The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe (17 page)

Within me the beast made many growls. The smell of flesh and blood excited it, as such things do, but it was also cow'd by the sight of this large totem. It did react to this place much as it had to the shadow'd valley I had found many years before and ne'er visited again.

I was so astonished with the sight of these things and the reactions of the beast, I entertain'd no notions of any danger to myself from it for a long while. All my apprehensions were buried in the thoughts of such a fearsome creature of the totem, the awful rituals perform'd before it, and the horror of the degeneracy of human nature, which, tho’ I had heard of it often, yet I never had so near a view of before. In short, I turned away my face from the horrid spectacle. My stomach grew sick, and I was just at the point of fainting when nature discharged the disorder from my stomach. Having vomited with uncommon violence, I was a little relieved, but could not bear to stay in the place a moment. I got me up the hill again with all the speed I could and walked on towards my own habitation.

When I came a little out of that part of the island, I stood still awhile, as amazed, and then recovering myself, I looked up with the utmost affection of my soul and gave God thanks that had cast my first lot in a part of the world where I was distinguished from such dreadful creatures as these. In this frame of thankfulness, I went home to my castle and began to be easier now as to the safety of my circumstances than ever I was before. I observ’d these wretches never came to this island in search of what they could get. Perhaps not seeking, not wanting, or not expecting any thing here aside from the performance of their awful customs and feast within their church, as I must think of it. I knew I had been here now almost eighteen years and never saw the least footsteps of human creature there before. I might be eighteen years more as concealed as I was now if I did not discover myself to them, which I had no manner of occasion to do.

Yet I entertain'd such an abhorrence of the savage wretches I have been speaking of, and of the wretched inhuman custom of their devouring and eating one another up, I continued pensive and sad and kept close within my own circle for almost two years after this. When I say my own circle, I mean by it my three plantations, viz. my castle, my country-seat, which I called my bower, and my enclosure in the woods. Nor did I look after this for any other use than as an enclosure for my goats. The aversion which nature gave me to these hellish wretches was such that I was as fearful of seeing them as of seeing the Devil himself. If I had happened to have fallen into their hands, I knew what would have been my lot.

Also within this time did my memories go back to little Poll, who died speaking awful words. The parrot did tell of a great dreamer who would feed upon my soul. And yet here had I not found a graven image of a thing from my dreams, the bearded dream lord, a thing which those who eat the bodies of men did worship as a saint or icon? Were the awful, unknowable words Poll spoke at his end the words of savages? The two things, viz. the dream lord and Poll's dire profesy, did seem surely link'd.

Time, however, and the satisfaction I was in no danger of being discovered by these people, began to wear off my uneasiness. I began to live just in the same composed manner as before, with this difference. I used more caution, and kept my eyes more about me than I did before, lest I should happen to be seen by any of them. Particularly I was more cautious of firing my gun, lest any of them being on the island should happen to hear it. It was therefore a very good providence to me I had furnished myself with a tame breed of goats, and I had no need to hunt any more about the woods. If I did catch any of them after this, it was by traps and snares, as I had done before. So for two years after this I believe I never fired my gun once off, tho’ I never went out without it. Which was more, as I had saved three pistols out of the ship, I always carried at least two of them out with me, sticking them in my goat-skin belt. I also furbish'd up one of the great cutlasses I had out of the ship, and made me a belt to hang it on. I was now a most formidable fellow to look at when I went abroad, if you add to the former description of myself the particular of two pistols, and a great broad-sword hanging at my side.

Things going on thus for some time, I seemed, excepting these cautions, to be reduced to my former calm sedate way of living. Even the beast still ran across the island, tho' now I was keenly aware that it never ran or hunt'd in the south-west point or in the shadow'd valley. All these things tended to show me, more and more, how far my condition was from being miserable compared to some others, even if it were not perfect.

As in my present condition there were not many things which I wanted, so, indeed, I thought the frights I had been in about these savage wretches, and the concern I had been in for my own preservation, had taken off the edge of my invention for my own conveniences. But my invention now ran quite another way. Night and day I could think of nothing but how I might destroy some of these monsters in their cruel, bloody ritual, and, if possible, save the victim they should bring hither to destroy. It would take up a larger volume than this whole work to set down all the contrivances I brooded upon for destroying these creatures, or at least frightening them so as to prevent their coming hither any more. But all this was abortive. Nothing could be possible to take effect unless I was to be there to do it myself. And what could one man do among them, when perhaps there might be twenty or thirty of them together, with their darts or their bows and arrows, with which they could shoot as true to a mark as I could with my gun? Even the beast would be hard press'd against such numbers, tho' their weapons could do naught to kill it.

Sometimes I thought of digging a hole under the place where they made their fire, and putting in five or six pounds of gunpowder, which, when they kindled their fire, would take fire and blow up all that was near it. But as, in the first place, I should be unwilling to waste so much powder upon them, my store being now within the quantity of one barrel, so neither could I be sure of its going off at any certain time when it might surprise them. At best it would do little more than just blow the fire about their ears and fright them, but not sufficient to make them forsake the place.

So I laid it aside and then proposed I would place myself in ambush in some convenient place, with my three guns all double-loaded, and in the middle of their bloody ceremony let fly at them, when I should be sure to kill or wound perhaps two or three at every shot. Then falling in upon them with my three pistols and my sword, I made no doubt but if there were twenty I should kill them all. This fancy pleased my thoughts for some weeks.

I went so far with it in my imagination, I employed myself several days to find out proper places to put myself in ambuscade, as I said, to watch for them. I went to the dark church itself, which was now grown more familiar to me. But while my mind was thus fill’d with thoughts of revenge, and a bloody putting twenty or thirty of them to the sword, as I may call it, the unease I had at the place abetted my malice.

Well, at length I found a place in the side of the hill where I was satisfied I might wait till I saw any of their boats coming. There was a hollow large enough to conceal me. There I might sit and observe all their bloody doings and take my full aim at their heads when they were so close together as it would be next to impossible I should miss my shot, or that I could fail wounding three or four of them at the first shot.

After I had thus laid the scheme of my design, and, in my imagination put it in practice, I made my tour every morning up to the top of the hill, which was from my castle about three miles, to see if I could observe any boats upon the sea coming near the island or standing over towards it. But I began to tire of this hard duty after I had, for two or three months, constantly kept my watch but came always back without any discovery. There was not, in all that time, the least appearance, not only on or near the shore but on the whole ocean, so far as my eyes or glasses could reach every way.

As long as I kept my daily tour to the hill to look out, my spirits seemed to be all the while in a suitable form for so outrageous an execution as the killing of twenty or thirty naked savages. But now, when I began to be weary of the fruitless excursion which I had made so far every morning in vain, so my opinion of the action itself began to alter. I began, with cooler and calmer thoughts which enter’d my mind, to consider what I was going to engage in.

What authority or call had I to pretend to be judge and executioner upon these men as criminals, whom Heaven had thought fit, for so many ages, to suffer to go on unpunished? I debated this very often with myself thus: How do I know what God himself judges in this particular case? It is certain these people do not commit this as a crime. They do not know it to be an offence and then commit it in defiance of divine justice, as we do in almost all the sins we commit. They think it no more a crime to kill a captive taken in war than we do to kill an ox, nor to eat human flesh than we do to eat mutton. Indeed, they were much as the beast in this manner.

When I considered this a little, it followed that I was certainly in the wrong in it. These people were not murderers in the sense I had before condemned them in my thoughts, any more than the beast was a murderer for what it had done. It had a fine animal mind, but still animal, with no understanding of sin or crime or justice. That it kill'd the mate was indeed an awful thing, but it was not an evil thing. As I have oft said before, the beast is not evil. Indeed, if it were, should I have not put myself, and it, to death to punish it? No! I had been satisfied to leave it here, where it enjoyed freedom with no danger to others.

These considerations put me to a pause. I began, by little and little, to be off my design, and to conclude I had taken wrong measures in my resolution to attack the savages. It was not my business to meddle with them unless they first attacked me, and this it was my business, if possible, to prevent. If I were discovered and attacked by them I knew my duty.

On the other hand, I argued with myself, this was the way to ruin and destroy myself. Unless I was sure to kill every one that not only should be on shore at that time, but that should ever come on shore afterwards, if but one of them escaped to tell their country-people what had happened, they would come over again by thousands to revenge the death of their fellow.

Upon the whole, I concluded, that neither in principle nor in policy I ought to concern myself in this affair. My business was, by all possible means, to conceal myself from them and not to leave the least signal to them to guess by that there were any living creatures upon the island of human shape.

In this disposition I continued for near a year after this. So far was I from desiring an occasion for falling upon these wretches in all that time, I never once went up the hill to see whether there were any of them in sight, or to know whether any of them had been on shore there or not, that I might not be tempted to renew any of my contrivances against them. I kept myself more retired than ever and seldom went from my cell. Certain it is these savage people who sometimes haunted this island never came with any thoughts of finding any thing here aside from their great totem, and consequently never wandered off from the coast. I doubt not but they might have been several times on shore after my apprehensions of them had made me cautious, as well as before. Indeed, I looked back with some horror upon the thoughts of what my condition would have been if I had chopped upon them and been discovered before that, when, naked and unarmed, except with one gun, and that loaded often only with small shot, I walked every where, peering about the island to see what I could get. What a surprise should I have been in if, when I discovered the print of a man's foot, I had instead seen fifteen or twenty cannibals and found them pursuing me!

I believe the reader of this will not think it strange if I confess these anxieties, these constant dangers I lived in, and the concern that was now upon me, put an end to all invention and to all the contrivances I had laid for my future accommodations and conveniences. I had the care of my safety more now upon my hands than that of my food. I cared not to drive a nail or chop a stick of wood for fear the noise I might make should be heard. Much less would I fire a gun. Above all, I was uneasy at making any fire, lest the smoke, which is visible at a great distance in the day, should betray me. For this reason I removed that part of my business which required fire into my new apartment in the woods. After some time I found, to my unspeakable consolation, a meer natural cave in the earth which went in a vast way and where, I dare say, no savage, had he been at the mouth of it, would be so hardy as to venture in. Nor would any man else, but one who, like me, wanted nothing so much as a safe retreat.

The place was a most delightful cavity or grotto of its kind, as could be expected, tho’ perfectly dark. The floor was dry and level and had a sort of a small loose gravel upon it, so there was no nauseous or venomous creature to be seen, neither was there any damp or wet on the sides or roof. The only difficulty in it was the entrance. However, as it was a place of security, and such a retreat as I wanted, I thought that was a convenience. I was rejoiced at the discovery and resolv’d, without any delay, to bring some of those things which I was most anxious about to this place. Particularly, I resolv’d to bring hither my magazine of powder and all my spare arms. I kept at my castle only seven, which stood ready-mounted, like pieces of cannon, on my outmost fence, and were ready also to take out upon any expedition. I carried all away thither, never keeping above two or three pounds of powder with me in my castle, for fear of a surprise of any kind. I also carried thither all the lead I had left for bullets.

I fancy'd myself now like one of the ancient giants which were said to live in caves in the rocks where none could come at them. For I persuaded myself, while I was here, if five hundred savages were to hunt me, they could never find me out. If they did, they would not venture to attack me here.