LADY ROBINSON CRUSOE.
When Britomarte awoke from that deadly state of insensibility into which
the tremendous mental and physical shock had cast her, her recovery
seemed like coming back to life in the grave. At first she did not know
what sort of creature she was, or what state of existence she had come
into. Neither memory nor thought was present with her. There was only a
bodily sense of uneasiness, as the air again inflated her collapsed
lungs, and the vital current resumed its flow through her damp, chilled
and heavy limbs; and a mortal sense of vague despair, impossible to
analyze.
Instinctively she turned over and tried to rise; faintly she perceived
that the palms of her hands were deep in the moist sand, and that they
went deeper as she bore her weight upon them in her efforts to get up.
And thus she discovered that she was on the ground.
At length, after several fruitless attempts, she succeeded in lifting
herself to a sitting position. And then she looked blindly around. But
nothing was to be seen. All was dark as pitch. And nothing was to be
heard except the thunder of the sea upon the coast—a sound that
impressed her senses like some dimly remembered knell of doom.
She put her hands up to her head, and tried to struggle forth from this
state of mental dullness and confusion. She tried to think and remember
who she was, what had happened, and how she came to this hades of
darkness and desolation! In vain! as well might a newborn infant try to
recall the events of its pre-existence, supposing it ever to have had
one. With all her striving to come forth from chaos, she could only
arrive at a dim, mysterious consciousness of infinite loss and eternal
despair. Was she a disembodied spirit, then? Was this really hell? Had
she come to it? And for what sin? No, but such spirits had not flesh and
blood, as she felt too sensibly that she had.
What then?
The ceaseless beating of the waves upon the shore was a familiar and
suggestive sound, and troubled her with glimpses of memory that flitted
in and out of her mind like ghosts in a graveyard.
It was a trifle that at last struck the electric chain of association,
and restored her to herself. In her blind movements, she touched the
inflated life-preserver that was fastened around her waist. And
instantly, with a shock of returning life, the whole scene of the
catastrophe flashed upon her memory. And she knew that she was cast away
upon that dreary coast on which the lifeboat had been struggling all day
long, and far into the night, and on which it had finally been wrecked!
But whether this coast was a part of the mainland or of an island;
whether it was barren, or clothed with vegetation; whether it was
uninhabited, or peopled with cannibals, she did not know and she did not
care; or what deadly perils and cruel sufferings from the ruthless
savages, or from protracted starvation might await her there, she did
not know and did not care.
Instantly, with the flash of memory had come the knowledge of her one
great sorrow, the loss of her lover and her beloved! Yes, in this awful
hour of doom, Britomarte knew that she loved Justin with an earnestness
that outweighed her hatred of his whole sex and her devotion to the
sacred rights of her own.
And the cry of her broken heart arose wildly on the dark air, amid the
profound stillness of that strange land!—a cry of bitter anguish, not
for the fate of all her late companions, too probably perished in the
sea; not for the feeling of her own horrible state of danger and
desolation worse than death, but for despair at the loss of him whom she
loved as only such souls as hers have power to love.
“Gone! gone! gone! Gone out of my way forever! Oh, this is the sorrow I
dreaded worse than all others in this dark world! the only sorrow I ever
really dreaded! life without him! And now he is gone forever, without
one good word from me to let him know how I loved him! Ah! Heaven, how I
loved him!” She wrung her hands and tore her beautiful hair, and then
flung her arms on high, and cried out again, in the frenzy of longing:
“Justin! Justin! My lover! My beloved! Where are you? Where are you in
all space? Are you near me? Can you hear me? Oh, is there no way of
piercing the veil? of getting to you, or drawing you to me? Oh, come to
me! Oh, hear me! I am telling you what no power could have ever drawn
from my lips, Justin, while you were in the flesh! Justin! I am telling
you how I loved you! How I loved you! I meant to have died with you on
the wreck! I did, Justin! I did, though I would not confess I loved you!
I meant to have died with you! Oh, why did you not let me? I cannot,
cannot outlive you! Once you said, though you loved me so much, you
could live without me, because you were so strong to suffer! But I! oh,
now I know that I am not strong. I cannot live without you! and with the
memory of my bitter unkindness to you! Justin! Justin! Oh, spirit!
wherever you live in boundless space, speak to my spirit!”
She was indeed almost insane in her frenzy of grief, remorse and
despair. And but for her deep religious principles, in her fierce
anguish she would have run down through the darkness and cast herself
headlong into the sea, that she still heard thundering upon the beach.
At last, exhausted by mental and physical trials, she sank down upon the
ground and covered her face with her hands, and sat there in mute
despair during the remaining dark hours of the night.
Day dawned in that strange place at last.
She lifted up her bowed head and looked around, feeling in the midst of
all her misery the same sort of weird curiosity that causes a criminal
on his way to the scaffold to look with attention at every object of
interest in the range of his vision.
She saw the eastern horizon growing red behind a grove of tall, dark
trees, but what sort of trees they were she could not tell. She arose to
her feet and stretched her chilled and benumbed limbs and took off her
life-preserver. Her clothing had dried upon her, but it had a harsh
feeling and a stiff set and a scent of the sea water. Her hair, too, was
loose and flowing; combs and pins had been lost in her recent battle
with the waves. But she cared little for all these circumstances. A
feverish thirst consumed her and she walked on in search of some spring
or stream of fresh water.
Day broadened over the unknown land, showing her an undulating and
variegated country of hill and valley, plain and forest. The ground was
covered with a coarse, rank verdure, and starred with many strange wild
flowers. She merely glanced at these as she rambled inland in quest of a
fountain to quench her burning thirst.
She walked some distance, fearless and careless of what unknown wild
beasts or wilder men might intercept her progress and destroy her life.
She often sank exhausted on the ground; and arose and recommenced her
journey, driven onward by the fiery thirst that seemed to scorch up her
very lifeblood.
She came to that grove of tall dark trees behind which she had seen the
sun rise in the morning. She found them to be a grove of cocoa palms,
and as she entered under their umbrella-like shades she was startled by
a chattering over her head; and at the same time a missile was launched
at her, that missed its mark and rolled at her feet.
She stooped and picked it up. It was a cocoanut. Raising her eyes at the
same time, she saw a monkey perched in the tree above her, grinning and
chattering with mischievous delight, and preparing to launch another nut
at her. So she hurried from under that tree and out of the way as fast
as she could. She carried off the monkey’s gift with her, thinking that
if she could not find fresh water, she would try to break the nut and
drink the sweet milk.
She passed through the grove of cocoa palms and came out upon a gently
declining plain that descended to the seaside; so she knew that she must
have crossed the narrow point of land and come out at the part opposite
to that upon which she had been first thrown.
The upper part of this plain was covered with a thick growth of what
seemed to be a coarse reed or bamboo, or what might be a species of
sugar cane. Britomarte had never seen the sugar cane growing, and so she
could not judge of it. She broke off one of the straight stems and
placed it to her lips and found it to contain a sweet juice, which she
sucked with avidity to moisten her dried lips. But this only seemed to
increase her thirst; and as yet she had found no fresh water, nor could
she hope to find any so near the seashore; but with a fragment of rock
she contrived to break the cocoanut and drink the milk. Still that did
not quench her thirst; so she once more turned her steps from the sea
and walked inland, though by another route than that by which she had
come.
She entered another thicket of unfamiliar trees, which were not,
however, cocoa palms, but some unknown growth of that country. It was a
picturesque thicket, with rocks and grottoes, clothed with luxuriant
vegetation that grew in the crevices or wherever there was a root hold
of soil.
Suddenly she heard a welcome sound, the gurgling of some spring or
stream of water. Following the sound, she came to a rock, from a fissure
in which trickled a small, clear fountain. She hastily made a scoop of
her hand, and caught and quaffed the precious liquid eagerly. And when
she had quenched her feverish thirst, she bathed her face and hands, and
dried them with her handkerchief, which she found safe in her pocket.
While she was so employed she heard a sudden rush and whirr of wings,
and looking up, she saw that a large flock of strange birds, of
beautiful plumage, had made a descent and settled among the branches of
the trees over her head. She watched them for a little while, and then
passed out of the thicket, up upon a sort of tableland that occupied the
center between the two shores of this long peninsula, as she supposed it
to be. She walked on she knew not, cared not whither. Her burning thirst
sated, and that physical suffering allayed, she again experienced heavy
mental trouble. She walked on in a purposeless way, until, happening to
glance downward she saw before her a strange looking little animal, in
size and shape not unlike our young native pig. But on being observed,
it started and scampered away. She went on and crossed the elevated
plain and came to another thicket and passed through it and came out
upon the sea coast again. And here she sat down in the collapse of
despair.
“It is only to wander here until I shall be massacred by the savage
natives, or destroyed by scarcely more savage beasts of prey, or else
until I drag out a miserable remnant of existence, and perish slowly of
famine and exposure, or of sorrow and despair, more terrible than
physical suffering! How long will my strength hold out to live and
suffer? Not long, I hope and pray, since it would be to no perceptible
good end! Ah, well, it cannot last forever! ‘Time and the hours wear out
the weariest day!’ This is a dreary season; but this also will pass
away. Time is but a small portion of eternity, and flesh but a transient
condition of the spirit; I am an immortal spirit, living in eternity,
and I cannot die or be lost; and sometime—somewhere—I shall meet him!
Let me think of that and be strong!”
While thus she reasoned herself out of her despondency and nerved
herself to endure the horror and desolation of her condition—a horror
and desolation not even to be imagined by any one who has only known
misery in the midst of their own kind, in the reach of human
sympathy—she suddenly heard a cry—a sharp, wild, piercing cry, between a
howl and a shriek and a wail—a cry of anguish and defiance and ferocity!
She started and listened.
It was repeated again, wilder, higher, fiercer than before.
She hoped—she truly did—that it came from some rapacious beast of prey,
mad with hunger, which would set upon her and make short work of her and
of the “dreary season” she dreaded so much.
It was reiterated in almost human tones.
How intently she bent her head and listened.
“Ow-oo! ow-oo! ow-oo!” it screamed.
Human tones, yet not articulate sounds.
“Och-hone! och-hone! och-hone!” it hallooed.
A sudden light dawned on Britomarte’s mind. She knew that these last
sounds were never heard off the “Gem iv the Say,” except from some
“exile of Erin.” She immediately arose and hurried down the beach in the
direction from which the cries proceeded.
And there, upon the sands, dangerously near to the water’s edge, lay the
form of Judith Riordan. The life-preserver was still around her waist,
but she lay flat upon her back, with her feet and hands raised, kicking
and fighting the air, and her voice lifted and howling dismally. And
with good reason; for she seemed unable to get up and run away from the
spot, and the tide was coming in rapidly, and with every advancing wave
threatening to overwhelm and drown her.
Miss Conyers hurried to her side and knelt down, exclaiming eagerly:
“Oh, Judith! Judith Riordan! Thanks to Heaven that you are saved!”
“Yis, thanks to Hivin, and small thanks to any of yez, laving me here be
meself to be drowned entirely. And where are the lave of yez, at all, at
all?” demanded the Irish woman, crossly.
“The rest of us? Oh, Judith, I don’t know. You are the first one that I
have seen! Oh, Judith! I fear—I greatly fear—that all the others have——”
A huge wave came rolling and roaring onward, breaking at their feet and
showering them with spray.
“Ah, bad luck till ye thin, why don’t you drag me out of this, itself?
Sure the next one will carry me off entirely!” screamed Judith.
“Oh! Judith, poor girl, can’t you help yourself at all? Are you so badly
hurt as all that?” inquired Miss Conyers, as she took hold of the
woman’s shoulders, and putting all her strength to the effort, slowly
and laboriously dragged her a few feet from the water’s edge and let her
down a moment, while she, Britomarte, stopped to breathe and recover.
“Am I hurt so bad as that? ye ask me. Ye betther believe that same! Sure
and I’m thinking ivery bone in me body is broke, so I do! Ah, bedad,
here come another say. Sure if I’d been left where I was, it would have
took me off entirely. Och! drag me further out iv this——”
Even while she spoke, the advancing wave broke, and tumbled down, a
shattered avalanche of water, at their feet, covering them with a shower
of spray.
When it had fallen back, Britomarte once more took hold of her
companion, and with painful efforts succeeded in dragging her still a
few feet farther on, where she was safe from the tide.