The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe (11 page)

May 15.

I carried two hatchets to try if I could not cut a piece off the roll of lead by placing the edge of one hatchet and driving it with the other. As it lay about a foot and a half in the water, I could not make any blow to drive the hatchet.

May 16.

It had blow’d hard in the night and the wreck appear’d more broken by the force of the water. I staid so long in the woods, to get pigeons for food, the tyde prevented my going to the wreck that day.

May 17.

I saw some pieces of the wreck blown on shore at a great distance, two miles off me, but resolv’d to see what they were and found it was a piece of the head, but too heavy for me to bring away.

May 24.

Every day, to this day, I worked on the wreck. With hard labour I loosened some things so much with the crow that the first blowing tyde several casks floated out, and two of the seamen's chests. The wind blowing from the shore, nothing came to land that day but pieces of timber and a hogshead which had some Brasil pork in it. The salt-water and the sand had spoil'd it.

I continued this work every day to the 15th of June, except the time necessary to get food, which I always appointed, during this part of my employment, to be when the tyde was up that I might be ready when it was ebb’d out. And also to prepare for the moon, of which this was the second day. By its foot or paw prints, I saw that the beast had inspect'd the wreck which I had spent so much time at, which made me wonder if this were animal curiosity, or if it had a smok'd lens of its own which it saw thru my eyes with. There were many things my father had never instruct'd me about our family blood, for he said there were some things a man must learn on his own and not thru lessons given by other men.

By this time I had gotten timber, and plank, and iron-work. I also got, at several times, and in several pieces, near 100 weight of the sheat-lead.

June 16.

Going down to the sea-side I found a large tortoise, or turtle. This was the first I had seen, which, it seems, was only my misfortune, not any defect of the place or scarcity. Had I happened to be on the other side of the island I might have had hundreds of them every day, as I found afterwards, but perhaps had paid dear enough for them.

June 17.

I spent in cooking the turtle. I found in her threescore eggs. Her flesh was to me, at that time, the most savoury and pleasant I ever tasted in my life, having had no flesh but of goats and fowls since I landed in this horrid place.

June 18.

Rain’d all day, and I staid within. I thought, at this time, the rain felt cold and I was somewhat chilly, which I knew was not usual in that latitude.

June 19.

Very ill, and shivering, as if the weather had been cold.

June 20.

No rest all night. Violent pains in my head, and feverish.

June 21.

Very ill. Frightened almost to death with the apprehensions of my sad condition; to be sick, and no help. Pray’d to God for the first time since the storm off Hull. Scarce knew what I said or why, my thoughts being all confused.

June 22.

A little better, but under dreadful apprehensions of sickness. Crawled outside my pale for the first night of the moon, leaving my cloathes in a pile at the foot of my wall.

June 23.

Very bad again. Cold and shivering, and then a violent head-ache. The beast is upset by my illness, which would seem to take effect upon it as well, tho' not as bad as it does to me. This night it did little but howl at the moon, which frighten'd my young goat very much so.

June 24.

Much better. The beast did run and hunt this night, and kill'd one of the small hares and a goat. In my youthful experience, it had oft seem'd to me that the mantle of the beast could clear away many such illnesses and injuries, or lessen them at best. I bethought myself that I may have help for my sickness after all.

June 25.

An ague. The fit held me seven hours. Cold fit, and hot, with faint sweats after it. It would seem my help, that is to say, the beast, has left and my health is taken with it.

June 26.

Better. Having no victuals to eat, took my gun, but found myself very weak. However, I kill’d a she-goat and, with much difficulty, got it home and broiled some of it and ate. I would fain have stewed it and made some broth, but had no pot.

June 27.

The ague again, so violent I lay a-bed all day and neither ate nor drank. I was ready to perish for thirst, so weak I had not strength to stand up or to get myself any water to drink.

Prayed to God again, but was light-headed. When I was not, I was so ignorant I knew not what to say. I suppose I did nothing else for two or three hours till, the fit wearing off, I fell asleep and did not wake till far in the night. When I awoke, I found myself much refreshed but weak and exceeding thirsty. However, as I had no water in my whole habitation, I was forced to lie till morning, and went to sleep again. In this second sleep I had this terrible dream.

I thought I was sitting on the ground on the outside of my wall, where I sat when the storm blew after the earthquake, and I saw a thing rise from the sea beneath a great black cloud and light upon the shore. He, for I somehow knew it to be male, was all over as dark as pitch and projected from him a terrible wrongness, so I could but just bear to look towards him. His countenance was most inexpressibly dreadful, impossible for words to describe, with a beard of thick ropes of flesh, like those of a cuttel fish, and cold eyes that bit at the skin like winter wind. When he stepped upon the shore with his broad feet the island trembled, just as it had done before in the earthquake, and all the air looked, to my apprehension, as if it had been fill’d with flashes of fire.

He had no sooner lighted upon the shore but his wrongness spread out across the island as ripples spread across a pool of water, and every hill became changed and every stone black and unnatural. He moved forward towards me, and he did tower so high he looked down upon me and seem'd to cover leagues with each step. When he came to a rising ground, still enormous at some distance, he spoke to me, or I heard a voice so terrible it is impossible to express the terror of it. All I can say I understood, was this:

"Robinson Crusoe. There you are. Seeing all these things have not brought thee to my service, now thou shalt die."

At which words he lifted up his great and terrible hand to kill me. A terrible howl filled the air, and it was somehow made known to me, as is the way of dreams, that this was the beast, which also fear'd this great dark lord, but rally'd against him as well. At this point I start'd awake, though my heart did race in terror, and for some time I could not believe the dream was not a true thing I had remembered.

No one that shall ever read this account will expect I should be able to describe the horrors of my soul at this terrible vision. I mean, even while it was a dream, I even dreamed of those horrors. Nor is it any more possible to describe the impression that remained upon my mind when I awaked and found it was but a dream.

I had, alas! no divine knowledge. What I had received by the good instruction of my father was then worn out by an uninterrupted series of seafaring wickedness and a constant conversation with none but such as were, like myself, wicked and profane to the last degree. I do not remember I had, in all that time, one thought that so much as tended either to looking upward towards God or inward towards a reflection upon my own ways. A certain stupidity of soul, without desire of good, or consciousness of evil, had overwhelmed me. I was all the most hardened, unthinking, wicked creature among our common sailors can be supposed to be, not having the least sense either of the fear of God in danger or of thankfulness to him in deliverances.

Even when I was, on due consideration, made sensible of my condition, how I was cast on this dreadful place, out of the reach of human kind, out of all prospect of redemption, as soon as I saw but a prospect of living, and that I should not starve and perish for hunger, all the sense of my affliction wore off. These were thoughts which very seldom entered into my head.

But now, when I began to be sick, and a leisure view of the miseries of death came to place itself before me, when my spirits began to sink under the burden of a strong distemper, and nature was exhausted with the violence of the fever, conscience, that had slept so long, began to awake. I reproached myself with my past life, in which I had, by uncommon wickedness, invited dark creatures unto my soul which God in his vindictiveness did allow.

It is good that I mention some may find the beast to be a dark creature, and it is a wild and vicious one, but in truth it is a part of nature, as has my father often taught all his sons, and as his father taught him.

These reflections oppressed me for the second or third day of my distemper. In the violence, as well of the fever as of the dreadful terror of my dream, extorted from me some words like praying to God. Tho’ I cannot say it was a prayer attended either with desires or with hopes. It was rather the voice of mere fright and distress. It was exclamation, such as, "Lord, what a miserable creature am I! What will become of me?" Then the tears burst out of my eyes, and I could say no more for a good while.

In this interval, the good advice of my father came to my mind, and his prediction which I mentioned at the beginning of this story. "Now," said I, aloud, "my dear father's words are come to pass. God's justice has overtaken me, and I have none to help or hear me. I rejected the voice of Providence, which had mercifully put me in a station of life wherein I might have been happy and easy. I would neither see it myself, nor learn from my parents to know the blessing of it. I left them to mourn over my folly, and now I am left to mourn under the consequences of it."

This was the first prayer, if I may call it so, I had made for many years.

But I return to my Journal.

June 28.

Having been somewhat refreshed with the sleep I had had, and the fit being entirely off, I got up. Tho’ the fright and terror of my dream was very great, yet I considered the fit of the ague would return again the next day, and now was my time to get something to refresh and support myself when I should be ill. The first thing I did was to fill a large square case-bottle with water and set it upon my table in reach of my bed. To take off the chill or aguish disposition of the water, I put about a quarter of a pint of rum into it and mixed them together, which the sailors call grog. Then I got me a piece of goat's flesh, and broiled it on the coals, but could eat very little. I walked about but was very weak and withal very sad and heavy-hearted under a sense of my miserable condition, dreading the return of my distemper the next day and a return of the dream if I slept. At night, I made my supper of three of the turtle's eggs, which I roasted in the ashes and ate in the shell.

After I had eaten, I tried to walk, but found myself so weak I could hardly carry the gun, for I never went out without that. So I went but a little way and sat down upon the ground, looking out upon the sea, which was just before me, and very calm and smooth. It did appear in my thoughts that this was the same place I had sat for the earthquake and the same place I also sat during my most horrible dream.

As I sat here, some such thoughts as these occurred to me. What was the awful dream lord which still darken'd my mood so? Whence did such a vision produce from? Did the beast truly see this dark lord, or was that meerly part of the dream as well? Surely some secret power was having influence over me. And who is that?

It did come to my mind that this power was guilt, or riding upon my guilt the way one would ride a horse. The death of the mate still hung heavy in my thoughts, and as guilty as his death made me was that I, who considered myself good among men, had not even made clear to learn or remember his name, a point I had not put to words before. Truly was I a wretch, and the beast as thrice-damned as the church did teach. Could there be another reason God had seen fit to have this banishment befall me?

However, I then bethought myself that if God guides and governs all his creations, and all things that concern them, for the power that could make all things must have power to guide and direct them, nothing can happen in the great circuit of his works either without his knowledge or appointment. How, then, did this come to pass? If I was a wretch and the beast thrice-damned, why were we not long ago destroyed? Why was I not drown'd in Yarmouth Roads, kill'd in the fight when the ship was taken by the Sallee pirates, or devoured by the wild creatures of Africk? Why was I not allowed to throw myself from the rail
here
when all the crew perish'd but myself?

I was struck dumb with these reflections, as one astonished, and had not a word to say. Rising up pensive, I walked back to my retreat and went over my wall, as if I had been going to bed. But my thoughts were many, and I had no inclination to sleep. So I sat down in the chair and lighted my lamp, for it began to be dark.

Now, as the apprehension of the return of my distemper and the dreams it brought terrified me very much, it occurred to my thought that the Brasilians took no physic but their tobacco for almost all distempers. I had a piece of a roll of tobacco in one of the chests, which was quite cured, and some also that was green and not quite cured.

I went directed by Heaven no doubt, for in this chest I found a cure both for soul and body. I opened the chest and found what I looked for, viz. the tobacco. As the few books I had saved lay there too, I took out one of the Bibles which I mentioned before and which to this time I had not found leisure, or so much as inclination, to look into. I took it out and brought both that and the tobacco with me to the table.

What use to make of the tobacco I knew not, as to my distemper, nor whether it was good for it or not. I try’d several experiments with it, as if I was resolv’d it should hit one way or other.