thought the animal we had seen must be a rat, though it did not run
like one.)
"But how could we cook it?" I said.
At that he looked startled, and felt again in his pocket, which, as I
have said, was empty. He had quite forgot that we had neither flint,
steel, nor tinder, so that we had no means of making a fire. He looked
very sober for a space, and then reminded me that we had seen the
savages make fire at the island where we stayed, by the very rapid
twirling of a stick, and he was sure he could do the like. However,
there was no need of a fire at that time, for the very good reason that
we had nothing to cook, and so we fell to again on our cocoa-nuts, and
ate a great quantity before we were satisfied. We saw that we had come
into a grove of those useful trees, and with their fruit, and the
shell-fish on the shore, which if it came to a pinch I must eat raw, as
Billy had done, we should be in no immediate danger of famishing. We
saw about us, too, many birds which we might eat if we could only snare
them and make a fire, though they were quite strange to both of us,
excepting parrots. The most of them were something larger than a
sparrow, but with brighter plumage, and they came flying about us very
tamely, yet never near enough to catch.
Though we had no anxiety for the present in the matter of food, I was
still far from easy in mind about our situation, for there might be
wild beasts and men on the island, though we had not as yet seen any,
and I was troubled about our utter defencelessness. So after we had
eaten our fill and rested a while, I thought it behoved us to go
through the wood and see what there might be on the other side.
Accordingly we got up, feeling plaguy stiff from the many wettings we
had had, though the sun had dried our clothes, and went on until we
came to the edge of the wood, where we found another slope very much
steeper than the first, fairly open, but with saplings growing here and
there. Before we descended I bethought me it were well to have some
weapon in our hand in case we should meet any enemy, man or beast, so
Billy swarmed up a tree and broke off two branches, which, when
stripped of their twigs and leaves, made very fair clubs, though to be
sure of a rough appearance, and little likely to avail us much if we
encountered men in any wise armed. Still they were better than
nothing, and with these in our hands we descended the slope until we
came to another thick wood, which stretched on our right hand half way
or more to the summit of the smoking mountain. We went through this
wood, which differed very little from the first, and then all at once
we came upon a shining sheet of water, above two hundred yards long and
near as broad, with a few ducks swimming on it. The moment Billy saw
this he let forth a great shout, and bounded towards it, falling on his
knees and drinking very heartily. I was as glad as he was, for the
juice of cocoa-nuts is very agreeable, but not near so good as water
for quenching the thirst; but I was not so quick as Billy, nor did I
gulp it so eagerly, but took a mouthful and tasted it before drinking
more. The water was cool and seemed to me good to drink, though it had
a taste like the sulphur water my aunt Susan always gave to us in the
spring; she said it cleared our skin. I drank a few mouthfuls more,
and then we went on, skirting the base of the mountain on the further
side.
[Sidenote: Wood and Water]
We found the ground here very rough; indeed, nowhere on the island, as
we afterwards discovered when we came to explore it thoroughly, did we
find a stretch of level ground above twenty yards in length, even in
the parts where the vegetation was thickest. There were not many trees
growing on this side of the mountain, but we continued our journey in
as near a straight line as we could, observing more woods on our right
hand which I thought to examine another day. At length we came to a
high cliff overlooking the sea, and when we came to the top of it,
suddenly we saw towering over us the monstrous red rock of which we had
already had a glimpse when we first drew near to the shore. It rose
sheer out of the sea to the height of four or five hundred feet, as I
guessed, and was very broad too; at least, the side that fronted us
was, being full a quarter of a mile long. Between the rock and the
cliff on which we stood there was a narrow strait, through which the
sea rushed at a furious pace. I felt quite dizzy as I gazed down upon
it from our great height, though Billy, being used to climbing to the
masthead, went to the very edge of the cliff and stood there without
the least tremor. Indeed, he gave me a fright by saying that he would
leap across the strait to a ledge that jutted out from the rock towards
our island, approaching so near to it that he declared he could do it
easy; but I sprang to him and pulled him back, overcome with horror at
the thought of the terrible risk he would run and his dreadful death if
he missed his footing, and also of my solitude if I lost my only
companion.
I now saw that his face was very pale, and I thought that he was
frightened at his own daring; but he suddenly bent his body double, and
when I asked him what was the matter he said that he had a very bad
pain.
"That comes of eating those slimy things raw," I said. "I didn't eat
any."
He made no answer, but flung himself on the ground, groaning, and I
stood over him, condoling with him, and very much concerned lest he was
poisoned. I had stood thus for the space of a minute or two, when all
at once I felt a terrible pain myself, and soon was beside him,
groaning full as loud as he. Since I had eaten none of the shell-fish,
and cocoa-nuts had never done us any harm before, I concluded, when I
was able to think, that our sufferings were caused by the sulphurous
water of the lake, which indeed turned out to be the true explanation;
for after we had drunk of it next day we were both afflicted with the
same violent colic, so that we resolved never to taste it again. Billy
was worse than me, having drunk the greater quantity, and it was a good
while before we were able to stand, and then we trembled so much and
felt so weak that we wished for nothing but to lie down and sleep. And
that put us on thinking of what we should do in the night. We had come
so slowly across the island that the sun was already sinking, and we
must needs find some secure place for repose before darkness fell upon
us. We were both used to discomforts aboard the _Lovey Susan_, but
there we had at least a bunk or a hammock and security from all but the
storm, whereas here there was no shelter save the woods, and we did not
know what strange perils might beset us there. And I know not whether
'twas the oncoming of the dark that made me more fearful, but certain
it is that I found myself looking about me timorously, and at one point
I was so sure that I saw a man that I clutched Billy hard by the arm
and whispered him to look too. Which doing, he cried out in a
perfectly loud voice, "Why, master, 'tis but an old stump of a tree.
'Tain't nothing to be scared on." Billy, I will say now, was never
affrighted at imaginary perils so much as at real ones.
[Sidenote: Night]
We had to consider, I say, of how we should pass the night. I was not
the least disposed to trudge back over the island, and indeed there was
no need, for no part, so far as I knew, was better than any other; in
short, we were both pretty tired, so that we determined to take shelter
in a small wood on the edge of the cliff on the opposite side of the
burning mountain from that where the lava had flowed. Our entrance
caused a great disturbance among the birds, which flew out in great
flocks and making shrill cries. We saw some brown rats, too,
scuttering among the undergrowth, and these put Billy in mind of the
rats in the _Lovey Susan_, which sometimes ran across the face of the
seamen in the forecastle when they slept.
"I don't like them things, master," he said, "and we'd best climb up
into a tree and sleep on a bough."
But it seemed to me that a bough of a tree would be a most uneasy
resting-place; I should assuredly lose my balance and topple to the
ground, though Billy, being accustomed to dizzy perches in the rigging
of the _Lovey Susan_, might find it comfortable enough. Yet I had no
mind for a lodging on the ground, without any defence from rats, to say
nothing of wild animals, of which there might be some on the island,
though we had not seen any. We talked about it for some time, and the
end of it was that we set about collecting some broken branches that
lay on the ground, and snapped off others that were within our reach,
and so piled up a little shelter round about a thick trunk. By the
time we had finished this work it was perfectly dark within the wood.
We sat ourselves down on the mossy carpet, with our cudgels close to
our hands, and then, bethinking us of the custom of setting watches on
board ship, we determined that one of us should watch while the other
slept. Being the older, I took the first watch, and Billy was soon
fast asleep, and I sat very melancholy by him, thinking of our lonely
situation, and of my good uncle and aunt at home, whose thoughts were,
I doubt not, fondly busy about me.
There was no way whereby I might tell the time, and it might have been
two hours or three had passed when, feeling my head very heavy, I waked
Billy and told him to take his turn, which he did very willingly,
though he rubbed his eyes and yawned in the manner of one who has not
had his sleep out. In the midst of my slumber I was wakened by Billy
grasping my arm, and when I sat up, he whispered to me, as if greatly
affrighted, to listen. Since I heard nothing but the rustling of the
wind in the trees, it having got up while I slept, I thought that Billy
must have fallen into a doze and been visited by a nightmare. But all
at once there came a strange howling sound, that seemed to be near at
hand, and then it went into the distance, at one moment being quite low
and soft, the next very loud, though it never altered in pitch. We
clutched our cudgels and sat very close to each other, and Billy
whispered that he felt a cold shiver running down his back, as I myself
did, but I forbore to tell him so. The sound was very dreadful, as of
some creature in agony, though it was not the least like any sound I
had ever heard before, except once, when I heard a man tuning, as they
say, the organ in our parish church; and falling upon our ears in
pitchy darkness it made us very uneasy, as you may think. We were too
much affrighted to rise and seek for the cause of it, even if it had
been possible to find it in the dark; and so we listened to it, huddled
thus together, for a very long time, as it seemed, until, being quite
overcome with fatigue, we both fell asleep, and so remained until
morning light without keeping any guard.
[Sidenote: Wild Dogs]
I awoke first, and was instantly aware of a scratching at some part of
our barricade of branches. I sat up, grasping my cudgel, and in a
moment, it being broad daylight, I saw a little opening in the
barricado, and the nose of some animal pushing through it. I lifted up
my cudgel and, thrusting myself forward, aimed a blow at the intruder
so well that I hit him clean upon the point of the nose. There was a
sudden yelp and a snarl, and the nose withdrew itself, and when we
sprang to our feet--Billy having wakened at the sound--we spied a pack
of small dogs, above a score, at some little distance from our shelter.
They were of a strange kind, the like of which neither Billy nor I had
ever seen, being of a yellowish brown in colour, and with smooth coats,
not hairy like our dogs at home. Billy roared at them, asking whether
it was they that had made such uproar in the night; and when they did
not budge, but only looked at him without the least alarm, we both
sprang over our fence and ran towards them, brandishing our cudgels and
shouting very fiercely. Then they turned tail, and ran away yelping
and snarling; but as soon as we stopped, thinking that we had put them
to flight, instantly they stopped also, and sitting upon their
haunches, gazed at us very solemnly again.
They did not offer to attack us, and, being of a small size, we did not
fear them as if they were great hounds or mastiffs; but the very number
of them making us somewhat uneasy, we set forward again to drive them
away. It happened as at first: they ran while we ran, but the moment
we stopped, they came to a stand also and gazed upon us in the same
saucy manner as before. Billy shook his fist at them, and called them
by a foul name which he had learnt, I suppose, from the rough seamen of
the _Lovey Susan_; but I will say this, that on my telling him it was
not a pretty word, he immediately promised never to use it again, since
it offended me, and I never heard it from his lips but once after,
which I will speak of in course, if I remember.
But to return to our dogs: when we saw that it was useless to pursue
them, though we could scare them easily enough, we determined to go on
our way as if they were not there. And as you may believe, we set our
course first for the cocoa-nut grove, being amazing hungry, and as we
went thither we saw some trees of the bread-fruit, and Billy climbed
one of them, the trunk being no more than two feet thick, and threw one
fruit at me and another at the dogs, which had still followed us,
dogging us, as we say. They scampered after it as it rolled down the
hill, like as kittens chase a ball of worsted, which amused Billy very
much. As for me, I picked up the fruit he had cast at my feet--it was
near two pounds weight, I should think--and having broken the rind, not
without difficulty, for it was very tough, I tasted the milky juice and
afterwards the pulp, but found them both so unpleasing that I cast it
from me, very sorrowfully, for it seemed that we should never have any
other food but cocoa-nuts, unless we could devise some means of
cooking. We went on thence until we came to the palms, the dogs
following us again, except two that found the fruit I had thrown away,
and they stayed for a while sniffing at it, but finding it as
unpalatable as I had done, they by and by left it and joined the pack.
I observed that when Billy climbed up the cocoa-nut palm they drew in
closer, as if they guessed him to be more violent than me, and supposed
it no longer needful to keep at so great a distance. Indeed, when he
flung down a cocoa-nut, they dashed towards it, as if he did it merely
for their sport; but then I ran among them, striking at them smartly
with my cudgel, though I never hit them, for they immediately fled, but
came back when Billy and I sat down upon the ground to eat the fruit,
and watched us with such gravity that I could not contain myself, but
laughed very heartily.
When we had finished our breakfast, we went down the hill to drink at
the lake, and the dogs still following at our heels, we began to feel
it a persecution, and resolved to make another attempt to rid ourselves
of them. The ground, as I have said before, was rough, and at one side
of the lake, nearest the mountain, we saw many pieces of rock scattered
about, and having collected them in a heap we began to throw them very
briskly at the dogs, which kept so close together that we could not
fail of hitting several. These ran yelping away, and after a while
those that were not hit became aware of the discomfiture of their
fellows and withdrew to a greater distance; but I observed that they
went no farther than the range of our cast, from which I concluded that
they were possessed of a certain intelligence. However, since their
hovering was now at a more convenient distance, we paid them no further
attention, and had freedom to think of other things.
We had been so much taken up with these creatures that we had given
scarce a thought to our situation; but now, casting my eyes towards the
summit of the mountain, I saw with great delight that the cloud of
steam was altogether gone.
"See, Billy," I cried, "we are not like to be burnt alive. The
mountain is quiet; yesterday's work has tired him out."
"He's only pretending, belike," says Billy.
But then I told him of what I had read in my lesson-book--I liked
reading the Latin part, but did not much relish the putting the English
back into Latin--about the mountain Vesuvius, that had been quiet so
long as that people made great cities at its base, and lived there very
merrily, the story being told very well by Plinius.
"This is a different sort, then," says Billy, "because there ain't no
cities here, nor people neither."
[Sidenote: The Mountain]
I laughed at this, and then proposed that we should climb up the
mountain from the place where we stood, namely, the edge of the lake,
in which we had already drunk. For a great while Billy would not be
persuaded, but I prevailed with him at last, and we set off up the
mountain side, finding it a great toil, so steep was it, and rugged;
and being shod myself, I did not think enough of the pain to Billy's
bare feet, which he endured nevertheless without a murmur. There were
many pieces of jagged flint lying on the mountain-side, and Billy
seeing one that was flat and had a sharp edge, he picks it up and slips
it in his pocket, saying that we could break open our cocoa-nuts more
easily with it than by striking them against the tree-trunks or the
rocks. We had not gone above half way up the mountain when we were
seized with the same violent pains I have before mentioned, which made
us helpless for some while, and caused us, as I have said, to forswear
the water of the lake. But recovering by and by, we continued on our
way, and, taking heart from the perfect stillness, there being no
rumbling nor any shoot of boiling water as on the day before, we came
at last to the very top, and stood at the brink of the cup, or the
crater, as we say.
We were so much terrified at our own boldness that, having reached the
top, we immediately ran some way down the slope, as if some dreadful
monster were at our heels. But coming to our senses again, we
resolutely made our way once more to the summit, and, holding each
other by the hand, we crept to the edge and peeped over. I own I was
very much surprised at the seeming innocence of the crater. The walls
were very steep, and made of some massive sort of stone, and so jagged
that we could easily have climbed down, as on steps, for a depth of two
hundred feet at least. But then the sides of the crater drew in
towards the centre, and we could see that it had no floor, but a hole
that looked very black and terrible; and the thought that one slip
might hurl us down, we knew not how far, into the bowels of the
mountain amid fire and brimstone, made us shrink back. Our curiosity
was satisfied, and I do not remember that we ever looked into that
yawning pit again, though we had occasion to climb the mountain more
than once.
We then turned about and looked back over the island and across the sea
beyond. It was a magnificent fair day, the sky of a light blue colour
and very clear, and from our high perch we could see a prodigious great
distance on every side. Far away, like a cloud on the horizon, and
south-by-east, as we knew by the sun, was the island whereto the seamen
had set their course, and the remembrance of them set Billy in a rage,
and he cried out on them for taking away our raft. To the westward we
spied two or three islands close together, and nearer to us, though not
much, than the island to the south-east. I could not think that all
these islands were uninhabited, and became again not a little uneasy in
my mind, for supposing our own island had no people on it, of which I
was by no means assured, yet it might be visited sometimes by savages
from other islands, and it would be a fearsome thing for us if any
should land and discover us. Billy scoffed when I spoke out my thought.
"Why," he said, "d'ye think, master, they'd be such fools as to come
here to this old smoker? And water what gives you the gripes too! No,
we shan't see nobody, black or white, never no more, and we shall live
here for ever and ever, if we gets enough to eat and drink, and then
when we're very old we'll be dead, and no one to put us away decent,"
and at that he burst into tears, and begged me not to die first,
because he couldn't bear it. I was a good deal touched by the honest
boy's trouble, but I bid him cheer up, for we were both sound and well,
though I own I felt a great lump in my throat as I thought of our
present solitude and of my dear friends at home. To divert his
thoughts, and my own too, I pointed to the big red rock of which I have
spoken before, and which seemed more monstrous still, seen from this
side. There were birds sunning themselves on its bare top, and the
sight of them set me thinking that there were many birds on our island,
and there must also be eggs, which we could use for food, though I
remembered afterwards that having no fire we could not cook them, and I
could not eat them raw as I had seen some do.
We walked round about the crater, observing, but not at first with any
minuteness, the many rocks and boulders of strange shape that were
scattered about, having been cast up at some time, I suppose, from the
depths of the mountains. Billy laid his hand on one great boulder, and
immediately started back in a fright, crying that it was burning hot,
which somewhat alarmed me too, not supposing that the mountain sent
forth aught now but hot water. But in a moment I saw that we had no
cause for terror, for the sun was by this time high in the heavens, and
the stone was made hot thereby, and by nothing else. When I said this
to Billy he was in a rage with the stone for giving him a start, and
shoved it very hard, and it being poised insecurely, it set off
a-rolling down very fast until it struck another boulder of even
greater size, and split with a mighty crash. "Serves you right," says
Billy, and we both clambered down to see what had happened to it. We
were surprised to see some bright streaks in the rock where it had been
fractured, and Billy declared that there must be iron in it; indeed, it
was of the brightness of steel. This set me on to think of the great
wealth that might lie a-hiding in our island, and of the great delight
it would have given my uncle if his adventure had gone as he wished;
but the discovery brought no comfort to us in our helpless situation;
indeed, it only made me the more sad.
We had gone but a little farther when we saw a spring of hot water
bubbling out of the rock and running down in a cloud of steam. We
followed its course, picking our way very slowly, for the side of the
mountain was steep, until we came to a place where it dropped over a
sheer cliff, and fell a perfect cascade into the sea. Then we crept
round from this side of the mountain until we overlooked the long slope
of blackish rock that ran down to the beach on which we had landed, and
we descended slowly on the left side until we came to a strip of
woodland. Here we found more bread-fruit trees, at which we were not
so well pleased as if they had been cocoa-nut palms, because we had no
present means of making a fire for cooking. Billy offered to make fire
in the native way, but I said that he might do that afterwards, as I
wished to see what this end of the island was like. So we went through
the wood, and came out at the edge of a cliff, and saw below us the
promontory with the archway through it, of which I have spoken. Here,
too, we had another view of the monster rock, and observed that this
face also was steep and straight like the others, so that it must be
quite impossible to scale the rock unless its seaward face were more
practicable.
[Illustration: PALM TREE ISLAND]
[Sidenote: Reflections]