 Chapter 7 of Abandoned by William Clark Russell. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Gary Olman. Abandoned by William Clark Russell. Chapter 7. The boat's crew. Came September 14, 1891, a bright, cool morning, making it seven months and rather more since Captain Francis Reynolds was flung ashore, bruised, bleeding, and insensible on the uninhabited island of Santos-Cristos, there to language, during which time he had never once set eyes on the sail of a ship or the smoke of a steamer by day, whatever may have passed in the night. He knew not the day nor the month. In seven months he had not spoken. No, there was not even a dog nor a parrot for him to address. Sometimes in the beginning he would speak aloud to himself, fearful lest his voice should perish by disuse. But he neglected this custom later on and never broke the silence, not even when he put up a prayer for mercy and deliverance. He was now presenting the most grotesque and uncouth appearance that could be imagined. His hair turned gray and streamed far down his back, like that of the Welsh Bards of Yore. A considerable beard had grown, and his cheeks and his mouth and half of his breast were concealed by hair. His left eye was dim and stained, and his vision was so weak that when he looked through it alone, closing the other eye, he could barely distinguish the outline of a tree 50 feet distance, and all about that side of his head was the puckered flesh and distorted bone and the facing of a defacing wound. He was much burnt by exposure to the sun, but the mahogany was not the healthy brand of the sky and sea blistered sailor. There was mixed with it a sort of ashiness which produced a complexion impossible to convey in words. His clothes and boots were sadly broken. Unhappily, the shoes in the sea chest were too small for him. He presented indeed a most melancholy, shocking figure, stooped, suggesting by attitude and motion a perpetual hopelessness and heart that would have moved the most soulless to witness. On the morning named, he left the fissure, which he had continued to occupy, having outlived the trouble of the ghost who had never again appeared, and made his way slowly to the Horseshoe River where he drank and washed and then came back to the cave where lying in the shovel was some cutlets of cooked fish. He took one and sat down outside the cave and began to eat. Whilst he was eating, he chanced the casters eye up at the slope above the dell and beheld the man. The man stood looking at him. He wore a fur cap and sleeved waistcoat and pilot clothed breeches. The arm with which Reynolds was feeding himself was blasted as though struck by lightning. The whole man was turned into an inevitable effigy of stone. The morning, as had been said, was bright and cool. The splendor of the sun was far reaching. The life of the earth, of the ocean, of the heavens was in the bending and swaying of plants, in the movement of the bows of the trees, in the sparkling fall of cataracts, in the resounding organ notes of the sea, in the speeding of clouds. Yonder then surely was no ghost. Hello shouted the man. Who are you down there? Then, turning, he bawled with the sharp of his hand at his mouth. I say, Mace, there's a man down there eating his breakfast, looking as though he belonged to the island. Then again, addressing himself to Reynolds, he cried, Are you English? How long have you been here? And with that, he stepped out to approach him. Even as he walked, the forms of several other men appeared on the rise which he had quitted. Reynolds rose. The piece of fish he was eating fell. He was trembling violently. His features worked as though he didn't convulsion. As the man approached him, a wild smile irradiated his face as though a beam of electric light had been passed over it, and he dropped upon the ground in a fit. The men were collected about him with seven in number. Six were manifestly sailors. The seventh was a strange and striking looking personage, about six feet tall, broad, and so stout about the chest that he seemed to be patted. He was bearded and looked about 50 years of age. He had a large, full, mild face, rather protruding eyes, bland, longer cows with intellect and thought in their residual expression. As he dropped dead for the joy at the sight of us, said one of the sailors, I've heard of such things. How long has he been here? I wonder, said another. Turn'em over exclaimed the tall man, pronouncing these few words with great deliberation. And slight Irish accent, poor fellow, he acclaimed, looking at Reynolds, whose face, though calm, in the oblivion of the brain, was pregnant with pathos in the appealing expression. The spirit of solitude had chiseled upon it. Is he dead, sir, do you think? said a man. The tall person had stooped and felt Reynolds' wrist and said, No. I guess by his appearance that he's been here many weeks. Why, ain't that a cave, said a man? That's the pit he uses for cooking, exclaimed another. Three or four of the sailors left Reynolds to the tall men and two who stayed and entered the cave. They peered in where Lee then entered. They blinked a bit before they could fairly see and then one said, See, that's their shovel. God's life, that's how he cooked his food. See the bits of fish in it? Bullies. A regular castaway and no blooming mistakes, said another. Here's his old chest, cried one, with his letters cut on it. Why, whoever sees a chest like this nowadays, how old is he? Why, this old chest, all of a hundred years old, you lay. He opened the lid, as we know Reynolds had removed the clothes. Why, see, here, continued the man taking up one of the buckle shoes. This is what they wear when they dress up for old men in stage plays. Shoes of this pattern hadn't been worn for all a century. And look at this old gun lying down there, exclaimed another. My grandfather had a piece like that and it belonged to his grandfather. So how old was that gun? I should like to know. Ain't there an early on, said a man about a Dutchman who fell asleep upon the top of a mountain when he was young and came down bald with a long beard and found everybody he had known dead and gone years and years. There wasn't even anybody as he might have owed money to Alive to ask him for it. A man lifted the lid of the shelf. What's this, said he, picking up a guinea. It was examined by the others whilst the first man scrutinized the silver. It's good money, said a man, more here than a month's pay by a long chalk. The dating of it will tell you how old it is. What's the latest number? Here's a bit marked in 181, explained at Sailor, talking in the bed of light at the mouth of the cave. Poor old man, said the others. They replaced the money and went out. Reynolds was just then coming too. He was fetching his breath with difficulty and opening and shutting his eyes. There's evidence in that cave, Mr. Good Arts, said the sailor, in the sleeve waistcoat and fur cap, that this man can't be less than 130 years old. What do you mean, asked one of the men who had stayed? Go and look for yourself, was the answer. There's a musket that's over 100 years old. His sea chest just as ancient. The youngest of his money is marked 1801. Reynolds opened his eyes, gave two or three guests, made an effort to sit up, was helped by the man who had been called, Mr. Good Heart, into a sitting posture, rolled his eyes with tokens of astonishment, and of a spirit kindling into transport, tried to speak, mudded water, and then continued to steer around upon the men. Where's fresh water to be got, asked the man in the waistcoat. Reynolds pointed to the cascades. What's it to be brought in? And continued to man. It did not seem that Reynolds could speak until he had drank. One went to the cave and came back saying there was nothing that could hold water in it. Run down to the boat for the soup and bully can, one of you said, Mr. Good Heart. A man procured this can, went into the river, and returned. During his absence, the sailors who thought Reynolds 130 years old gazed at him with the emotions of a boy who views a mummy. The man who brought the water exclaimed, Oyster shells had been used for drinking with down at that river, a blame sweet river. It begins up there, said he, pointing at the cascades, and it's like watching fire engines are playing. Go and taste it. Nicest drop of water I ever swallowed. Whilst this was being said, Reynolds drank and the drought liberated his voice. He strained his sight at the only piece of sea that was visible from the place they occupied and said, Where's your ship? At the bottom of the sea answered Good Heart. And then with a singularly cordial manner, very gentle and charming with kindness, he said, Pray, what might be your name? Francis Reynolds. How long have you been here? Reynolds struggled with his memory and replied, I have lost all tally of weeks. Today, said Good Heart, is September 14th, 1891. My ship answered Reynolds was lost and I was cast ashore here on February 2nd, 1891. Silently and secretly computing, he was overwhelmed by the magnitude of his time of loneliness. What was your ship? The flying spur, a steamer? No. Were you a passenger? I was a master. At this, the sailor stared at him with an attention which was tinctured with visible color of respect. A master, explained Good Heart, are you the only survivor? The only survivor. Life was brisker in him now and memory quickened and he began to talk. There had been times when he believed he should, by long and forced silence, lose the power of articulation. He spoke well with fluency. For this man, through reading and reflection, was a master of an ample vocabulary. The sailors knew that they were in the presence of a gentleman and an educated man and they ceased to think him 130 years old. Good Heart followed the narrative with sympathy and earnest attention. The life belt, I came ashore here, is somewhere about, said Reynolds. My ship's name is on it. What's your story? I'm going for a drink of fresh water, said a sailor. What's there good to eat on this island? Asked the man in the sleeved waistcoat. Plenty of fish and oysters, no fruit, no vegetables, saving mushrooms. Answered Reynolds. What's your story, sir? The man went roaming off in ones and twos and Kudad sat down beside Reynolds. We have not been arrived above an hour, said he. I was a passenger in the ship and the only passenger. She was Debok Esmond, 900 tons bound from Sydney to Valparaiso and thence to San Francisco. A captain was a man named Mordant and his wife and child were on board. But I was the only passenger in the sense of paying for the cabin. I was at sea when a boy. My health needed a successive change of climates. So, knowing Mordant, who was a very good fellow, I hired a cabin in the Esmond intending to make my way from San Francisco to New York and so to England. Three days ago we were in a collision with a large steel sailing ship, which cut us down on the starboard bow and made off in a gloom of the evening and vanished. The water gained upon us, but we held on till yesterday evening when the ship was within half an hour of floundering. This gave us time to lower the boats and stocked them. The captain went with his wife and child in a little crowd. There was another boat and ours. The man who fetched the water for you was the boatsman. We lost sight of the other boats in the night and this island shone out upon us this morning when the sun rose. You have been seven months here yet, looking slowly around him. Am I to believe that no ship has ever come within sight of this island in all that time? I vowed to God, answered Reynolds, that I have not once caught sight of a sail or smoke. But surely, said Goodheart, an island almost directly in the way of the course shaped by vessels bound from Australia to south Chilean ports, must often be passed by ships. Never have I seen one, cried Reynolds, though conceived the sort of lookout a man in my situation would keep. Goodheart looked very pensive. Reynolds cried rapturously in a sudden hurry of joy. How often have I exclaimed to myself if I had but one, but one to speak to? And laying hold of Goodheart's hand, he bowed his head. Goodheart viewed the poor fellow with a most noble and touching expression of pity that seemed to lie upon his face like a sort of holy light, as though there was something divine in the spirit within him and that shone in his face as one could conceive of a saint. Or of the redeemer. Goodheart viewed the poor fellow with a most noble and touching expression of pity that seemed to lie upon his face like a sort of holy light, as though there was something divine in the spirit within him and that shone in his face as one could conceive of a saint. Or of the redeemer. Not to speak profanely when he addressed soothing words. Reynolds released his hand and Goodheart looked towards the cave, asked. Do you sleep here? No. My bed is yonder in a crack in the embankment of that dill. This island has been occupied. I found some old relics of human habitation in that cave. How have you lived? I have taken fish and drank that water, answered Reynolds, directing his eye at the Cascades. When do you mean to start? I shall not trust my life to an open boat, answered Goodheart. This is solid land and I intend to remain to be taken off. Reynolds looked startled. You will not surely remain alone here a thousand times over sooner than take the risk of an open boat. Consider, said Goodheart, speaking with great deliberation with a slight Irish accent. When we were in the boat, we found that she was without master sail. Ho! explained Reynolds. We hailed the nearest boat to be taken in tow, but I don't think she heard us. The night came along so fast that until the moon shone the sea absorbed the boats like bits of ebony afloat on ink. Next, our breaker held six gallons only. Now you are one of us. And think of what a breaker containing six gallons for eight men in a rowing boat and a great ocean to measure. Think what such a thing signifies. But I beg your pardon, sir. You are a sailor. I quite agree with you. The risk is enormous, said Reynolds, but surely it is preferable to this imprisonment. No, because I am quite certain that ships do at times come within sight of the silence at Goodheart, mildly but firmly. It is a coincidence that nothing should have appeared during your stay here. Probably within the next few days something may come along and take us off. My heart is weak. I have suffered for years from that organ and should die of it. If nothing else kills me, exposure, the horrible suffering of Therese would make haste to do their work with me. And I shrink from the idea of my body being thrown over the gun well of the boat by those sailors. And I have my reasons for choosing a possible sentence of imprisonment here that may run into months. Rather than take my chance in an open sailor's boat with seven comrades and a beaker of six gallons. And what to eat to last us if we are not soon picked up or make the land? We must rig up a mass, said Reynolds. Where is the sail to come from, exclaimed Goodheart? The sailors must stitch their shirts together, answered Reynolds. Have you got needles and thread here? None. Nothing in which fresh water could maybe store it? Reynolds considered and answered, nothing. The sight of these waterfills makes me thirsty, said Goodheart, who rose and walked with Reynolds to the bank of the river where the bright water formed. Here Reynolds had placed several large oyster shells for his own conveniences, and these made good sources for dipping and drinking. The men had drank and had lounged down to the beach for oysters and shellfish. This is delicious water, exclaimed Goodheart. And it sinks sweet and cold to one's very marrow, like the flavor of a banana after a long voyage. Ah, I have found that sweet and a good medicine, exclaimed Reynolds. A few weeks ago I received an ugly visit from an old friend of mine, Mediterranean fever. I might guess my own temperature about 104 and a slow pulse. Not the pulse of fever and a weary throbbing headache and a thirst which scarcely those waterfalls that he looked up were able to quench. And with the chance of that fever, recovering at any moment, as its habit is, said Goodheart, you would trust yourself in a boat without sails containing eight men and a beaker of six gallons. Reynolds looked down upon the ground thoughtfully. There could be no doubt that his mind had been weakened by solitude and suffering, mental and physical, and he was in a state when he was to be swayed and not with difficulty. There had been a time it would have been the same with him now had he been alone. When could it have been said to him, there is an open boat in the fishing creek of yours. She is without master sail and in her bow is a little cask and holds six gallons of fresh water. He would have fried fish in his shovel with incomparable dispatch, hold into the boat, afraid of oysters and mushrooms, if the season yielded them and had gone away with a hymning heart, taking its chance by sculling her out to drift into a deliverance, taking its chance of the most lonely, the most God forsaken death a man can die. Sooner than remain locked up a broken, solitary, speechless and hopeless prisoner in this island's solitude. I should like to look into that cave said Goodheart and together they went in. Goodheart entered and gazed about him as a man, might who in specks of room he has a mind to rent. When the sight was used to the gloom, Goodheart examined the contents of the shelf in the chest, peered at the little bundle of clay pipes, looked at the old musket and buckled shoes. It makes one think of the old buccaneers said he, I should say with you the date is about 1800. They did not maroon rend then, though it is true that the captain of a man of war sent the seaman named Jeffries ashore to perish as fast as he could. He was rescued and did well on the merits of his sufferings. Who was the owner of this chest said he viewing the letters on the lid? I remember at Bath Abbey looking down upon the pavement and seeing a memorial stone for which the lettering had been totally afaced, saving the single word Esquire, E-S-Q. Of such is the pomp and importance of a man. I once saw the owner of this chest walking in the dell by the moonlight, said Reynolds, that the bushes made a shadow, but no shadow walked with the man. He never again returned and I was glad. Oh, what can equal loneliness as a vision breather, and claim Goodheart. And yet he continued gravely regarding the old sea chest. I don't know, Captain Reynolds, why the illusions of the brain should be more unreal than the ideas we received from our sensations. We are beset with mysteries, vaster and more profound than ghosts. They are so familiar that few give them thought. Yet though we walk in the sunshine, no man knows what brightness is, no man what heat is. We slumber, but no man knows what sleep is. We don't know why the invented image upon the retina should be accepted right side up by the brain. We believe that time is a thing measurable by the flight of the heavenly bodies, and that it would cease if the sun stood still. But we do not know what fills the interval, sun or no sun, between our leaving a chair and reaching a door, or quitting Liverpool and arriving at Boston. This was a form of speculation very much in Reynolds' way, and he watched the speaker with interest. Where do you catch fish, said Goodheart. Reynolds replied, and they walked together to the creek, a boat of a wailing pattern laid snug in the little harbor, betwixt the fishing rock and the shore. Reynolds started at the side of it. Oh my God, he explained softly. How often I have dreamt of such a thing. The open boat stands next to the raft in my catalog of diarist horrors of the deep, exclaimed Goodheart. A man in the boat handling provisions to the rest of the fellows ashore, one or two of home were already seated and eating. Those stood up when Goodheart and Reynolds approached. Presently the whole company was seated and eating. They had drunk plentiful and did not want water. To Reynolds, after months of oysters and fried fish, the tin meat and ship's biscuits were delicious. I beg pardon, said the waist-coated man, whom we shall call boatson. Do you catch your fish with hooks and lines? Reynolds explained how he caught fish and added that he would catch some for them presently. Please, Captain, how far off's chilly? He inquired a sober-looking young sailor. All 300 miles answered Reynolds. What other ports, sir, asked another. For Reynolds had been a master of ship and these seamen naturally looked up to him as a navigator. San Diego, Val-de-Villa, Val-Pariser, and some smaller ports was the reply. Ain't Joan Ferdinand's knocking about close by somewhere inquired the boatson. It's as distant as the coast of chilly from the silent responded Reynolds. How are you going to make a port without a sail? said Goodheart. My answer to Mr. Goodheart was, let the men take their shirts, said Reynolds, and connect them into a sail with fibers of creepers. I'm afraid, said the boatson, with a slow shake of his head, that such a sail would blow away from its yard in the first bit of wind like smoke from a backy pipe. Have you got a compass, asked Reynolds? No, answered Goodheart. How are you going to find your way along, inquired Reynolds? Goodheart shrugged his shoulders by the sun and by other bodies in the heavens as others had done in their day, said the boatson. I'm for keeping all fast and giving ourselves a chance of a ship passing and making for her in the boat, said the sailor. Yes, exclaimed Goodheart, with a warm nod of approval. But, said the boatson, his captain Reynolds been seven months and never sighted a vessel. Though I reckon you kept a sharp lookout, sir. I climbed that hill two or three times a day. A lookout, but my sight is not as it was. You see, said a sailor, that we are shipwrecked men. I have lost all but what I'm a-sittin' in and I want to go ashore and begin again. I don't take on to the notion of taunting, crab, or cockle. And that's what a man becomes who lives without wages or clothes or a house in the islands of this short. Merma's of approval attended this delivery. I'll show you how to catch fish, said Reynolds. He fetched his fishing line and landing basket, which he kept snug in a little hole on the mainland and showed the men what they were made of. He took his meteorite and hammered off the requisite bait. Goodheart, the sailors watched him with profound interest. This was the product of bitter experience, the reality of human need and suffering on nature's own stage. No delusive coinage of imagination such as a dramatist might introduce in a sea play. A fish took the bait readily and Reynolds landed a 20-pounder of the cod species in his basket to the admiration of the seabin. It bloomed, cover, said one of them, durned if I should have thought of it. Is it your own idea, Captain? Inquired Goodheart. The Patagonian's fish like this was the answer. A couple of you have better turned too, said the boats and cut lines after that pattern. And I'll make another landing basket, which will be enough. Nothing more was said about stopping or going. The boats asked Reynolds if there was a piece of sail clause in the cave or any other stuff in the island fit to make a sailor. Reynolds told him there was not a rag except the old cloak that wrapped him at night and the clothes they wore. Some now went to work to make lines. Wanted to search the island for anything that might prove useful to them, particularly for anything in which water might be stored for a boat voyage. But Reynolds could have easily told them that this quest must prove worthless. He and Goodheart went to a green slope under a tree and sat down. The autumn vegetation clothed the island with many beautiful and some glowing tints. The season's growth of mushrooms was plentiful. Wildflowers with petals blue and crimson and orange blew a small fragrance into the air. Reynolds again took notice of the peculiar bulkiness of Goodheart's figure. It was as though he wore stays or was patted. His attire consisted of a yachting cap, a double-breasted round clothed cloak, and dark clothed trousers. He wore a wedding ring on his little finger and a large signet ring on his right forefinger. When he seated himself now, he unbuttoned his coat and discovered a dark red waistcoat with gilt buttons. A heavy gold chain lay upon it, and when he drew out his watch, Reynolds saw that it was fine and very valuable gold timepiece. I never thought, said Goodheart, that I should be wrecked on a desolate island. I believe I hankered after something of the sort when I was a boy. You have been sharing the experiences of Roberts and Crusoe. What degree does your practice correspond with Defoe's imagination? I should have been glad, answered Reynolds, had a ship been stranded within rafting distance full of everything that I wanted. It is easy for writers of romances to oblige their castaways by wrecking ships not only to feed in clothes but to put plenty of money in their pockets. Your reckoning makes out that I have been here seven months and I have never caught sight of even the royals of a ship and no more smoke than you can now see. You missed man Friday, said Goodheart. Yes, said Reynolds with a faint smile. I could have put up with somebody to fish with to have made signs to, even if he no-speaky. Are you married, sir? Reynolds slightly bowed. Any children, may I ask? Reynolds gravely shook his head. A wife in England waiting and hoping. Ah, said Goodheart, no action is though he thought aloud. None but the sufferer know the pathos, the pang of the heartache, the depth of human sigh, the bitterness of human tear contained in that one awful word, missing. But Captain Reynolds, I have faith in the direction of the drift and in the issues of life. It does so happen at the end that things have shaped themselves for our good. If you are spared to look back and find this incident of your career, you will find a circumstance of good in it. A gem set in a crown of thorns and nettles, which you could have done without and would not have forfeited for twentyfold more of suffering than you have endured. Are you married, Mr. Goodheart? This was her ring, Goodheart, said, taking between his thumb and forefinger the wedding ring on his little finger. It was her wish that I should wear it and be buried in it. She dialed in child bed. I am as absolutely alone, Captain, in this wide universe of correlations as you were yesterday. It's the happiest state of life, I exclaimed. Reynolds, nobody to work for, nobody whose future must be your bitter business, nobody who by misconduct could disgrace your honorable name, nobody to to he looked away to the vials of ocean recess into the miles of hollow blue there and the figure of Lucretia shaped itself before his mental vision. He started and found Goodheart observing him intently. Is that an old scar, Captain, at your eye? No. When I came to after being flung ashore here, I found my brow cut and bleeding and my mouth injured. The blow has affected the sight of the damaged eye and it may be, I hope, it may be that ships hulled down have passed and I have not seen them. I have tried to catch a sight of myself in a pool of water, but never could distinguish such an image as could give me the view I want. Am I much distorted? That can only be answered by one who knew you before you were injured. You have grown a fine length of hair, I said, Goodheart, with his placid, kindly smile. I mentioned to say you did not give that fathom of locs to the breeze on your quarter-deck. Nor this, said Reynolds grasping his beard. If you stay here, time will adorn you too. I am not to be disturbed by the idea of hair, said Goodheart. Nothing shall induce me to venture my life in that boat we arrived in. Good heavens, look what a mighty surface the ocean is. What a contemptible atom, a microscopic monad is an open boat, a vibrio of the deep which the passing telescope shall easily miss. Now it is a fact, whether credible or not, that when these two men's conversation had reached this point, it was interrupted by a fellow who was halfway up the hill of Cascades, bellowing as though for his life. While he's flourished this hand and ecstasy of gesture in the direction of the southeast horizon. Sail ho, sail ho, he bawled in a note that fell as clear upon the ear as the song of a lark in the sky. Reynolds sprang to his feet. What's that he says, he shouted, rounding to look up at the man? Sail ho, sail ho, yelled the fellow. And some figures of his ship-ates went scrambling up to him. Go and judge for yourself, Captain Wecott, will not allow me to attempt that hill. End of Chapter 7 Recording by Gary Oman Middletown, New York Chapter 8 Of Abandoned by William Clark Russell This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Gary Oman Abandoned by William Clark Russell Chapter 8 Conversations and Confidences Reynolds started to climb the hill, stepping fast. He gained the group of sailors who all pointed at the sea together as he came and explained nearly in one voice. There she is, sir. Far out upon the sea hung what might have seen to a landsman a rising star. Pale as the pearl of the moon when she floats in the blue of the day. But the sailors knew that speck of light to be a ship which way standing they could not tell. Reynolds looked but could not see her. There she is, sir. Ah, they might point, but Reynolds failed to perceive her. You have no doubt she is a ship, said he with the look of a blind man. As he turned his face upon the woman. Oh, yes, sir. That's the sail of a ship right enough. Answered the boatsman who had dropped his task of plating a mesh to view the ship from the hillside. Can you see our boat down there, sir? Why, of course, clear enough. And I dare say I shall be able to see that ship if she lifted her hull. Answered Reynolds. Again he strove with his eyes at the sea line and he saw nothing but the junction of heaven and water. It may be perhaps I'll have passed within sight, but at a great distance and I have not seen them, said he. She is too far off to be of any good to us, said one of the men with a nod at the sail. But it's clear that this island is sighted and as I was a sand down below there, I'm for keeping all fast and giving ourselves a chance before we agree to take what is to come by putting to sea without a sail. And with a beaker holding six gallons only, said Reynolds. I, said the boatsman, it ought to be a vat. You'll find plenty of fuel laid ready for a smoke up in the hollow there, said Reynolds, pointing to the place he met. Day to day I have seen to that, but never a chance was given me to fire it. What do you get fired from, sir, asked the boatsman. Reynolds pulled out his burning glass. Can you still see where he asked? Oh yes, answered one of the men. But she's passing away. She's dying out. One remained to watch and report. Reynolds rejoined Goodheart. I'm not surprised that you shouldn't see her, said Goodheart. You generally find that the vision of one eye sympathizes with that of the other and how far distance is she, do you think? Why we should command a view of 25 miles up there, and she's just in sight. The men say and fading, said Reynolds. Well, answered Goodheart, her appearance determines me to stop. I'm convinced that an island situated as this is must be frequently sighted and occasionally visited. What do you say now to the chance supplied you by a passing ship and a fast boat to get at her, and nothing but the same boat without master sail and a six gallon keg? Oh, Mr. Goodheart, you have not yet seven months of it, answered Reynolds, with a sort of sick shutter. But you're alive, sir, and well, and you need but a barber and a tailor to return to the aspect you have doft. But an open boat? Figured three weeks and all the fresh water gone, and the fevers come upon you again. Mr. Goodheart added blandly, but with a deliberation that made you understand that the teeth of his mind was set. I stay here, and I hope these men won't be foolhardy enough to quit the island unless to pursue a ship. They look at the hill, and I saw the man who had been left to watch coming down, whereby they knew that the distant vision of light had vanished. The men passed the day in fishing, cooking, preparing the cave with conches and bolsters of grass for the night. The river was just a walk, for this was, as we know, but a little island one mile long where the water is wide. And if a man felt thirsty, he could slak his thirst in a few minutes in the sweet cold water that came down the hill in silver horses and foamed in glory where the little river began. A fine night came along this, the first night of Goodheart and the men of the aspen's visit. They had some plugged tobacco amongst them and there were pipes of the year 1800 or thereabouts in the chest. A coat that had been taken from the chest by Reynolds and cast and left upon the floor to curb proved as good as tinder. They cut off a piece and Goodheart gave them a wax match out of a silver box with which they set fire to the piece of old coat. This glowed long enough to enable them to smoke and relight and smoke again. Goodheart and Reynolds walked together upon the white that streamed before and behind them like ivory in the clear light of the moon. Their shadows marched black at their sides. The sea under the moon quivered with a light. The air was filled with the solemn roar of the bursting surge southeast and with the symbols of the cataracts threading with metallic music the delicate orchestra of the wind in the dark vegetation and with the weary voice of the wheeling breakers rolling into foam on the sand as they paced Goodheart talked of himself. My father he said was a clergyman who had made a living in Ireland. Do I call it a living? God help him. We were so poor that unless he caught a hair for dinner we went without a midday meal of all forms of poverty. The poverty of the poor clergyman is the most distressful for he cannot lie in hiding as a retired serviceman might he must go about. His linen must be clean, his apparel decent. He must have words of sympathy and even a trifle in the muddy wind as God knows he grievously wants these things himself. He had but two children myself and my sister. She was a girl sweet to the sight as a plump tree in May. But the good die first said Wadsworth and she was carried off by a galloping consumption. I did not choose to starve at home so I made my way to Waterford and got a birth as a cabin boy and cooksmate in a crazy old brink called the Emerald Isle. She was a coaster and the soft tack we got was not half so soft as the hard weather was hard. I afterwards shipped as an ordinary seaman in a bark commanded by a Yankee who was without doubt the greatest outrage upon the image of God that was ever created by those dangerous Confederates against the peace to the world. I mean man and woman. I fled from this scoundrel at Boston and shipped for Australia where in company would nearly the whole crew I ran. I found work and made a little money and married. Old Captain Reynolds it is hard to love and lose to love well and lose immediately. I have loved and lost and know what but your wife lives. Tell me your story Mr. Goodhard. It is told. I lingered in Australia then made up my mind to return to England and die there. I think I explained why I chose the Esmond. Did nothing belong to your ship, body or what the law holds more precious goods come ashore? Nothing. I look for a corpse. My ship so relic as the person who speaks to you. Do you lose much by this disaster? More than I can afford. I am a poor man. Goodhard halted and looked at the sea. It is a mighty cemetery he said. There is no foaming head of billow that should prove one too many as a gravestone for the dead in the deep. I can't but think drowning one of the most painful forms of death. The agony may be brief but whilst it is with you. I have some time during my loneliness said Reynolds as they resumed their walk tried to disturb my mind by conjecturing whether we suffer pain after death. Goodhard's head slowly shook in the moonshine. A man dies continued Reynolds and a new form of violent activity begins. His body changes into chemicals, gases and the like. Are these changes accompanied by sensation? Sensations can exist without the consciousness of sensation as we know from the circumstances that sensation occupies an appreciable time to travel from any given part of the body to the brain. If there is no consciousness to receive sensation said Goodhard it is not present so far as we are concerned and therefore when we die pain ends. I forget the speed of sensation said Reynolds. Helmholtz answered Goodhard computes it at about 70 feet a second. Yes I remember exclaimed Reynolds so that if you should let fall a paving stone on the bunion of a giant 70 feet tall a second would elapse before his brain received the news another appreciable interval must be allowed to enable the molecules of the brain to adjust themselves for the reception of the report and another second must pass whilst the brain is telegraphing to the foot to kick or stamp sensation therefore in this case is present without consciousness why not in the human corpse that is undergoing all sorts of transmutations the times have been that when the brains were out the man would die and there an end answered Goodhard I do not care whether I am to have sensation or not after I am dead I only desire to understand that I shall not feel you remarked this morning Mr. Goodhard that we are beset with mysteries said Reynolds what is more absolutely impenetrable than the mystery of sensation we are told that it is merely the translation of the vibration of an object in the consciousness in us but why that consciousness should be clothed the vibration would form color music flavor fragrance softness or hardness heat or cold and the countless conditions of life spiritual and physical is God's secret and apparently must forever be so I answer you thus said Goodhard we have five senses and all the qualities and inherent conditions of the objects we hear see and feel and so on make individual appeals to us to release senses the objects are there and they report themselves as there for if they were not there what news could vibration vehicle I have no shadow of a doubt that outside what we know of objects such as their perfume brightness shape color and so on our attributes and qualities of which we know nothing and we can know nothing owing to the limitation of our senses could a man err in plucking a flower and saying there is more in this than meets the eye or the touch or the smell this is a strange platform for the discussion of such things said Reynolds I judge as a sailor you have been a student captain Reynolds well yes I have read and I have thought the night watch at sea finds you leisure for the latter does it not occur to you said Goodhard that the mere circumstance of the Esmen having gone down within a night's pull of this island should the ship's must pass within sight yes and that sail today is hopeful answered Reynolds but I do assure you keyed as my lookout has been that in seven months I have seen nothing after a little more talk of this kind they went to rest for the night Reynolds to his bed in the Dell and Goodhard to the cave the men had prepared grass beds for all hands the moon shone bright and Goodhard easily found the mouth and entered it was very black with it he struck a wax batch not knowing where his couch of grass was dim outlines of sleeping men were thrown up by his little taper Goodhard perceived a vacant couch close at hand he blew out his light and lay down sailor called out in a sleep I was a man to oak on if you're don't love and shake it out love damn you love I say love what buddy old owl is that a hooting exclaimed the boats in in a deep voice a wave of snores followed and Goodhard slumbered with the rest Reynolds and his fissure lay watching the moonshine that bathed the sky over the Dell the glowing stars of those temperate heights trembled the silver mist the historic hurry of mind which had been his in the morning ion his discovery of men in the island and a boat and which had remained his for some hours was gone a samba tranquility and abiding emotion of gratitude and of peace had replaced it he lay thinking of Goodhard there was something in the matter the voice the looks the gentle smiles and tender pensiveness of the man that fascinated Reynolds and won his heart with the beautiful and irresistible power with which truth no matter in what it dwells wins human affection he impressed him as a man whose character was a heart from whose strings the spirit fingers of the soul swept music that was always sweet and good what had passed between them in conversation had expressed them as intimate and sympathy for it had not needed a day for Reynolds to remember that Goodhard had in this time been a student and a thinker more particularly in those metaphysical walks which Reynolds loved to tread one point Goodhard had made clear he was determined not to risk his life by a voyage in a little open craft which was without master sale and in which it would be impossible so Baron was the island in this respect to store water enough for eight men to last for the leanest allowance for more than two or three days this was a resolution to give Reynolds pause too his desire to leave the island which was consuming when he was alone was moderated by companionship moderated to the extent that he was too old a hand as a sailor to take his chance in an open sailboat when by waiting as the sail that Hovind the site that morning promised his deliverance might be procured with comfort and safety if a sail could be obtained the hazard of the voyage would be diminished because even though they should be unable to shape a course for a port yet by heading due east they were bound to blow into the track of a ship steering north or south but the start in a rowing boat he usually understand would be suicidal and think as he might and think as he did as he lay straining his mind in the fissure he could not conceive what the island might yield in the shape of a sail unless the men put his idea about their shirts into practice and it did not seem to him as he reflected that the manufacture of such a sail would be worth the effort for some days the men were patient and watchful they dried and smoked a quantity of fish which they stocked in the locker of the stern sheets of the boat they were also careful to keep the beaker filled with fresh water in preparation for the instant emergency they seemed to enjoy this lounging life of the island they culled nosegays and decorated themselves they ate oysters and mussels they fished diligently and cooked their takes and it will be judged that after the salt horse and worm board sea bread in the castle the mushrooms and cod steaks and steaks of other fish and the fish they dried and smoked provided them with a heavenly banquet but they had bought with them but a lentil store of plug tobacco the pieces soon gave out and the wands started a spirit of discontent and restlessness they hunted for a substitute but could find nothing of any sort to replace the black they were without rum and without wanted tea conco or coffee for a hot drink they were sailors and a sailor without a grievance as a tool without a handle after a few days they began to feel thoroughly shipwrecked and the gaze they leveled at the sea line grew more and more ardent and more and more rebellious it was easily gatherable from their general bearing that meant to stay long for a ship to appear Goodheart and Reynolds were inseparable they had contracted such a liking for each other as promised to become a bond of affectionate friendship for some time Reynolds was reserved about his past one afternoon they were seated on a knoll in the shade where they commanded a fine view of the dazzle of thunder sounding foam on the south east side the two lovely cataracts which arched in apparently polished motionless glass from the rocks then quivered into prisms tinting the immediate air with pallid lights of spectrum Goodheart for a few moments watched the bird in silence how wonderful that fellow's wings and body are died he exclaimed look at his white breast and the blue edgings to the indigo that stains the feathers of his wings were the papers in lights and colors oh yes undoubtedly said Reynolds I've heard of a little fish whose dorsal spine consists of a long filament arching over the head and mouth the mouth filled with fightful teeth at the extremity of the filament there is a brilliant phosphorescent spot the hideous little monster hangs out this lovely star and everything small that comes to admire it is devoured yes said Goodheart I've heard of a fish found three miles deep with a phosphorescent eye which it kindles at pleasure either to scare its enemies or allure its victims take the pondermen said Reynolds with a glance at the wheeling sea bird that had attracted Goodheart this bird is almost black in summer nature protects it by providing changes of color with the seasons if it remained black it would be at the mercy of the hawk or the owl of winter where the country is white with snow in summer the country is dark tannamen is black in autumn the country is gray and the tonnigan turns gray in winter the plumage of this bird is white this is also true of the falcon and the snowy owl if they were black in a country covered with snow they would be eluded and starved some queer stories are told of the cuckoo said Goodheart it is declared that it lays eggs colored so as to deceive the birds in whose nest they are deposited the hedge sparrow is the greatest sufferer at the hands of the cuckoo I remember reading that a German writer had declared that the cuckoo will sometimes lay perfectly blue eggs the hoopos are another illustration of purpose and color the cuckoo is sandy and by virtue of that they may be known almost certainly to be an inhabitants of sandy region when this bird sees a hawk it throws itself flat on the sandy ground turns its wings up and erics its bill so as to resemble as closely as possible a bit of old rag he looks he was and exclaimed I would swear that yonder is a ship if I were not sure that it was a cloud he pointed and he meant his vision but what Goodheart saw was invisible to him his companion viewed him with a gaze tender and touching with commiseration sympathy that does not depress like pity but that exalts by unaffected fellowship of feeling working like nature from the inside and not like art from the outside I devoutly hope said he that we shall soon be released if only for your sake it's sad to think of your poor wife Reynolds fixed his eyes upon the ground have you been long married long married exclaimed Reynolds how long have those waterfalls been married they leap together and united the foot in a common grave of foam but if they coexist they also possess a most consuming divisibility I tell you a queer story of a wedding Mr. Goodheart a man of deep thought and great humanity perhaps you will be able to suggest a key for the lock of a safe in which lies a jewel so absolutely in bowels that no pearl in its oyster at the bottom to see is more secret in distance Goodheart's face war an expression of benevolent attention conceive a man loving a woman as purely loftily loyally as it is into the power of male flesh the love that which God wills it to yoke they were married the mother of the bride was present she was the bridegroom's very good friend and well-wisher the bride on her return home from the church locked herself up in her bedroom and refused to see or to speak to or to have anything to do with her husband no by old Harry Mr. Goodheart she threatened to poison herself if the man ventured so much as to approach her bedroom door had the marriage service converted her husband into a hedgehog or a bat or a toad or something which makes women scream and shrink and faint this wife's loathing could not have been more phenomenally profound he had his memories of endearments and was paralyzed by astonishment and dismay and indeed despair what had come to her but his letters his entreaties his influence availed nothing he sailed from fall month leaving her behind him his ship was burnt and he was cast ashore on an island that was seven months alone after he had pronounced these words his voice failed him it's a strange story Mr. Goodheart regarding the poor fellow with an expression of touching kindness when you sailed you were separated we have never lived together when were you married God's gave him the date Goodheart mused and his face took on a look of judicial gravity it is impossible to consider it as an aversion in her he said human nature does not change in an hour if we are to call in an aberration then we shall know what to think I shall regard it as a sudden violent distemper of morality it is not dislike of you but love of ego a disease of self which the psychologists would view as an antithesis of a mania not rare amongst women if I were you I should hail this state of shipwreck as an aviu that is to conduct you to a heart how? already your ship is overdue you will soon be posted to the imagination of your wife you are a drowned man you appeal of abandonment and of death will prove it an as find her a heart give her that and when you again meet as surely as she is human and as surely as you love her you will find her yours by virtue of an ordeal that you make her more triumphantly your own than any other form of conquest could render her the marriage service changed her into a statue nothing chiseled in marble can be more insensible depend upon it Captain Reynolds that a woman's heartbeat under the hard surface and her conviction of your death and our memory of what preceded your departure will work in her if I return explained Reynolds with a little wildness and a look he sent to at the sea I shall not see her to be repulsed again spat upon time Mr. Good at time I have been alone for months and my thoughts have run as a lonely man's would but despite the cob figure that weeps over the urn despite the sumptuous memorial window I must believe I must hope that the inscription wears out that the slate is cleansed by something else than tears that the flame is often extinguished before the candle is expended I trust it will happen as shall make best for your happiness said good odd but emotion what is your age Reynolds replied and your wife's Reynolds told him good odd smiled gravy you must meet again a sweetheart you are proud of her and fond of her indeed you are raptuously fond of her the charm that won you is still hers she is your wife nothing but God's hand can keep you apart not indeed but that chastity so rigid is extremely un amenable and very undesirable a sister of mercy who nursed me said to prove how bad an opinion God has of us observed that he is perpetually replacing us and trying others generation succeeds generation and what opinion I answered can he have of those who think it improper to help him it is an oversight on the part of a person to marry one with whom personal association is when rather late in the day it is considered objectionable for example how much trouble would be saved if men made it a rule to choose the right sister to begin with the hearts of the bishops would be lighter there would be a little less talk in the house of the lords you will find no difficulty in getting another birth I can say answered Reynolds captains are very plentiful and I have not been very fortunate I have a friend in Sydney said good heart who is my managing director of a coast wise line of steamers the pay is good and the people employed are loyally used I shall be most happy to give you a letter to him you are extremely kind Mr. Goodheart but you will naturally wish to return to England to follow your profession in that country why your wife is in England Reynolds shook his head good heart smiled we were just now talking of purpose and color said a breaking from a subject that might have easily been made painful by even a nuance of insistence I have often asked myself to what degree is color necessary as a fiber a thread in the wolf of a matter the solar light is formed of colored rays visible and invisible and by and in that light does creation move and have its being but it is color essential as a constitute of matter for instance is color a part of the flowers life so that in the absence of color the flower would need something as necessary to as being as any formative conditions existence or restricting myself to the flower is it painted merely to delight if so whose delight is it colored is it to be supposed that the sole purpose of color is to gratify the aesthetic sense in man the color is a created thing whose existence is independent of human sensation is too clear to need talking about if visually we know that the color is a concomitant of state or change we have a right to infer that color is an abiding quality in colored matter and that the conditions under which it accompanies all mutations render it is inseparable from matter a property therefore in dwelling in objects both in darkness and light you mean said Reynolds that if for example you carried a red rose into a bright room it would retain its color I mean as a good heart that the cause of the redness remains in the rose in the black room and what is that cause it seems to me now what should seem stranger than the two shipwrecked men one of whom slept in a cave whilst the other took his rest in a fissure in a dell should be found upon a little island seated on a grassy rise in the shade discussing abstract problems of science with as much sincerity as if they were going up for an examination with their chance of deliverance from their awful position so fable as to entail them to a habit of mental prostration but in the human mind there is latent a power of philosophy which almost unconsciously helps it to adapt itself to any state it might chance to be in with our violent departure from the old habits of forms of thought suppose two maids of honors flung a shore from the sea why should they at intervals talk of drawing room presentation the duchess his red face the blazing fat throat of lady throgmorton street things it is true of a past more or less recent but topics of habitual inspiration never lost to stock choppers similarly cast upon the deep might be expected in the pauses between the meals of muscles and the search to be more digestible the talk of loans and minds of goshen's year and the prospects of japan our two companions love science and from time to time as we see there was nothing in shipwreck to stop them from talking about it but their story after a beef passage was to change subtly into the eventful end of chapter 8 recording by gary omen middle town new york chapter 9 of abandoned by william clark russell this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org abandoned by william clark russell chapter 9 the chase on the second october making it rather more than a fortnight since the arrival of the boat's crew a man named lidiart being the first to awaken quitted the cave and came into the open where he yawned and stretched his arms and then slowly looked around him it was blowing what sailors would call a royal breeze wings of dusky clouds sailed under the sky the east was a moist purple and the clouds came out of what stained with that tint but before they gained the central heaven they changed into greys and browns with their skirts guilt by the sun the stretch of coral sand was noisy with breakers which charged in cannon shocks and reseeded sweating cruelly fingering long black lines of weed as though they were tresses of the land they were seeking to tear off and the ocean was filled with seas whose edgings of foam ran a thwart in parallel archings till the whole surge sank in its own splendor of whiteness loud was the organ thunder rolling from the stern abrupt which the island opposed to the sea southeast the little piece of land was full of the music of the morning and the seabirds glanced as they wheeled and slanted from dark shapes into bright a second man came out of the cave he was grim with a fortnight's growth of hair on face and head anything inside he asked ain't add time to have a look round I'm growing buddy sick of this said number two I'm for making a start and chance in it that their captain Reynolds ain't fur out you lay seven months he says and nothing showing and here we've been getting on more in a buddy fortnight and what's you good for anybody but a blind man here a third sailor came out he was followed by good heart and the other people whilst Reynolds was to be seen approaching from his crack in the dell just on that part of the island where the men stood only a little piece of the ocean was to be seen Jim said the boatswain run a loft up that ill and see if there's anything to report good morning Mr. Goodheart said Reynolds good morning men blamed slow work this sir exclaimed the boatswain I feel sometimes as if I could have swum the distance three hundred miles ain't it the English channel's been swum strike me silly said a sailor if I wouldn't rather turn jellyfish than keep all on here wait till you've had over seven months of it said Reynolds that's just what we don't mean to wait for then answered the boatswain who though he recognized Captain Reynolds position as a master and gentlemen was heedful to assert himself as commander of his own little company who would take their opinions from him or at least submit to be advised by him without allowing that Captain Reynolds though a shipmaster had the least authority amongst them the man who had gone up the hill to report having climbed about a hundred feet stopped to take a look and no sooner were his eyes upon the sea than he pointed and yelled there she is all a growing and a blowin sail ho there she spouts on which everybody rushed up to him saving good heart who followed very slowly and with pause this time the whole of a ship sails were in view a square of white like a butterfly on the margin of a meadow she was down away westwards too far off for the trim of her yards to be discernible and the hull of her was out of sight behind the sea-line everybody but Reynolds saw her at times he thought he caught sight of her but his injured vision was betrayed by the white leap of the seas and had he been alone she would have passed unnoticed which way she stand and exclaimed the boatswain panting with his hurry of limbs and excitement of spirits she's on the port tax said the man who had reported her this man had the best sight of any amongst them in fact it was as good as a little pocket telescope as the wind cried the boatswain east answered Reynolds if she's on the port tack cried the boatswain almost shouting with sensation and the winds east she'll be heading so as to be lift in her hull by the time that she's abreast of this island she'll be making for her and shoving right a thwart her as she comes heading up so as to bring the northeast point of this rock on her starboard quarter this was closely followed and immediately understood by the men I'm ready so am I so am I so were the whole six will you come Mr. Goodart and take your chance shout at the boatswain to that gentleman who was painfully and slowly leaving the ship I don't understand you was the ball to reply the boatswain ran down to him there he cried in his eagerness catching hold of Goodart's arm there's the ship DC her sir yes about ten miles off answered Goodart staring at the vision on the sea we're all for making a dead pull to windard so as to bring us with insight of her by the hour on this island on her starboard quarter will you come there's no time to lose sir you mean to pull windward against this sea and breeze exclaimed Goodart with a lift of eyebrows and a blank stare of wonder yes by this time the others had come down and were gathered round these two what do you mean to do said Reynolds we're going to row within sight of that ship strangely and with a danger signal in the tone of his voice I advise you not to try it not against that weight of sea and wind said Reynolds driving to see the ship we shall lose her if we stand here jawing cried a man you'll need to pull eight or ten miles to put yourselves within reach of her sight said Reynolds what's her speed you say she's on a top left call it seven means to come roared the boat swain smiting down Reynolds reasoning as you might hit a man on the head with an iron pin and away he ran in the direction of the creek where the boat lay bawling as he sprang along if we stop arguing we lose her instantly the sailors followed racing and leaping like schoolboys just let loose you'll report that we are left if you come up with her shouted Reynolds fellow flung his arm up in token that the request had been heard Reynolds heart was in that distant sail which was now when he looked a very dim delicate vision in the horizon of his eye his soul raved for release from the withering imprisonment of this island the mere figures of the running men fired him with a passion to run with them for a minute the inward conflict was a very madness of mental convulsion a tempestuous lunatic dance of contending feelings he was a man however habituated by his profession to the forming of the instant resolution this is the inevitable education of the sailor who is worth his salt fog collision fire the sudden tempest the mighty ice island looming in thunder of bursting surge out of the snowstorm do not admit of leisurely deliberation now he was understanding that vessels might have passed and he had not seen them and good hearts hope and expectation of a comfortable deliverance therefore might be shared next he witnessed rashness danger and disappointment in that long pull against a head sea in a fresh wind likewise he perceived that the men's chances of salvation would be good hearts and his superior peril for it could not be doubted that when the captain of the vessel had been informed that two men were left he would heave his ship too and send for them and finally he was impelled by the affectionate regard in which he had already come to hold good heart to stop with him and share with him in such fortune as was to be fall be it what it might the men gained the boat sharp at both ends a good boat pulling five oars within board airtight boxes under her gun whales they had taken care to keep her stocked with food and fresh water it's a pity said good heart who with his companion had walked a little distance to obtain a better view of the boat's departure that they did not think of cutting down a long bow to attach a shirt to for waving I can see now said Reynolds she can't be less than ten miles distant if the boat heads due east then at three miles an hour and they'll not sweep more out of her it will be noon before she arrives at the point where she is to come in contact with the ship and the ship he continued making his calculations as he spoke will if she holds on all have to sail a distance of thirty miles to arrive at the spot aimed at by the boat she will accomplish this in four hours and the boat will be one hour away from her three miles short what headstrong fools exclaimed good heart but the men were already rowing the boatswain steered the oars flashed and sank flashed and sank as the little fabric was urged over the still waters of the creek then she was in the open and leaping and good heart and saw the figures of the men bending and backing with those motions of energy and determination which signify that the impulse which governs the toiler is the heart's cry of life or death the boat sprang bravely showering crystals heading right into the glittering lines of light which were rolled by the breeze under the soaring sun until she faded out even to the straining gaze of good heart whilst the ship had floated up the horizon to the line of her bulwark rails lifting jibs and spanker boom and passing on with the beauty grace and dignity which are the gifts of sunshine and the blue breeze and flashing waters to a ship when she is under full sale leaning the stirless bosoms of her canvas to the spectator and beheld from afar I shall make a smoke for that but not yet said Reynolds who was now seeing her clearly all's ready up there exclaimed good heart I saw to it yesterday afternoon Reynolds rejoined it will take her two hours to give us a sight of her hull I am going for a drink and a dip said good heart and he walked leisurely in the direction of the river there was not much room for the exhibition of the mysterious in this little island though an illustration came when the lonely captive had awakened and seen the figure of the owner of the chest walking shadowless in the moonshine hat in hand but two points Reynolds had observed in good heart he was never seen to take off his coat night or day and though he bathed three or four times a week he always contrived to take to the water with the strictest privacy never before saying as he had just now said he was going to the river for a plunge but mentioning the circumstance to Reynolds afterwards as the minutest incident came weighted with deepest interest in this dull and dismal routine of watching the sea and catching and cooking fish from these trifles Reynolds inferred that good heart's disproportioned bulkiness of trunk was due to some painless but morbid growth or that it was a which he desired with a feminine passion to conceal from the sight of others Reynolds stood for a little while with his eyes fixed on the ship his gaze was yearning his heart ached she was scarcely wanted to bring before him the image of his wife for not an hour of the day rolled past but he thought of her but that floating cloud out yonder recalled the flying spur how she might have been out just where that ship was how if Lucretia had given him her heart again after he had decoyed her on board she might have been with him as though they were together in that vessel leaning side by side over the bulwark rail and viewing the same little island with its silver lightning of cascades and its lace-like trimming of brilliant breakers the theater to him of a most sad and pitiful drama of shipwreck and cast his eyes up at the hill where the fuel lay ready for kindling and after weighing the chance afresh of such a smoke as he could make being seen by that ship which was still very nearly hulled down from the altitude from which he regarded her he went to work to build up a little fire in the cook pit then entered the cave where were some fish taken yesterday cut off a couple of steaks and put them into the shovel and gained the only frying pan in that island all the while strenuously thinking of the probability of the boat being seen by the ship heartily praying for it and gravely doubting her chance there was nothing to eat but the mushrooms and the fish when the little meal was dressed he sat down to wait for his companion and his friend he presented a most ragged figure and one who had previously known him might be judged by his face that his nature had undergone a change his look was pensive he wore an habitual air of melancholy there was no fire or spirit in his speech he suggested a man whose heart is cowed by thought that is ebbing tinged with memory and forlorn almost to hopelessness in anticipation the mother of this man would not have known her son he had that shaggy look which is the impress of toil and nearly always accompanies privation at sea seven months of solitude and the dismal eternity of the encircling ocean had so rotten him that if you had met him in a crowded street he would have been the one to seize your gaze and compel you to look after him and to proceed in thought about him good heart came from the river and sat down beside him we thought vulgar for eating this fish with our knives said he with an easy smile and gentle voice that might have made you suppose they were breakfasting comfortably at home one does not learn good manners at sea answered Reynolds the best of manners surely replied good heart when a sailor is a gentleman a more perfect gentleman you shall not find I am fond of observing the contrasts of life take our situation compare a nobleman in grovener square at breakfast take the tramp who has dusted under a hedge through the night breaking his fast on a turnip he has sneaked from a field after a wary look round I remember passing a church where a wedding had just taken place and the bells were peeling joyously in the tower and in the graveyards stood the marble figure of an angel pointing with one hand to heaven a wave at its feet of a girl of twenty but whilst they talked they kept their eyes upon the ship for it was impossible to foresee but that at any moment she might shift her helm to obtain a closer view of the island and Reynolds must be ready to rush up the hill to light the fire I sometimes wondered said good heart what form madness would take in a man who should lose his mind in shipwreck on such an island as this I have sometimes thought exclaimed Reynolds that madness is the delirium of a disposition that has lain latent and even unsuspected for example I am an ambitious man but do not know the absurd heights to which my soul secretly aspires until I lose my reason and then I believe I am a king or God in my case I believe had I gone mad here I should have imagined I was Brigham young Hart was amused and laughed with gentle enjoyment I have heard of a man said he who believed he was his own father he had made a will leaving all his property to himself as his only son but his worry was to know what he should do if he was to happen to die before his father I have also heard of a lady who believed she was the author of the novels of George Elliot and was afraid of looking into a mirror for fear of seeing the ghost lose the only instance of sanity I have heard in madness said Reynolds was the case of a journalist who whenever he felt the drink fiend taking possession of him compelled his wife to put him away he stood up to look at the ship good heart also rose and they viewed the distant sail for a while in silence she was holding stubbornly on so far it was certain she had not brought the boat within sight unless she was to give the spectators an illustration of behavior which most happily is very rare at sea by seeing the boat yet standing on and leaving the tossed men to their fate the breeze was steady and gushed in large liberal folds the island sent up its patient moan of shaken trees and shrubbery and the beach its sullen roar of surf and the southeast sulky thunder of foaming surge they continued to watch and wait then Reynolds went up the hill to kindle the prepared fuel in the hollow the stuff made a thick white smoke but it was blown low at a sharp angle from the hollow in which the wood flamed and as the ship drew further eastwards and as the smoke was blowing due west it was less and less likely that the foreshortened beacon trail would catch the eye of anyone on board or if it did the white smoke like one of those country fires which discharged shafts of vapor from dead leaves and rubbish into the autumn atmosphere might be thought to proceed from a little volcano but Reynolds was bound to give himself and good heart a chance and for a whole hour he plied his fire laboriously fetching big armfuls of stuff and raising a thick smother the ship grew smaller and smaller as with something of the slant of a seagull's wing when it wheels in its flight she vanished in a shadow of mother of pearl into the east Reynolds rejoined good heart what time is it good heart pulled out his watch and said 11 Reynolds glanced at the sun and judged good heart's report to be fairly accurate that ship is to prove our salvation said he if she is to catch a sight of the boat she should have seen her before this with a long enough pause to enable us to know that she had hoved to to receive the people or by a shift of helm which would have changed her shape I shall keep a lookout for the boat said good heart if the men are disappointed they must return what else remains I don't know exclaimed Reynolds with a gloomy shake of his head some mules amongst them and the boson is a good leader for people of that sort they may reason having left the island and come so far what will be the good of returning we know what we've got to expect much more chance of our being picked up the further we go than keeping all fast aboard that piece of rock there without a compass said good heart suppose they get some 30 miles distant and resolve to come back this island is small and without its bearings being known or a compass to help the helmsmen it may be easily missed thus they conversed whilst the hours wore on Reynolds as a lookout was of no use good heart did the staring part but never could see anything to report he was calm resigned grateful he said at all events captain Reynolds we know where we are but we don't know where the boat is thankful to God I was not tempted to trust myself in her figure the weariness of that little skipping structure the hopeless grinding of the oars compared to which the toil of the galley slave is a joke for the felon is not threatened every instant with death the miserable and pitiful lookout for what why to see only the curling heads of seas clouds of spray which must keep you bailing the breeze returning the night coming on and a little stock of dried fish a few tins of meat and six gallons of water for eight souls for that's how it would have been with us had we gone I believe you are right I believe you are right said Reynolds in a voice that was colored with the spirit of consolation that he drew from the happy resignation and comfortable philosophy of his companion if the boat does not show itself dark I shall give her up not necessarily as lost so far as the men are concerned but as lost for us he snapped his fingers to a sudden uncontrollable impulse of excitation at one o'clock by Goodheart's watch the ship was out of sight at six the dusk was gathering but the watchers saw no signs of the boat the long runners of the ocean streamed in steady procession with the east the clouds opening as they rose flew in many windy spectral shapes a very Chinaman riot of shadowy monsters the moon floated up and tinged with a delicate silver green the foliage and the waters which she shone upon it is strange said Goodheart viewing the satellite as she swept through the phantom rush of wings on high it is strange he said and philosophizing constantly taking form that God should have thought it fit to hang up in the heavens two wonderful symbols of creation its life and its death in the glorious sun nature lives and moves and has her being the moon is death white silent cold awful in the morning you awaken with life in the night you go to rest with death I wish to God cried Reynolds with a little glow of passion that the moon would reveal the boat there was good hope whilst that boat remained in the creek the beggars in going away in her stole her from us and in my opinion they are lost men and we shall be prisoners for months and perhaps years he rung his hands unseen in the gloom by his friend for just then the weight of his months of solitude came down upon his heart in a sensation of almost physical oppression and in imagination he was alone with nothing to look at but a desolate breast of ocean with nothing to hope for but the sight of a ship with nothing to live for but a burden of being that love had abandoned and shipwreck rendered crushing good heart took his hand and pressed it carefully a ship will come and we shall be rescued all will be well not very much is needed to make rich the man who has nothing the coming of a ship is no very mighty affair no prodigy nothing that shall have anything of the miraculous in it and I look forward to being rescued with profound confidence did you ever hear of the sweet little cherub that sits up aloft forsaking poor Jack in the sea I have thought through many bitter waking thoughts I have prayed to God alone always alone that night they occupied the cave together there was plenty of grass in it and Reynolds easily felt and found a couch near Goodhearts it was totally black inside but the silver was completely black it was completely black inside but the silver dimness in the atmosphere lay like tissue paper stretched over the mouth of the cave twice before one o'clock in the morning Reynolds went out and gained a height and looked about him but the boat had not returned nothing moved upon the surface of the island but a quick though stormy dance of shadows it was blowing fresh the dwarf trees roared with the surf and the moon shot through the swift drift he fell asleep but was awakened by a loud report Goodheart cried out what was that? was it a cannon shot said Reynolds standing up? another sharp rattle and the lightning glanced in blue splendor at the mouth of the cave my God cried Reynolds what chance will this sort of thing give the boat? but think said Goodheart that we might be in her the lightning sank in instant pulses into the cavern's blackness and the two men in the flashes were revealed to each other again Reynolds stepped out it was not raining on the island a heavy thunderstorm was playing over the sea about two miles distant and the moon was sunk into a mere jelly of moist light in the shrouding of the weather that was stretched out over the heavens from the electric vapor Goodheart cried Reynolds running to the mouth of the cave to shout come and see a wonderful sight what was it? the lightning was frequent and fierce and every white or crimson spark that flashed upon the eye its wire like reel of fire illuminated two gigantic waterspouts about a half mile distant on the west side touching them into stately columns of the aspect of white hot metal their foot in foam with inky vapor into the aspect of the coconut tree if they are coming this way we shall be deluged said Goodheart but their waltz was to the southward the two men watched this wonderful lightning revealed picture sublime and awful with its accompaniments of the midnight of the lightning dart of the thunder shock and the universal roaring of an angry ocean they returned to the cave but for some time neither could sleep though one was a sailor and the other had been well salted owing to the rushing noise made by the rain which descended in a living sheet as though it was a great lake coming down from the edge of a mountain and but for the cave being on a slope they would have been floated out the morning was cool calm and bright their first act was to scan the boat but the ocean was a plane as naked as a looking glass the water swam to the shore softly and melted in caresses of froth do you see anything like a sail said Reynolds nothing answered Goodheart after a long and careful scrutiny of the whole circle of horizon but I am not to be depressed I am perfectly satisfied to think that I am not afloat in that boat it is inconceivable that she was picked up by the vessel said Reynolds as likely as not they were swamped in the night Goodheart went to the river and Reynolds to the rock to catch a fish for breakfast this morning he secured a fish shaped like a salmon gorgeously dyed and weighing about eight pounds he had caught this sort of fish about twice or thrice before and found it delicious eating he made his fire and began to cook Goodheart kept him waiting indeed he grew anxious and was going to seek him when he saw him coming slowly from the direction of the river holding what resembled a satchel in his hand he stepped with this satchel-like thing into the cave and emerged with nothing in his hands Reynolds looked at him and instantly observed a diminution of his bulk that bulk of trunk whose extravagance had often puzzled him he said nothing and Goodheart coming near the cook-hole with his kind and gracious smile seated himself undoubtedly his figure had undergone a change since he had visited the river he was now a well proportioned man without that stuffed look which had excited conjectures in Reynolds his coat lay open the massive watch chain rested upon his waistcoat his attire was indeed in a state of princely freshness compared to that of his companion but then he had not been seven months on the island nor had he been thrown ashore on toothed rocks by the breakers of a gale wind Goodheart's smile vanished as he viewed his friend thoughtfully with an impressive and inspiring air of kindness they had ceased to captain and mystery each other how long will you be able to support this sort of existence I keep my mind tranquil with the fixed assurance of release answered Goodheart taking up a slice of fish with a leaf and beginning to eat it may be delayed but it will come I do not think of myself as a prisoner I could be worse off I have been worse off this fish is excellently tasted I do not miss liquor those cascades are a noble drinking fountain I should be glad of a substitute for bread but while mushrooms flourish I shall not grumble I am sick of it Goodheart said Reynolds so will you be soon I assure you Reynolds replied Goodheart with a note of cordial cheerfulness that your companionship and my own state tastes and habits of life render this imprisonment as you term it so little disagreeable to me that if a few comforts could be contrived I should be very well pleased to accept this brief sentence of exile as a pleasant holiday in a delicious climate under circumstances delightfully romantic Reynolds smiled and bowed and said you are a true philosopher what are our wants for this holiday until we are taken off a little cottage a loaf of bread a day a joint of fresh meat to vary the produce of the creek tobacco for the pipe and a few boxes of cigars we enjoy a royal state for we do not need money and the greatest monarch might envy us for that but way against our humble requirements the blessings of our escape from shipwreck yonder glorious privilege of bright falling waters the agreeable dishes swimming in that creek or sticking to the rocks on the ground we might go further he added looking significantly seaward evidently thinking of the boat and fair worse when you get home I will not say if you get home in the face of your magnificent spirit of hope where shall you settle not in Ireland you are the sort of man they want there well it may come to Great Britain dealing with Ireland as a colony rexter painting the few lingering natives by swamping the country with British emigrants and settlers that would solve the Irish question said Reynolds I shall settle in London said Goodheart there you can get everything you want the best and the worst of everything and with judgment you can make ten shillings do what a sovereign scarcely does in a provincial town I hate London burst out Reynolds particularly I was married in Bayswater but why Bayswater left Goodheart why not Hackney or Clapham I was married in Bayswater answered Reynolds and jumping to his feet he hove a stone at a penguin that was sitting like a robed bishop on a rock Goodheart viewed him for a moment or two in thought do you observe said he putting his hands to his sides that I have lost weight certainly thinner Goodheart again viewed him as though he had fallen into a fit of profound musing then rising he said Reynolds come into the cave with me End of Chapter 9