of the tempest had
inspired, and fell back from their business with gaping mouths and
starting eyes; but as I tumbled over the side and threw myself on the
deck, they perceived I was no ghost, but only a poor shipwrecked wretch,
they picked me up and bore me into the roundhouse to their captain, for
I had no power even to stand, being quite spent with my exertion and
trouble of mind.
The captain spoke to me, but I could not understand him, for, as I
afterwards found, he was from Holland and spoke Dutch, and I spoke to
him with no better effect, for he knew no word of English. Nor did any
man on that ship speak anything but Dutch, or understand our tongue. I
tried to make him comprehend by signs that I ventured to sea on two
logs, but he could make nothing of me till we got to Schiedam (which we
did, thanks be to God, in a little over eight weeks), where was a man
who spoke English.
The captain was very humane and kind to me, and for my serving him on
the voyage, which I did to the best of my ability and cheerfully, he
paid me at the same rate he paid his other seamen, besides giving me a
decent suit of clothes, of which I stood much in need. Through this good
man's generosity was I enabled to pay my passage in a galliot to
Yarmouth in England, where, by the good help of Providence, I arrived
full safe and sound.
And there had I yet some pieces to spare for my sustenance and to help
me onward to Falmouth.