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Ben Hadden; or, Do Right Whatever Comes Of It, a fiction by William H. G. Kingston |
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Chapter 14. On A Desert Island |
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_ Chapter Fourteen. On A Desert Island
Ben had lost his cap, so, while his Testament and clothes were drying, he sat down and began making another out of some broad leaves which grew close at hand. While thus employed, and thinking over what he should do, he recollected that he had not prayed, nor thanked God for preserving him; so, having put on his clothes, he knelt down in the thin shadow of a tall palm, and prayed as he had never prayed before. After doing this, he felt greatly supported; yet his condition was indeed a forlorn one. He rose from his knees, and looked around. He felt thirsty, but not very hungry--sufficiently so, however, to remind him that he must look out for food. He was not aware of the difficulties of procuring it, so that his mind was not troubled on that score. His first idea was to survey the island, so as to learn to a certainty whether any of his shipmates might have been cast on it. He found a piece of timber on the sand, which served him for a walking-stick, and, supported by it, he set off to walk round the island. He first climbed up to the top of a rock near him, from which, between the trees, he could look across the island, and he thought that it could be little more than half a mile wide. How long it was he could not so well judge. He walked on and on, looking about for signs of fresh-water, for he knew that he must not drink that of the sea. He could find none. He became more and more thirsty; his tongue was parched, and his throat dry: still he would not give up. He dragged his weary feet along, helped by his stick. Some rocky mounds, scarcely to be called hills, appeared in the distance, and he hoped that water might be found near them. This gave him fresh strength to drag himself along. The mounds were not so high even as he had fancied, and were much nearer. Again he was disappointed. He paced round and round them; all was stony and dry. Ben was very nearly giving way to despair, when he espied, scarcely fifty yards off, a group of tall trees with large round fruit hanging from them. At once he knew them to be cocoa-nuts, and he went on, eager to quench his thirst with the pure milk they contained. Yet, weak as he was, how could he climb up to the top of those trees? He had often seen the natives do it with a band round their waists. If he were strong, he might do it in the same way, could he but find the band; but, in his weak state, that was impossible. Again he was doomed to disappointment, he feared, and was about to pursue his exploring tour, when he saw, not far off, a nut on the ground. He ran eagerly and picked it up. It had been blown off during the recent gale. After stripping off the husk, he soon broke in the end; and, though he spilt a little, there was sufficient milk in it to quench his now burning thirst. He then more slowly ate pieces of the fruit, which he cut out with his knife. Here was one means of supporting life, and Ben's elastic spirits again rose. At his age the thoughts of the future did not press heavily on him. He had, too, 'a conscience void of offence towards God': not that he did not feel and know himself to be a sinner; but he felt himself to be a pardoned one, as a sincere believer in Christ. That was the secret of his light-heartedness. Still he had a longing for pure water. He knew, too, that he could the better cook any fish he might obtain if he could find it. How was he to light a fire, however? Just before the gale came on, the cook had sent him below to get his tin-box of matches, and after the cook had taken one out, Ben had put it into his pocket. There it was, and, the lid fitting tightly down, the matches were uninjured. "I must cherish them carefully, however," he thought; "when they are gone, I shall be unable to light a fire." He looked about and found several other cocoa-nuts, which he collected, and piled up where he could again find them. Much refreshed, Ben continued his walk. At last he saw the end of the island. For a quarter of a mile or more it was low and barren, hard rock washed apparently by the sea; so he turned round and went back by the other shore. The island was, altogether, nearly two miles long; but there were not many cocoa-nut trees on it,--nor much soil indeed, which was the reason probably that it was not inhabited. He might now exclaim, though sadly, "I am monarch of all I survey;" but he would rather have been the meanest subject of a small kingdom, with civilised companions, than a king and all alone on that nearly barren reef. Still he had no fear of starving; shell-fish he saw on the rocks in abundance. During the calm, too, some of the natives had been fishing over the side of the vessel, and he also had got some hooks and a long line. These he had put into his pockets. He might, he hoped, find some roots, and thus be able to vary his diet. As the sun rose, the horizon became very clear, and he thought that he could distinguish land in one direction; it was at all events a long way off, and it was so faint that it might be only a cloud just rising above the horizon. He should be able to judge better after watching it for a day or two. As Ben walked on, his eye was continually roving about for signs of water. How gladly would he have welcomed the sight of even a little mossy pool, or some moisture in the crevice of a rock! He did not despair. He had hitherto only explored the shore; water might rise in the interior, and be lost in the sand before it reached the beach. "One thing I ought to have before night," he said,--for he had got into the way of talking aloud,--"that is, shelter. I must build myself a hut;" and so he set to work. There were canes, and bushes, and broad leaves of the pandanus and other trees in abundance. He did not require a very spacious mansion; still he wanted one high enough to sit in. He worked on till he was tired and hungry. He had left his cocoa-nuts some way off, and had to go for them. He brought as many as he could carry back to his hut. Knocking a hole in the end of one of them, and carefully scraping out the fruit after he had drunk the milk, he waded into the water, and cut some mussels off the rocks. His cocoa-nut he filled with salt-water. Coming back, he lighted a fire in a hole a little way from his hut. Would he put his cocoa-nut on it? No; he was too wise for that; but he made some stones red-hot, and kept tumbling them into the water till the mussels were sufficiently cooked. Others he toasted before the fire, but he liked the boiled ones best. He thus made a tolerably substantial meal. To keep in his fire, he built up a wall of stones round it, and put on a quantity of green sticks, which would burn slowly, hoping in that way to save the expenditure of another match. "I will finish my hut, and then I will go and have another hunt for water," he said to himself, as he began working again. He had placed his hut against a tree, with the opening turned away from the wind. There were plenty of dry leaves about, which he collected for his bed. He did not require furniture; that he would make by and by. While hunting in his pockets for the matches, he found a number of thin flat seeds. He recollected having saved them from a fruit of the gourd species, which had been used on board the schooner. He carefully dried them and put them by, remembering that such things grow very rapidly. "There will be no harm sowing them; if I do not use them, others will. I am thankful I found them," he thought. Once more he set out to look for water. The exertion he had gone through, and the heat, made the milk of the cocoa-nut insufficient for quenching his thirst. The ground was rough; but he eagerly clambered over it, backwards and forwards, hoping thus to find a spring if one existed. The sun was sinking low, when he thought that the trees and shrubs, in a hollow he saw some way before him, looked greener and more luxuriant than those in other places. "Water makes leaves and grass green," he said to himself; "I hope so, for I don't think that I could live many more hours without water, not through another day in this hot sun. Oh dear! oh dear! how very, very thirsty I am! What would I give if there should be water there, even though I should only get one good drink of it! Ay, but I shall want it another day--for many days, or months, perhaps, as long as I live on this island. I don't think that God will have put only a little there. If there is any, there will be a good supply for me, more than this cocoa-nut full, I am certain." He had brought a cocoa-nut shell with him to fill with water, that he might take some back to his hut. Ben almost shouted for joy when he found a spring of pure water bubbling up from under a big rock. It ran a little way between rocks, and then lost itself in a sandy bed. He scooped a hole in the ground, into which he put his cocoa-nut shell, which quickly filled with water. How sweet and pure it tasted! He felt that he could never take enough. At last, however, his thirst was quenched, so he filled his cocoa-nut shell, and directed his steps to the sea-shore; but he had not gone far before he was tempted to put the shell to his lips. He soon drained it, and then he went back for more. His great fear was that he should not again find the spring. He marked the spot with the greatest care, and noted each tree and mound as he took his way towards the beach. Night was coming on, as it does in those latitudes, very rapidly; and Ben had to hurry on for fear of not finding his hut, and at the same time to be very cautious not to spill the water out of his cocoa-nut. Oh that people would be as eager for the Water of Life, as little Ben was for the spring in that desert island, and would be tempted to return to it again and again to drink afresh of its pure source! Ben was thankful when he saw the glow from his fire, which continued smouldering gently. Without it he might have passed his hut. He could not manage by its light to read more than a few verses from his Testament; but even those few gave him comfort and hope. With a heart truly grateful for the mercies bestowed on him, he knelt down and offered up his simple prayer to God. The last thing he did was to make up his fire afresh, and then he crept into his hut and in a few moments was fast asleep. The sun had risen before Ben awoke. He felt that he had a great deal to do. He could not tell how long he might have to remain on the island. It might be not only for months, but for years. Much depended on his own sense and energy whether he would retain his health, or indeed life itself. He began the day with prayer and reading the Testament. He knew that that was the best way at all events to save himself from turning into a savage. He then made his breakfast off cocoa-nut and shell-fish. "I must catch some fish, however," he said to himself, as he finished the last clam; "this food will not do to live on always. I may find some roots and berries, and perhaps turtles' eggs. I heard some wild-fowl cry last evening; I may find their eggs too, and trap them or some other birds, or get a turtle itself. The first thing I'll now do is to carry my hut nearer to the water, instead of having to bring the water all this way to the hut. That won't take long. I can carry the whole of it in two journeys, and quickly put it up. I must take the fire after it. That will keep in for many hours, I see, with the help of this rotten wood. If I go working on in these clothes, I shall soon wear them out. I must see what I can do to make others out of the bark of the paper-mulberry, as the natives do; I thought I saw some of those trees yesterday. I daresay I shall not succeed at first, but there is nothing like trying. There is a piece of open ground near the spring which will just do for the gourd-seeds. I'll sow them therein forthwith. The fruit is very wholesome, I know; and the dried gourds will furnish me with basins and pots and pans in abundance." Ben put all his plans into execution in a methodical, regular way. He became, indeed, perfectly happy, and almost contented with his lot, except when he thought of his mother and Ned--poor Ned, still undiscovered, living among savages, or on a desert island, like himself. His own fate made him hope more than ever that Ned had escaped. Now and then the course of his plans was interrupted by something else which occurred to him to do. One idea was to erect a beacon at each end of the island, to attract the attention of those on board any passing vessel. He had nothing of which to make a flag, so a flagstaff would have been of no use. It then struck him that a cross would be more remarkable than anything else, and he devoted a part of each day to the work. It was a very heavy task. He chose a tree towards the end of the island, where he proposed erecting the first cross. He had only a stout pocket-knife, but he could employ fire, and that only required constant watching. A large sharp stone helped him. When he had thus felled the tree, he had to cut off the branches, and to drag it to the end of the island. With great labour he partly burned, and partly cut, a deep notch, into which he fixed the cross-beam, securing it with wedges. He had observed a cleft in the rock: in this he placed the butt-end, and gradually raised it with far more ease than he could otherwise have done. Some large stones placed round it kept it secure. The other cross was erected much in the same manner. His fishing was very successful, and he was soon able to catch an ample supply for his daily food. He found, too, some roots which were perfectly wholesome. When cultivated by the natives, they formed one of their chief articles of food. He was not disappointed in finding, after a time, some turtles' and sea-fowls' eggs; indeed, he had an abundance of nutritious food, gained, however, by his own exertions and perseverance. It might have been possible for a person to have died of starvation on the island, simply on account of not looking for the means of subsistence which it afforded. Ben not only collected for present use, but preserved what he could for the future, knowing that at certain seasons the turtle and wild-fowl would cease to lay eggs, that the fish might leave the coast, or that stormy weather might prevent his catching them; that the cocoa-nuts would dry up, as might the roots, and that the wild-fowl might become more wary. He was thus never idle, from morning till night; and though, of course, he thought very often of home and Ned, and of how he should get away, yet he never was unhappy or out of spirits. He was as fond as ever of saying, "Do right, whatever comes of it, and trust in God." _ |
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