ROBINSON SEES A FOOTPRINT ON THE
SAND, AND FINDS TRACES OF
CANNIBAL FEASTS
All this time Robinson had never gone near his canoe, but now the
longing came on him to go over to where he had left her, though he
felt that he should be afraid again to put to sea in her. This time,
however, when he got to the hill from which he had watched the set of
the current the day that he had been carried out to sea, he noticed
that there was no current to be seen, from which he concluded that
it must depend on the ebb and flow of the tide. Still, he was afraid
to venture far in the canoe, though he stopped some time at his
country-house, and went out sailing very often.
One day when Robinson was walking along the sand towards his boat,
suddenly, close to the water, he stopped as if he had been shot, and,
with thumping heart, stood staring in wonder and fear at something that
he saw. The mark of a naked foot on the sand! It could not be his own,
he knew, for the shape was quite different. Whose could it be?
He listened, he looked about, but nothing could he hear or see. To the
top of a rising ground he ran, and looked all around. There was nothing
to be seen. And though he searched everywhere on the beach for more
footmarks, he found none.
Whose footprint could it be? That of some man, perhaps, he thought, who
might come stealing on him out from the trees, or murder him whilst he
slept.
Back to his house he hurried, all the way in a state of terror,
starting every now and again and facing round, thinking he was being
followed, and fancying often that a stump or a bush was a man, waiting
to spring on him. That night he slept not at all, and so shaken was
his nerve that every cry of a night bird, even every sound made by
an insect or a frog, caused him to start with fear, so that the
perspiration ran down his brow.
As day followed day, however, and nothing happened, Robinson began to
be less uneasy in his mind, and went about his usual work again. But
he strengthened the fence round his castle, and cut in it seven small
loop-holes, in which, fixed on frames, he placed loaded muskets, all
ready to fire if he should be attacked. And some distance from the
outside of the fence he planted a thick belt of small stakes, so that
in a few years’ time a perfect thicket of trees and bushes hid all
trace of his dwelling.
Years passed quietly, and nothing further happened to disturb Robinson,
or to make him think more of the footprint that had frightened him so
much. But he kept more than formerly to the interior of the island, and
lost no chance of looking for good places to hide in, if he should ever
need them. And he always carried a cutlass now, as well as his gun and
a couple of pistols.
[Illustration: He saw the mark of a naked foot on the sand]
One day it chanced, however, that he had gone further to the west of
the island than he had ever done before, and, looking over the sea,
he fancied that he saw, at a great distance, something like a boat or
a long canoe, but it was so far off that he could not be sure what it
was. This made him determine that always in future he would bring with
him to his lookout-place the telescope which he had saved from the
wreck.
The sight of this supposed boat brought back his uneasiness to some
extent, but he went on down to the beach, and there he saw a sight
which filled him with horror. All about the shore were scattered men’s
skulls and bones, and bits of burnt flesh, and in one place were the
remains of a big fire. Robinson stood aghast, feeling deadly sick. It
was easy for him to know the meaning of the terrible sight. It meant
that cannibals had been there, killing and eating their prisoners; for
when the natives of some parts of the world go to war, and catch any
of their enemies, it is their habit to build a fire, then to kill the
prisoners and feast on their roasted bodies, eating till they can eat
no more. Sometimes, if the man they are going to eat is too thin, they
keep him, and feed him up, till they think he is fat enough.
Now Robinson knew all this, though he had never yet met any cannibals.
And when he looked around he saw many bones lying about. They were so
old that it seemed certain to him that all those years he had been
living on an island which was a regular place for the natives to come
to for such feasts. Then he saw what a mercy it was that he had been
wrecked on the other side of the island, to which, he supposed, the
cannibals never came, because the beach was not so good for them to
land on.
Full of horror, Robinson hurried back to his house, and for almost two
years he never again came near that part of the island where the bones
lay, nor ever visited his boat. But all the time he kept thinking how
he might some day kill those cannibals whilst they were at their feast,
and perhaps save some of the poor men whom they had not yet killed.
Sometimes he thought of putting powder below the place where they were
likely to light their fire, and thus blow them up. But that did not
seem a very good plan, because he did not want to waste his powder, and
may be they might not light the fire on that spot, or they might not be
near when it exploded. So he looked for a place where he could hide,
near where the bones lay, and at last he found a good spot, from which
he could watch them land. Near this spot were trees, through which he
could creep up quite close to them, unseen, and so shoot without danger
of missing. And it was his plan, that if he should happen to see the
savages next time they came over for one of their horrible feasts, he
would lie hidden till a good chance came, then shoot as many as he
could with his gun and pistols, and afterwards with his cutlass rush
upon those that were left. In this way he counted on being able to
kill them all, even if there were as many as twenty, for they would be
taken by surprise, and in the confusion might not be able to get at
their spears and clubs.
When he had made this plan, Robinson was so pleased with it that for a
time he could think of little else, and every day he would walk three
miles to his lookout-hill, and watch through his telescope for signs of
canoes coming over the sea towards the island. But after two or three
months without result, he grew tired of it. Never a speck was to be
seen on the water in any direction, and he began to go less and less
often to the lookout-hill, and then gave up going altogether. Perhaps
too, he thought, it was no business of his; the savages did not know
any better, and were only doing what their fathers had taught them
to do. It was the custom in these savage lands, and Robinson came to
think, finally, that he had no right to interfere, unless they first
attacked him. He argued also that if he did attack, and it chanced
that he did not kill them all, that even only one got away, for certain
that man would tell his tribe as soon as he got home, and they would
come over in hundreds to murder Robinson in revenge for the death of
those he had killed. And no doubt they would eat him, the thought of
which was very dreadful.
On the whole, therefore, it seemed to him wisest to keep away
altogether from that part of the beach, and to hide as well as he could
all traces of any one living on the island. So, except to take away and
conceal his boat, for more than another year he never went back to that
spot. The boat, with her mast and sail and paddle, and a sort of little
anchor he had made for her, he took to the farthest east end of the
island. He was sure the savages would never come there in their canoes,
because of the strong current that usually swept past the rocks; and he
left her safely moored in a little bay, under the shelter of some high
rocks.
More than ever now, Robinson kept to his two houses, and seldom left
them, except to go to a deep valley he had found, through which ran a
little stream of water as clear as crystal, and in which he now kept
most of his goats, secured by a fence built all round the valley. He
almost gave up firing his gun, lest it should bring the savages to find
out the cause of the noise; and for the same reason he feared even to
chop wood or to drive a nail. He was particularly careful, too, never
to make a fire during the day, for nothing is so easily seen from a
distance as smoke, and it would certainly bring the savages on him, if
they were on the island, or anywhere near it.
So, when he needed a big fire, as he did often when burning the clay
dishes and pots which he made, he would generally light it during the
night. But sometimes in the day-time he would light it in the valley,
where the smoke would not show so plainly against the sky or the dark
trees, owing to the hollow being deep, and in the very middle of the
island.
Presently, he began to make charcoal, by burning wood under earth and
turf, and this charcoal he often took home to his house to use for
cooking his food, because charcoal makes no smoke.