The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe (31 page)

"He not want fight you, master," said Friday, who still stood at my side. "He want fight the beast. You here, the beast here, is challenge."

I look'd up at the night sky and the crescent moon above us, and ask'd Friday if he thought the great wolf would let us come back in two weeks, but my man did not laugh.

The wolf howled again, and a most frightful thing then happen'd. Deep under my skin, the beast stirr'd and woke. I cast my gaze upon the crescent moon again and tried to calm the dark thing in my soul, but it was to no avail. The wolf somehow saw the beast within my flesh and wish'd to fight, and the beast had look'd out thru my eyes and accept'd the challenge. Once before leaving the island I had set it free on a night not of the moon. Now it forced the change upon me the way one forces a ship against the current.

I threw off my gloves even as Friday helped me from my cloak and coats, for he saw the mantle of the beast settling upon me. Our companions did question my methods as I stripp'd off my cloathes, but then the beast was near enough they grew silent, except for one merchant's servant who did scream like a child, and was soon joined by the screams of all of them, and a sharp hiss from my man Friday.

For as I remov'd the cloathes I hated so, the great wolf reared back and stood on its hind legs like a man, and I saw knuckles where it had seem'd to have paws. And as the hood fell across my senses, my last clear thought was that I knew the thing that had call'd out the beast.

The fight was a brutal thing, and so much of it I saw thru the smok'd lens. The other, the
loup garou
, to use the French word for it, had years of strength and animal cunning. It hurt the beast as nothing ever had, and the beast grew more and more savage for it. For a moment I saw my man Friday, who lunged in at the
loup garou
with his wooden sword, but the beast lashed out at him, driving him back. This was its fight, and none other would rob it of victory. It was a deep challenge, a savage challenge, and soon all I could discern was pain and blood, tooth and claw, and flesh and howls.

I awoke with blood in my mouth which was not my own, and it did taste sharp and warm and sweet all at once. I spat it out as one does foul food.

The pack was gone. A last few wolves stood to watch me stand, and whimper'd at my stare, and fled to the wood with their tails down.

The rest of our company was dead or gone, with only three unaccount'd for. I never saw or heard word of them again, nor did I know if they escaped the wood. Nor did I care.

In the snow across from me was the uncloathed body of an old man, his throat torn away by savage teeth. His face was long and dirty, his beard thick and matted. It was a face that had not been made use of in many, many a long year. Not since long before my first voyage at sea. I look'd upon him and saw the high cheeks and strong nose of my father, while the dull eyes were the round ones I remember always on the face of my mother.

Friday was dead.

My man lay in the snow, his eyes wide to the night sky and his great wooden sword by his hand. A mighty cut had lain him open and spillt his innards, and tho' I tried hard to tell myself it was the work of the
loup garou
, I recalled the beast's great anger at having its challenge interrupted.

And as I held my man there on the plains of Languedoc and the tears fell from my eyes, I knew how damned and accursed I was, I who all in one night had kill'd the most loyal servant and friend ever known, and his own years-lost brother.

In about three hours more I dragg'd my cold self to the town where we were to lodge, which I found in a terrible fright and all in arms. It seemed the night before the wolves had broke into the village and put them in such terror they were oblig'd to keep guard night and day, but especially in the night, to preserve their cattle, and, indeed, their people. None questioned my tale of the pack which had kill'd my companions, or asked of the great wooden sword I clutch'd to my bosom.

I was oblig'd to take a new guide here and go through Thoulouse to Gévaudan, where I found a warm climate, a fruitful pleasant country, and no snow, no wolves, nor any thing like them. When I told my story at Gévaudan, with certain restrictions, viz. my own nature and the fate of my friend and my companions, they told us it was nothing but what was ordinary in the great forest at the foot of the mountains when the snow lay on the ground. They inquired much what kind of a guide we had got, who would venture to bring us that way in such a severe season, and told us it was surprising even I escaped not devoured. When I told them how we placed ourselves, and the horses in the middle, they blamed us and told me it was fifty to one but we had been all destroyed. It was the sight of the horses which made the wolves so furious. At other times, they are afraid of a gun, but being excessive hungry, and raging on that account, the eagerness to come at the horses had made them senseless of danger. They told me if we had stood all together and left our horses, the wolves would have been so eager to have devoured the horses we might have come off safe, having our fire-arms in our hands, and being so many in number. I could do naught but agree, and think to myself that very little could have gotten my friend off that mountain.

I have nothing uncommon to take notice of in my passage through France, nothing but what other travelers have given an account of, with much more advantage than I can. I spent a single moon in that country and then traveled from Gévaudan to Paris, and without any considerable stay came to Calais, and landed safe at Dover, the 14th of Jan. after having a severe cold season to travel in.

Having resolv’d to dispose of my plantation in the Brasils, I wrote to Captain Amaral at Lisbon. Having offered it to the two merchants, the survivors of my trustees, who lived in the Brasils, they accepted the offer.

And thus I have given the first part of a life of fortune and adventure. A life of Providence's chequer-work and of a variety which the world will seldom be able to show the like of.

Any one would think in this state of complicated good fortune and woes I was past running any more hazards, and so indeed I had been, if other circumstances had concur'd. But I was inured to a wandering life, had no family, nor many relations. Nor, however rich, had I contracted much acquaintance. Tho’ I had sold my estate in the Brasils, yet I could not keep that country out of my head and had a great mind to be upon the wing again. Especially I could not resist a strong inclination I had to see my island again, and to know how the villains had fared, and if the poor Spaniards were in being there.

Dear Amaral dissuaded me from it, and so far prevailed with me, that, for almost seven years, he prevented my running abroad before he went peacefully to meet his maker. During which time I took my two nephews into my care, tho' they had not received our family blood from my widowed sister, e'en though she had a she-beast of her own. The eldest, Richard Marsh, having something of his own, I bred up as a gentleman, and gave him a settlement of some addition to his estate, after my decease. The other, Ezekiel Marsh, I put out to a captain of a ship. After five years finding him a sensible, bold, enterprising young fellow, I put him into a good ship and sent him to sea. This young fellow afterwards drew me in, as old as I was, to farther adventures myself.

In the mean time, I in part settled myself here. First of all, I married a good woman, Guinevere, and had by her three children, two sons and one daughter, Lawrence, David, and dearest Katherine. All of these three did take on the family blood, and many good nights were spent teaching them as my father had taught me. They became very familiar with the beast, and it treated them as if they were its own pups, which they were, upon a fashion.

But my wife dying of consumption and my nephew, Ezekiel, coming home with good success from a voyage to Spain, my inclination to go abroad prevailed and engaged me to go in his ship as a private trader to the East Indies. This was in the year 1697.

In this voyage I visited my former home, the Island of Despair, and was both surprised and pleased to see all the men had survived and a full colony in place. I saw my old friend Olegario and the Spaniards, had the whole story of their lives, and of the mutineers I left there. How at first, influenced by the island, they insulted the poor Spaniards, how they afterwards agreed, disagreed, united, separated, and how at last the Spaniards were oblig'd to use violence with them. It was a history, if it were entered into, as full of variety and wonderful accidents as my own part. Particularly also as to their battles with the savages, who landed several times upon the island to reclaim their dark church, and as to the improvement they made upon the island itself. How five of them made an attempt upon the main land and brought away eleven men and five women prisoners. At my coming, I found about twenty young children on the island, and all of them did have the dusky skin and dark eyes of their mothers.

Here I stayed about 20 days, and even the beast was pleased to run cross its hills and thru its savannahs again, tho' it staid clear of the dark church, which still stood and was avoided by all, or so I was oft told. I left Olegario and his people supplies of all necessary things and two workmen which I brought from England with me, a carpenter and a smith. And upon the shore of my old creek I did bury the wooden sword I had carried with me all these years, and shed more than a few tears for my dear man Friday, who I miss'd even more being here again.

Having settled all things with them, and engaged them not to leave the place, I left them there, 'tho the next few years of the island were filled with many adventures of much interest. All these things, with an account how 300 savages came and invaded for their dark church, and how they brought monstrous things with them, and how the dream god did extend his influence to my nephew's youngest child, and with some very surprising new adventures of my own, I shall give a farther account of in another volume.

END OF VOL.I.