The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe (2 page)

I observ’d, in this last part of his discourse, the tears run down his face very plentifully, especially when he spoke of my brother who was kill’d. When he spoke of my having none to assist me, he was so moved he broke off the discourse and told me his heart was so full he could say no more to me.

I was sincerely affected with this discourse, as indeed who could be otherwise? I resolv’d not to think of going abroad any more, but to settle at home according to my father's desire. But, alas! a few days wore it all off. In short, to prevent any of my father's further importunities, a few weeks after I resolv’d to run quite away from him.

It was not till almost a year after this I broke loose, tho’ in the mean time I continued deaf to all proposals of settling to business, and frequently expostulated with my father and mother about their being so determined against what they knew my inclinations prompted me to. Being one day at Hull, where I went casually, and without any purpose of making an elopement at that time, one of my companions, Jakob Martense, then going by sea to London, in his father's ship, prompted me to go with them with the common allurement of seafaring men-- it should cost me nothing for my passage.

I consulted neither father nor mother any more, not so much as sent them word of it, leaving them to hear of it as they might. In an ill hour, God knows, on the first of September, 1651, the day after the last night of the moon, I went on board a ship bound for London.

Never any young adventurer's misfortunes, I believe, began sooner or continued longer than mine. The ship was no sooner gotten out of the Humber but the wind began to blow and the waves to rise in a most frightful manner. As I had never been at sea before, I was most inexpressibly sick in body and terrified in mind. I began now seriously to reflect upon what I had done, and how I was overtaken by the judgment of Heaven for leaving my father's house and abandoning my duty. All the good counsel of my parents, my father's tears and my mother's entreaties, came now fresh into my mind. My conscience reproached me with the breach of my duty to my father.

All this while the storm encreas’d and the sea went very high, tho’ nothing like what I have seen many times since. But it was enough to affect me then, for I was but a young sailor. I expected every wave would have swallowed us up, and every time the ship fell down in the trough or hollow of the sea I thought we should never rise more.

In this agony of mind I made many vows and resolutions. If it would please God here to spare my life this one voyage, if ever I got once my foot upon dry land again, I would go directly home to my father, and never set it into a ship again while I liv’d. Now I saw plainly the goodness of his observations about the middle station of life. How easy, how comfortably he had liv'd all his days and nights, and never had been exposed to tempests at sea or troubles on shore. I resolv’d I would, like a true repenting prodigal, go home to my father.

But the next day, as the wind was abated and the sea calmer, I began to be a little inured to it. The sun went down clear and rose so the next morning. I had slept well in the night and was now no more sea-sick, but very cheerful, looking with wonder upon the sea that was so rough and terrible the day before, yet could be so calm and so pleasant in a little time after.

And now my companion, Jakob, who had indeed enticed me away, came to me and said, "Well, Bob," clapping me on the shoulder, "how do you do after it? I warrant you were frightened, wa'n't you, last night, when it blew but a cap-full of wind?"

"A cap-full do you call it?” said I. "It was a terrible storm."

"A storm, you fool," replied he, "do you call that a storm? Why it was nothing at all. Give us but a good ship and sea-room and we think nothing of such a squall of wind as that. But you're but a fresh-water sailor, Bob. Come, let us make a bowl of punch and we'll forget all that. Do you see what charming weather it is now?"

To make short this sad part of my story, we went the old way of all sailors. The punch was made, I was made drunk with it, and in one night's wickedness I drowned all my repentance and all my resolutions for my future. I had, in five or six days, got as complete a victory over conscience as any young fellow who resolv’d not to be troubled with it could desire.

But I was to have another trial for it still, and Providence resolv’d to leave me entirely without excuse. For if I would not take this for a deliverance, the next was to be such a one as the worst and most hardened wretch among us would confess both the danger and the mercy.

The sixth day of our being at sea we came into Yarmouth Roads. The wind having been contrary and the weather calm, we had made but little way since the storm. Here we were obliged to come to anchor and here we lay, the wind continuing contrary for seven or eight days, during which a great many ships from Newcastle came into the same roads, as it was the common harbour where the ships might wait for a wind for the River.

We had not, however, rid here so long but the wind blew too fresh, and after we had lain four or five days, blew very hard. However, the Roads being reckon’d as good as a harbour, and our ground tackle very strong, our men were unconcerned. But the eighth day in the morning the wind increased. We had all hands at work to strike our top-masts and make every thing snug and close so that the ship might ride as easy as possible. By noon the sea went very high indeed. Our ship rode forecastle in and we thought once or twice our anchor had come home, upon which our master ordered out the sheet anchor. So we rode with two anchors a-head and the cables veer’d out to the better end.

By this time it blew a terrible storm indeed, and now I began to see terror and amazement in the faces even of the seamen themselves. The master, tho’ vigilant in the business of preserving the ship, yet as he went in and out of his cabin by me I could hear him softly say to himself several times, “God, be merciful to us! We shall be all lost. We shall be all undone!” So soft were his words that the Lord's name came to my ears as "Gon," though I knew it was not.

During these first hurries I cannot describe my temper. I could ill reassume the first penitence which I had so trampled upon. I thought the bitterness of death had been past, and this would be nothing like the first. But when the master himself came by me, as I said just now, and said we should be all lost, I was dreadfully frighted. I looked out, but such a dismal sight I never saw.

The sea went mountains high and broke upon us every three or four minutes, and in the deep water tween the waves I glimpsed great shapes, like pale eels, each the size and length of a goodly cottage. Our men cried out a ship which rid about a mile a-head of us was overrun by shoggoths, which I took to mean the high waves. Two more ships, being driven from their anchors, were run out of the roads to sea with not a mast standing.

Towards evening, the mate and boatswain begged the master of our ship to let them cut away the fore-mast, which he was very unwilling to do, but the boatswain protested to him if he did not the ship would founder. He consented, and when they had cut away the fore-mast the main-mast stood so loose and shook the ship so much they were obliged to cut her away also and make a clear deck.

Anyone may judge what a condition I was in at all this, who was but a young sailor. But if I can express the thoughts I had about me, I was in tenfold more horror of mind upon account of my former convictions, and having returned from them, than I was at death itself. These, added to the terror of the storm, put me in such a condition I can by no words describe it.

But the worst was not come yet. The storm continued with such fury the seamen themselves acknowledged they had never known a worse. We had a good ship, but she was deep laden and wallowed in the sea. The seamen every now and then cried out she would fall to the shoggoths. It was my advantage, in one respect, that I did not know what they meant by shoggoths. However, the storm was so violent, I saw what is not often seen; the master, the boatswain, and some others more sensible than the rest, at their prayers, though the words and language of their prayers were unknown to me. When the boatswain saw me intruding upon their time with their Lord and master, I was given a heated glare and sent away.

In the middle of the night one of the men cried out we had sprung a leak. All hands were called to the pump. At that very word my heart died within me and I fell backwards upon the side of my bed where I sat. However, the men roused me and told me I who was able to do nothing was as well able to pump as another. I stirred up and went to the pump and worked very heartily.

While this was doing, the master, seeing some light colliers who would not come near us, ordered us to fire a gun as a signal of distress. I was so surprised I thought the ship had broke or some dreadful thing had happened. We worked on but it was apparent the ship would founder. Tho’ the storm began to abate a little, it was not possible she could swim till we might run into a port, so the master continued firing guns for help. A light ship who had rid it out just ahead of us ventured a boat out to help. It was with the utmost hazard the boat came near us, till at last the men rowed very heartily, and ventured their lives to save ours. Our men cast them a rope over the stern which they took hold of. We hauled them close under our stern and got all into their boat.

We were not much more than a quarter of an hour out of our ship but we saw her sink. Then I understood for the first time what was meant by shoggoths. I must acknowledge I had hardly eyes to look up when the seamen told me she was overrun. The shapes, like pale worms or catter-pillers, tore at the hull and twisted upon the deck. From that moment, my heart was dead within me, partly with fright, partly with horror of mind, and the thoughts of what was yet before me. They rode the ship beneath the waves, and the boatswain said another prayer to the Lord, whom he also muttered as "--Gon."

While we were in this condition, the men yet labouring at the oar to bring the boat near the shore, we could see a great many people running along the strand to assist us. We made slow way towards the shore, nor were we able to reach it till, being past the light-house at Winterton, the shore falls off to the westward so the land broke off a little of the violence of the wind. Here we got all safe on shore and walked afterwards on foot to Yarmouth, where, as unfortunate men, we were met with great humanity by the magistrates of the town, who assign’d us good quarters and had money given us sufficient to carry us either to London or back to Hull, as we thought fit.

But my ill fate pushed me on now with an obstinacy nothing could resist. Tho’ I had several times loud calls from my reason to go back to Hull, I had no power to do it, even with the moon a week upon me. Certainly, nothing but some such decreed, unavoidable misery which was impossible for me to escape could have pushed me forward against the calm reasonings and persuasions of my most retired thoughts, and against two such visible instructions as I had met with in my first attempt.

My comrade, Jakob, who had helped to harden me before, and who was the master's son, was now less forward. The first time he spoke to me after we were at Yarmouth, which was not till two or three days, for we were separated in the town to several quarters, it appeared his tone was altered. Shaking his head, he asked me how I did, telling his father who I was and how I had come this voyage only for a trial, in order to go farther abroad.

Master Martenese turn’d to me with a very grave and concerned tone. “Young man,” said he, “you ought never to go to sea any more. You ought to take this for a plain and visible token you are not to be a seafaring man.”

“Why, Sir,” said I, “will you go to sea no more?”

“That is another case,” said he. “It is my calling, and therefore my duty. But as you made this voyage for a trial, you see what a taste Heaven has given you of what you are to expect if you persist. Perhaps this has all befallen us on your account, like Jonah in the ship of Tarshish. Pray,” continued he, “what are you, and on what account did you go to sea?”

Upon that I started that he may be experienc’d in the ways of knowing the beast in mortal form, for it was four days fore the first night of the moon and the signs were most definitely upon me. Yet I was not certain of his meaning, for he seem’d not afraid. So I told him but some of my story, of my defiance of my father, and of my inclinations against his wishes.

At the end he burst out with a strange kind of passion. "What had I done," says he, "that such an unhappy wretch should come into my ship? I would not set my foot in the same ship with thee again for a thousand pounds.” This indeed was, as I said, an excursion of his spirits, which were yet agitated by the sense of his loss, and was farther than he could have authority to go. However, he afterwards talked very gravely to me, exhorting me to go back to my father, and not tempt Providence to my ruin. "And young man," said he, "depend upon it, if you do not go back, wherever you go, you will meet with nothing but disasters and disappointments, till your father's words are fulfill’d upon you."

We parted soon after, for I made him little answer, and I saw Jakob and his father no more. As for me, having some money in my pocket, I traveled to London by land. On the road I had many struggles with myself. By the sun I dwelt on what course of life I should take, and whether I should go home, or go to sea. And by night, I let the beast come upon me as it has been wont to do since the first moon of my tenth year, and it kill’d many sheep and a cow.

I remained some time uncertain what course of life to lead. As I stayed a while, the remembrance of the distress I had been in wore off. As that abated, the little notion I had in my desires to a return wore off with it, till at last I quite laid aside the thoughts of it and looked out for a voyage.

That evil influence which carried me away from my father's house hurried me into the wild notion of raising my fortune, and impressed those conceits so forcibly upon me as to make me deaf to all good advice. I went on board a vessel bound to the coast of Africk, or, as our sailors call it, a voyage to Guinea.