A hundred bottles of champagne not worth a glass of water.—My
clothes leave me.—I commence the combat.—Great fight of a man
against an island full of apes.—The verandah about to fall.—It
does not last any longer.—A skin saves me.
For the remainder of the day my haggard eyes, reflecting my troubled
mind, hovered over the last lines of this journal, which I pictured
to myself as terminating in a description of a _fête_ and a general
massacre. But who could have committed this massacre? Hardly the Malays,
for they stay to plunder, and there had evidently been no pillage of the
station. The only other supposition which flashed across my mind seemed a
great deal too absurd to be seriously entertained—no, I could not believe
that a conspiracy of apes, although my life depended upon them at the
present moment, could have been guilty of so atrocious a crime.
Night came, and it was positively hideous to me with nightmares,
hallucinations, and sudden shocks of alarm, which awoke me out of
my sleep. By daylight, when I became a little less agitated, I said
to myself that if all the people belonging to the station had been
assassinated in some mysterious way, I should at least have come across
their remains, since, according to my calculations, it was now July, and
the journal finished in June, so that a month had elapsed since this
outrage was committed.
This very reasonable idea having entered my head, I considered over the
facts mentioned in Lord Campbell’s journal, and arrived step by step at
the following conclusions:—
The Tagal spies must have let their secret escape or allowed it to be
guessed on the occasion of their first voyage to Sooloo.
The Malay pirates, finding their plans discovered, would not allow the
Tagals to return to Kouparou after their second voyage. They would have
flayed Admiral Campbell’s unfortunate spies alive, or would perhaps have
eaten them, since the Malays are somewhat inclined to cannibalism.
After having eaten the Tagals, the Malays, whose vengeance never halts
by the way, would have made a first descent by night on the island of
Kouparou, which would explain the distant fires seen by Mr. Dawson, Lord
Campbell’s secretary.
The poignard stuck in the sand was the symbolical menace addressed by the
pirates to the sailors of the station, advising them, by this figurative
but most expressive warning, that they would return and either poignard
them or make themselves masters of them in some way or other.
They had actually returned, and the moment of their descent must have
been at the time the _fête_ given to the officers of the Halcyon by
Vice-Admiral Campbell was taking place.
The pirates had, in all probability, succeeded in capturing all the
officers and sailors whom they found on the island itself; they would
next have attacked the Halcyon, when resistance would have been for the
most part impossible, as nearly all the crew would have been on shore.
They would then have taken the ship with all their prisoners to Sooloo,
or to some other port of the archipelago known by this name.
The descent, the surprise, and the carrying of the prisoners off had
occurred in the midst of the banquet which was to have preceded the
ball, and from this in all probability arose the disorder and confusion
remarked by me in the courtyard of the verandah on the day I first
entered it.
The pirates and their prisoners departed, the apes, those millions of
apes, of whom Admiral Campbell complained so bitterly in his journal,
would have taken possession of the officers’ apartments, and profiting
by the spoils left so unaccountably by the pirates, would have proceeded
to dress themselves in the uniforms which the unfortunate officers and
sailors of the Halcyon had not time or opportunity to take with them.
Lastly, not allowing the logical thread which I held as it were between
my fingers to break for a single instant, I proceeded from all these
incontestable inferences to this certain conclusion—namely, that in
the island of Kouparou apes of a certain superior species had formerly
possessed the sovereignty; that these apes had been dispossessed by the
Tagals; that the Tagals had been sent to the right about by the English;
that the English had been expelled by the Malay pirates; that the Malay
pirates in their turn had just been dispossessed of it, if not by force,
at least in fact, by the apes, to whom had returned again the sovereign
authority over the island of Kouparou—a lot, indeed, which has befallen
most of the islands of Oceania, many of which still attest by their ruins
that they were formerly inhabited by people intelligent enough to cover
these islands with handsome buildings, and who had afterwards to make
room for a population of apes. Frightful revolution!
Plunged in the most gloomy reflections, after having thus pictured to
myself the misfortunes which had happened to the English station of
Kouparou, I quitted Admiral Campbell’s study, and descended to the
lower apartments, resolved henceforth not to think seriously of a
deliverance which I now felt to be impossible. “I shall live on in this
tomb,” said I to myself, “so long as it pleases God to preserve me.” To
dream of leaving it was now one of those extravagant hopes which only
spring from madness—watched, guarded, surrounded, menaced as I was by
gaolers a thousand times more crafty and cruel than the Malay pirates.
I re-examined all the doors; I barricaded them more efficiently, and
decided not to behold the light of day any more, since I could no longer
enjoy it without looking upon that sinister and menacing cordon of
besiegers; I lighted some candles, and installed myself in these lower
apartments as though it were for eternity.
After having examined my provisions, I believed in the possibility of
spending at least three years in this vault without dying of hunger and
thirst. But at the end of fifteen days of this existence, insipid and
monotonous as sleep, I found myself exposed to an intolerable suffering
produced by the exceptional kind of life which I was leading. But before
I say anything further about this unforeseen calamity, I have to speak
of another misery by which I was beset. My poor clothes, which had been
in rags for a long time past through their owner’s tribulations, had one
fine day the coolness to leave me entirely. As I had neither needle nor
thread to draw the rags together again, I was obliged to resign myself to
going about perfectly naked.
The inconvenience was great, for we had just entered on the season when
the nights were damp and frequently as cold as they are in Europe, and I
had nothing whatever to cover me. The apes had taken possession of every
scrap of clothing and every vestige of drapery. Joined to the scantiness
of my Adamite costume, this change in the temperature affected my health.
I had excessive pains in the joints, accompanied by a low fever which
would not leave me. The graver inconvenience of which I have to speak
is this. I have already said that water was not abundant in the offices
of the verandah. In the first few days the deprivation of this natural
necessary affected me but little. I drank the different wines contained
in the cases and hampers. These wines, as I have already mentioned, were
very powerful, and the necessity of quenching one’s thirst exclusively
with these ardent liquids without the moderating admixture of water
parched up my throat to that extent that I was always thirsty, and the
more I drank the more thirsty I became. How could I appease this thirst?
Ah! with how much delight I would have given a hundred bottles of
champagne for a single glass of water! For an entire fortnight I endured
this suffering, which became every hour more poignant; the crisis,
however, was approaching; my tongue was as dry as a piece of leather, my
eyes were swollen and bloodshot, my hands were burning with fever, my
brain throbbed against my skull.
In my lucid moments I demonstrated to myself how very false our tastes
are in our artificial life of civilisation. People in a certain position
would never condescend to drink water, despised water, and yet partaking
continuously for a fortnight of the best wines and rarest liquors had
almost made me mad. Since this painful passage of my existence I have
always had a religious respect for rivers, and I admire the Hindoos, who
rightly regard the Ganges, my beautiful Indian river, as sacred.
With my blood heated by fever, and driven to extremities by suffering,
I darted one day up the staircase which led to Admiral Campbell’s
study, opened the cupboard containing the arms, and loaded the thirty
fowling-pieces which I found there; I then carried them with the packets
of ammunition to the bell-tower, where I proceeded to break two panes
of glass in the turret, so as to make loopholes of them. This done, and
vowing the death of my adversaries or else my own, I place myself in a
position to open fire against those who prevent my obtaining water from
the lake, the beautiful blue of which I could perceive in the distance.
But what an unexpected spectacle met my sight through the loopholes of my
tower, which would become a redoubt in a few seconds’ time! I had left
two or three thousand apes on the watch on the day when I descended from
it, with the intention of never again re-ascending. To-day they are
increased to twenty thousand at the very least! But who could pretend
to count them? As well try to count the insects swarming in the ocean
of space on a summer’s evening under the line! A month ago the apes had
gathered near them only some insignificant heaps of stones; now these
heaps have increased to that enormous extent that they are perfect hills
of projectiles, placed, too, so close to one another that they have
raised, as it were, the field of battle and the camp of the besiegers
to the highest point of the verandah. The bell-tower, which formerly
overlooked everything, is now itself overlooked. Instead of being
elevated above all around, it is depressed.
But no matter! I determine to open fire; and I do so, letting fly right
into the midst of this mass of living creatures. I had loaded each
gun with six small bullets, so that at the first fire I knock over an
ourang-outang, a mandrill, and a baboon; what besides I know not. It was
necessary that I should kill, and I do kill. I seize with a like frenzy
another gun, and fire with the same result; I make gaps in their line
twenty-four feet in extent. But at the moment when, drunk with my heroic
slaughter, I am about to fire my third gun, a dense shower of stones
descends on the front, sides, and indeed every part of the verandah. What
a frightful row! The noise of this shower of stones mixed with handfuls
of sand, and accompanied as it was by sneering grunts from foul mouths
overflowing with abuse, is not possible to be rendered in words. To
convey any idea of them it would be necessary to have the instruments
themselves, to have rough steel files grating harshly against angles
of granite. Amidst this horrible din the report of my guns even can be
no longer heard. All that I am certain of, all that I can distinguish
clearly, is that I keep on killing; I kill by twenties, by hundreds, in
fact; but these twenties, these hundreds who utter their death-shriek and
fall over, are immediately replaced. The moment at last arrives when I
am obliged to pause to reload my arms. But my adversaries do not pause!
They simply redouble their fire. It is then I perceive that the great art
of war is not a whit less familiar to animals than to men. Both alike
have recourse to the most subtle ruses. For instance, at the very moment
when I was about to give way, Karabouffi, till then hidden behind some
trees, made his appearance, to give, as it were, a new inspiration to
his troops. The great Condé used to rush forward and throw his marshal’s
baton within Senef’s lines. Karabouffi, like the great French general,
threw his baton of defiance through the air.
It caused my overthrow. The baboon’s stick was so well aimed that it
entered like an arrow through the turret of the bell-tower, struck me,
and sent me rolling to the bottom. My rage was unbounded.
Although somewhat dizzy from my fall, I nevertheless remounted as
quickly as I had descended. But from this moment such a fearful storm of
projectiles rained on the turret that it soon became unroofed. The four
sides seemed as though they were about to fall. It was time vigorously
to retake the offensive, and I do so. I recommence firing, although my
face was lacerated, several of my teeth broken, my fingers literally
flayed, and my breast bleeding. The reader has not forgotten that I was
naked. Twenty times before night, which never before seemed to me so slow
in coming, I reloaded my thirty guns. What desperate work! The greater
part of them, however, were beginning to be no longer of any use, for
they required cleaning; three had burst in my hands. Fortunately, night
at length came and threw its mantle over this scene of carnage, without
parallel, I believe, in the world’s history. Animals, although they are
said to be more wicked than men, do not fight at night. They ceased their
fire and I ceased mine. Victory was for the time undecided.
To tell the truth, however, it was they who had already gained it, since
an enemy who can reinforce himself without ceasing, were he twenty times,
were he indeed a hundred times, less clever and brave than his adversary,
must triumph in the end. Victory, then, is only number.
I descended into my vault more ill than ever. Excitement had joined
itself to fever, and fever to despair. A cold shivering took possession
of me, my teeth chattered. The air was far more chilly than it had been
during the preceding nights. I felt that I should perish with the cold,
unless I had the marvellous good luck to find some covering to throw
over me. While I was feeling in one of Lord Campbell’s boxes for some
ammunition for the next day, I placed my hand on the thick fur of a skin,
soft as silk. Delighted at the discovery, I examined it all over, and
while considering its prodigious size was struck with the idea that this
fine fur must be the skin of the gigantic mandrill killed by Admiral
Campbell, that same mandrill whose skeleton, hanging to a mimosa, had
struck me with surprise and fear in the dim glimmering moonlight.
I wrapped myself up in this superb black fur, which was as warm as that
of a bear. I did better: I placed my legs in those of the animal, my arms
in his arms, or rather I applied those parts of the skin to my own arms
and legs. Then I fastened the whole with the aid of a piece of string, so
that I should not lose any portion of the warmth through any openings.
Lastly, being able to have a cap of the same fur which had furnished me
with coat and trousers, I applied the skin of the mandrill’s head to my
own. When all was arranged I looked at myself in a glass—I drew back in
amazement.
With my brown skin, thin cheeks, and open mouth, which allowed my teeth
to be seen, my prominent cheek-bones, long dishevelled hair falling over
my shoulders, and two months’ beard matted together with my hair, with
my eyes rendered restless and melancholy by the fever which was pressing
upon me, I took myself for the mandrill whose black dress suit I was
wearing. It is not possible to imagine a more striking resemblance. I
was troubled at it, troubled to such a degree that I commenced to jump
and gambol over the chairs and tables to assure myself by these acts of
stupidity that I was still possessed of my manly dignity. Alas! must I
confess it? If I had not entirely lost it, it was seriously compromised,
for in this skin I found myself to be endowed with an elasticity and
flexibility altogether alarming.
The day had scarcely broke when it became necessary for me to remount
to the clock-tower, and to do it very quickly. This time it was not I
who opened fire, but my adversaries. I had set them the example the day
before, and they followed it to-day. This commencement of hostilities
turned out badly for me—in fact, very badly. At the end of five minutes
the wall fronting the verandah, weak as all walls of this construction
usually are, gave way and fell under the shock of stones. The bell-tower,
which was partly sustained by this principal wall, trembled at its base.
I was lost—my last moments were approaching; I was separated from them
only by a few seconds. Everything was crumbling around me. There remained
to me the choice of being crushed under the remains of the verandah
or of precipitating myself into the midst of this crowd of savage and
exasperated beings, maddened with the thoughts of vengeance, intoxicated
with the idea of a victory which they knew very well could not escape
them. I decided to die like a man. I seized hold of a Malay poignard with
one hand and a revolver in the other, and leaped into the centre of the
arena.
I fell to the ground, when, just as I believed myself about to disappear
beneath a perfect network of claws, a wide space was cleared before
me. The entire army of apes drew back with respect, with terror, with
cast-down looks and stricken spirits.
I was thunderstruck. But let us pursue the story of this sudden change of
fortune, which we may almost regard in the light of a resurrection.
[Illustration]