Sea-Girt
Besides the birds, and the ground animals which he heard at times
scurrying through the undergrowth, the sole inhabitant of the island
that Dennis had yet discovered was a monkey. Though he was beginning
to suspect that his fears of encountering hostile human folk had been
needless, he still felt a timid reluctance to leave the coast-line for
the interior; and having given up for the present his idea of climbing
a tree to obtain a wider view, he contented himself with walking to the
top of the cliff, to continue his observations from that point. His
native courage was returning; yet, as he mounted the cliff, he moved
for the most part under cover of the trees; the dread of possible
enemies still made him wary, though every now and then he forgot his
precautions, only remembering them again when the sense of his
loneliness forced itself upon him, or when he was momentarily startled
by a sudden sound.
Panting a little from his exertions when he gained the summit,
conscious of his bodily weakness, of bruised limbs and strained sinews,
he looked eagerly around. Eastward stretched an illimitable expanse of
sea; he scanned it longingly, yet doubtfully, for while it was from
that quarter, or from the channel between the island and the mainland,
that he might hope for rescue from a friendly ship, it was thence also
that he might be descried perchance by an enemy. He sat down on the
grass, once more yielding to the heavy sense of forlornness, and
thinking sadly of his lost companions. How long he remained there he
knew not; his mind wandered a little: he thought afterwards that he had
probably slept, for he suddenly awoke to the consciousness of a gnawing
hunger. He had walked far, and the few shell-fish he had picked up on
the shore gave but meagre sustenance. Stiff and cramped, he rose to
search again for food.
There was nothing edible in his immediate neighbourhood. The trees
sprang to a lofty height, and bore no fruit. Plucking up his courage,
he made his way slowly down the slope towards the middle of the island.
The vegetation grew thicker as he proceeded; there was no path or road;
all was a wild tangle. At first he saw nothing wherewith to ease his
pangs; never in his life had he taken a thought for his next meal; it
was a new experience. Often enough at home he had plucked fruits as
they grew; he remembered with a strange homesick feeling many a boyish
depredation upon neighbouring orchards, out of sheer mischief, not from
a longing for food. But there were no apple-trees or plum-trees here.
And when at last he came upon a broad-leaved tree upon which grew huge
clusters of a yellowish fruit, in shape like monstrous pea-pods, he
hesitated, wondering whether this might not be one of those evil trees
of which he had heard, one taste of which would turn his skin black,
and fire him with a raging thirst, and afflict him with a madness whose
end was death. But his natural appetite would not be gainsaid. With
hope and misgiving mingled he at last stretched up his hand and plucked
one of the tempting pods, and stripped off the skin, and nibbled a
morsel of the soft fruit within. It was delicious; but so was the
devil's fruit of mariners' tales--the more delicious the more
poisonous. Somewhat anxiously he waited; there was no change in the
colour of his skin; he watched it through the rents of his tattered
garments; and indeed it seemed to him that any change would be for the
better, for he perceived for the first time that he was already black
and blue with bruises. He bit off another and a larger piece; then,
with the ravenous haste of one long fasting, he let prudence fly, and
ate the whole fruit, and another, and another, until he saw with
surprise and qualms that his feet were encircled by a ring of empty
skins. But he felt astonishingly refreshed and invigorated; he must
eat one more; and thus, timorously and recklessly, he made acquaintance
with the banana.
Of water for drink there was abundance. He drank gladly at a stream,
and wandered on. It was strange that he no longer felt alone. He saw
no man, nor any trace of one; he had become accustomed now to the
rustle of birds and the swish of four-footed creatures moving amid the
greenwood; what then caused him to look apprehensively around? What
was this odd feeling of expectation that possessed him? There was
nothing to account for it, and by and by the nervousness which had left
him during his search for food returned in greater force. It was not
lessened when he suddenly became aware that the sun was setting.
Darkness, he knew, would soon envelop him, and there came with a rush
upon his mind the memory of his early childhood, when night, with its
silence, its blackness, had filled him with terror. He felt that a
night in the solitude of these unfamiliar trees would be unbearable,
and, guiding himself by the sunset glow, he hurriedly plunged through
the jungle towards the shore. There, under the open sky, he could feel
more at ease.
His course brought him to the beach on the southern side, where, in the
morning, he remembered having seen, though in his despondency he had
not heeded, a number of half-rotten staves of casks. These might, he
thought, serve him for making a rude shelter. He soon found the spot,
and then noticed, what had escaped his dazed observation before, that
close by the staves there lay a medley of stripped branches. Had some
one, at some time, built himself of these materials a shelter in that
very place? He gathered the stuff together and rigged up a crazy hut,
such as he had seen erected by shepherds on the moors of Devon. The
day had been hot, but he knew from his experience on shipboard that the
nights were cold; already he felt a sharpness in the air, and shivered
in his tatters. The hut would defend him somewhat from the chill of
night.
Another fear seized upon him with the approach of dark. His mind had
been so occupied with thoughts of human enemies that the possibility of
the island harbouring wild beasts had not, in the daylight, occurred to
him. The darkness, he knew, brought forth small and great beasts; and
he remembered with a shudder the tales told him by one of the hardy
adventurers on board the _Maid Marian_--of packs of wild dogs that
scoured these tropic woods, devouring sleeping men; of the hideous
cayman, that lurked upon the shore, and, having swallowed
hundredweights of stones to increase its heaviness, seized upon some
unwary creature, and dragged it down into the watery depths, to feast
upon it at leisure. All wild beasts, he had heard, were afraid of
fire; he had his flint and steel, secure in a leather pouch upon his
girdle; but he had no dry timber; the sodden wood of the staves and
branches of which he had built his hut would be useless, and he shrank
from issuing forth into the now darkening woods to find material that
would serve. He comforted himself with the recollection that not once
during his tramp around the island had he seen any animal larger than a
hare, save the monkey; and he resigned himself to make the best of what
he feared would be a cheerless night.
The dark fell rapidly, again he had that strange feeling that he was
not alone. He went to the entrance of the hut, where he had drawn some
of the worm-eaten branches, strung together with a few creepers, across
as a door. Peering out, he saw nothing but the darkened cliffs and the
sea, heard nothing but the wash of the surf, the rustle of the breeze,
and the soft tones of wood-pigeons. He returned to the rear of the
cabin, where he had strewed leaves for his couch. As he lay back upon
it and looked up to the roof he started, and instinctively seized a
branch for protection: above him shone two greenish eyes peeping
through one of the many gaps. His hasty movement disturbed the
watcher, and Dennis heaved a sigh of relief as he heard a shrill
chattering above, and knew it for the gibber of a monkey. Springing up
he dashed out of the cabin to drive the intruder away. He was just in
time to see the monkey springing up the nearest tree.
It was long before he fell asleep. Then his rest was fitful and
disturbed, not only through his over-wrought nerves, but by the
nocturnal cries of creatures in the forest, and the attentions of
insects, which nipped and stung with importunate malice. In spite even
of them, however, he slept; and when with the rising of the sun they
betook their satiated bodies elsewhere, he lay till the morning was
drawing towards noon in the sound sleep of exhausted nature.
Opening his eyes upon bright day, he was tempted by the smoothness of
the sea to bathe. When he flung off his clothes he laughed to see the
parti-coloured patches on his skin. Blue, and yellow, and black, the
bruises reminded him of his battering in the storm, and his laughter
turned to sighing as he thought once more of his comrades and their
hapless fate. But in the physical joy of swimming he again plucked up
heart, and he left the stinging water with a most healthy hunger. The
recollection of his feast of fruit drew him into the woodland. He
wandered long before he lighted upon the banana grove, and though, in
the course of roaming, he saw other fruit-bearing trees, he resisted
for the present the temptation to climb and taste; when once his hunger
was appeased by the fruit he knew, he could more safely make an
experiment on the unknown.
He saw, too, many animals which had escaped his notice previously.
There were hedgehogs, and tortoises, and giant spiders, and scorpions
to which he gave a wide berth; but he caught no glimpse of any
four-footed beast to cause him dread, and having by this time made up
his mind that there were no human beings on the island, he went more
fearlessly, with a readier eye to note the features of his new abode.
Happening once to halt and glance back he saw, perched in the branches
of a tree not many yards away, a monkey. Was it the same, he wondered,
as that which had peered at him out of the tree he had thought of
climbing, and pried upon him in his humble cabin? It seemed to be of
the same size; it had spindly limbs and a long slender tail; but
probably there was a colony of the strange creatures on the island.
"Good morrow, Sir Monkey," he said, again finding a pleasure in the
sound of his voice. "Are you lonely too? You were not, surely, cast
like me upon this island, far away from kith and kin. You have a wise
and solemn look: what secrets do you harbour in that shallow skull of
yours? And what do you think of me, I wonder, when you look at me with
those cunning little eyes? I wish you could speak, for here am I
prating to myself like an old gossip of eighty."
As he moved on it was very soon clear that the monkey was dogging him.
He amused himself by putting the matter to the test. When he sat down,
the monkey stopped, and remained almost perfectly still, partially
concealing itself among the leaves. When Dennis rose and went on his
way the monkey followed, springing from branch to branch with amazing
dexterity, always keeping at a distance. Dennis became interested,
fascinated, as he watched the movements of the agile creature.
"Truly, Sir Monkey," he said, "I begin to wish I had a tail."
And as the day wore on, and the monkey kept pace with him wherever he
went, he began to find in its presence something of the comfort of
human companionship. Once, as he sat resting under a tree, the broken
skin of a fruit he had eyed longingly fell within a couple of yards of
him, and looking up he saw the monkey sucking with relish at another of
the same kind.
"Aha! my fine fellow," said Dennis, "you have something of a man about
you, and mayhap what is good for you is good for me too."
And he climbed a tree on which the pale yellow fruit was hanging, and
plucked one, and made a wry mouth at his first taste of the tartish
lime.
Thus the day passed in aimless yet not unprofitable wandering. Warned
by his experience of the previous night, he resolved to prepare his
shelter somewhat earlier. Where should it be? He was determined not
to go back to the cabin, for the insects had plagued him there
unmercifully, and he could only ward them off by means of a fire. But
flame by night and smoke by day rising from the shore would assuredly
provoke curiosity among the crew of any passing ship; and since, of the
vessels likely to pass in these latitudes, the most would undoubtedly
be Spaniards, he was loath to attract visitors who might prove so
eminently undesirable. Yet, as he knew from his experience in woods at
home, the insects would be even more numerous inland than at the shore.
A fire he must have, and it struck him that if he could find, somewhere
in the middle of the island, a sheltered hollow, he might safely kindle
there a few sticks, trusting that the over-arching foliage would
prevent a glow in the sky, and that the smoke, in the night-time, would
pass unobserved.
About a mile from the edge of the eastern cliff was a spring whence a
little stream flowed westward. At its source but an inch or two wide,
it gathered volume on its winding course, and Dennis, tracking it,
wondering by what circuit it would finally reach the sea, discovered
that it ran at length into a somewhat extensive marsh. He knew nothing
about rainfall and land drainage, but being a lad of some powers of
observation and reasoning, he was not long in coming to the conclusion
that the marsh collected as in a cup the water that fell on the
surrounding high ground during such torrential rains as had fallen on
the night of the storm. It was clear that there must be an outlet, or
the marsh would be a lake, and this outlet he found amid thick
undergrowth towards the western cliff near which he had been thrown by
the sea.
Penetrating the dense jungle, he discovered that the outflow poured
through a channel some three feet deep. Only a small stream now
trickled down its centre; the banks were sandy and dry, and the
interlaced foliage so arched it over, that Dennis decided he might rest
in it secure from observation, and even run the risk of kindling a fire
at night. It seemed scarcely necessary to bring the staves of his
cabin over several miles of difficult country to this spot; the trees
themselves formed a sufficient shelter; but with his clasp-knife he
cleared away some of the undergrowth, and lopped off a few low-growing
branches to make a little enclosure; and by the time the natural shade
deepened at the approach of night, he had fenced in a few square yards
and scooped out a hollow in the middle for his fire.
All the time he was working the monkey watched every movement from a
branch overhead. Dennis was not at first aware of the animal's
presence, so closely hidden was it by the foliage. Only when he struck
a spark from his flint, and after some ineffectual attempts succeeded
in blowing up a flame, did the monkey reveal its hiding-place by a
little gibber of amazement.
"So ho! my friend," cried Dennis, looking up vainly. "You haunt me
like a familiar. Have you never seen a fire? Do not let your
curiosity tempt you too far, for, much as I value your company, I had
rather you remained at your present comfortable distance until I know
you a little better. Play the sentinel, Sir Monkey, if you will."
Dennis felt very well satisfied with his contrivance as he sat by the
fire, eating a supper of bananas before laying himself down on a bed of
leaves. The smoke defended him somewhat from the insect pests; the
warmth was comforting; and the cheerful glow gave him a sense of
homeness and well-being. He fed the fire more than once during the
night, waking, it seemed, when the diminished heat warned him that the
fuel needed replenishing, And when he awoke from his longest spell of
sleep the dawn was stealing through the trees, birds were cooing,
whistling, chattering overhead, and the monkey, on a low branch, was
watching him with unalterable gravity.