_ CHAPTER VIII. MAKING THE BEST OF IT
After his return in the dinghy Robert decided that he would have some fresh beef and also a little sport. Although the island contained no indigenous wild animals of any size, there were the wild cattle, and he had seen they were both long of horn and fierce. If he courted peril he might find it in hunting them, and in truth he rather wanted a little risk. There was such an absence of variety in his life, owing to the lack of human companionship, that an attack by a maddened bull, for instance, would add spice to it. The rifle would protect him from any extreme danger.
He knew he was likely to find cattle near the larger lake, and, as he had expected, he saw a herd of almost fifty grazing there on a flat at the eastern edge. Two fierce old bulls with very long, sharp horns were on the outskirts, as if they were mounting guard, while the cows and calves were on the inside near the lake.
Robert felt sure that the animals, although unharried by man, would prove wary. For the sake of sport he hoped that it would be so, and, using all the skill that he had learned in his long association with Willet and Tayoga, he crept down through the woods. The bulls would be too tough, and as he wanted a fat young cow it would be necessary for him to go to the very edge of the thickets that hemmed in the little savanna on which they were grazing.
The wind was blowing from him toward the herd and the bulls very soon took alarm, holding up their heads, sniffing and occasionally shaking their formidable horns. Robert picked a fat young cow in the grass almost at the water's edge as his target, but stopped a little while in order to disarm the suspicion of the wary old guards. When the two went back to their pleasant task of grazing he resumed his cautious advance, keeping the fat young cow always in view.
Now that he had decided to secure fresh beef, he wanted it very badly, and it seemed to him that the cow would fulfill all his wants. A long experience in the wilderness would show him how to prepare juicy and tender steaks. Eager to replenish his larder in so welcome a way, he rose and crept forward once more in the thicket.
The two bulls became suspicious again, the one on the right, which was the larger, refusing to have his apprehension quieted, and advancing part of the way toward the bushes, where he stood, thrusting forward angry horns. His attitude served as a warning for the whole herd, which, becoming alarmed, began to move.
Robert was in fear lest they rush away in a panic, and so he took a long shot at the cow, bringing her down, but failing to kill her, as she rose after falling and began to make off. Eager now to secure his game he drew the heavy pistol that he carried at his belt, and, dropping his rifle, rushed forward from the thicket for a second shot.
The cow was not running fast. Evidently the wound was serious, but Robert had no mind for her to escape him in the thickets, and he pursued her until he could secure good aim with the pistol. Then he fired and had the satisfaction of seeing the cow fall again, apparently to stay down this time.
But his satisfaction was short. He heard a heavy tread and an angry snort beside him. He caught the gleam of a long horn, and as he whirled the big bull was upon him. He leaped aside instinctively and escaped the thrust of the horn, but the bull whirled also, and the animal's heavy shoulder struck him with such force that he was knocked senseless.
When Robert came to himself he was conscious of an aching body and an aching head, but he recalled little else at first. Then he remembered the fierce thrusts of the angry old bull, and he was glad that he was alive. He felt of himself to see if one of those sharp horns had entered him anywhere, and he was intensely relieved to find that he had suffered no wound. Evidently it had been a collision in which he had been the sufferer, and that he had fallen flat had been a lucky thing for him, as the fierce bull had charged past him and had then gone on.
Robert was compelled to smile sourly at himself. He had wanted the element of danger as a spice for his hunting, and he had most certainly found it. He had been near death often, but never nearer than when the old bull plunged against him. He rose slowly and painfully, shook himself several times to throw off as well as he could the effect of his heavy jolt, then picked up his rifle at one point and his pistol at another.
The herd was gone, but the cow that he had chosen lay dead, and, as her condition showed him that he had been unconscious not more than five minutes, there was his fresh beef after all. As his strength was fast returning, he cut up and dressed the cow, an achievement in which a long experience in hunting had made him an expert. He hung the quarters in a dense thicket of tall bushes where vultures or buzzards could not get at them, and took some of the tenderest steaks home with him.
He broiled the steaks over a fine bed of coals in front of the house and ate them with bread that he baked himself from the ship's flour. He enjoyed his dinner and he was devoutly grateful for his escape. But how much pleasanter it would have been if Willet and Tayoga, those faithful comrades of many perils, were there with him to share it! He wondered what they were doing. Doubtless they had hunted for him long, and they had suspected and sought to trace Garay, but the cunning spy doubtless had fled from Albany immediately after his capture. Willet and Tayoga, failing to find him, would join in the great campaign which the British and Americans would certainly organize anew against Canada.
It was this thought of the campaign that was most bitter to Robert. He was heart and soul in the war, in which he believed mighty issues to be involved, and he had seen so much of it already that he wanted to be in it to the finish. When these feelings were strong upon him it was almost intolerable to be there upon the island, alone and helpless. All the world's great events were passing him by as if he did not exist. But the periods of gloom would not last long. Despite his new gravity, his cheerful, optimistic spirit remained, and it always pulled him away from the edge of despair.
Although he had an abundance of fresh meat, he went on a second hunt of the wild cattle in order to keep mind and body occupied. He wanted particularly to find the big bull that had knocked him down, and he knew that he would recognize him when he found him. He saw a herd grazing on the same little savanna by the lake, but when he had stalked it with great care he found that it was not the one he wanted.
A search deeper into the hills revealed another herd, but still the wrong one. A second day's search disclosed the right group grazing in a snug little valley, and there was the big bull who had hurt so sorely his body and his pride. A half hour of creeping in the marsh grass and thickets and he was within easy range. Then he carefully picked out that spot on the bull's body beneath which his heart lay, cocked his rifle, took sure aim, and put his finger to the trigger.
But Robert did not pull that trigger. He merely wished to show to himself and to any invisible powers that might be looking on that he could lay the bull in the dust if he wished. If he wanted revenge for grievous personal injury it was his for the taking. But he did not want it. The bull was not to blame. He had merely been defending his own from a dangerous intruder and so was wholly within his rights.
"Now that I've held you under my muzzle you're safe from me, old fellow," were Robert's unspoken words.
He felt that his dignity was restored and that, at the same time, his sense of right had been maintained. Elated, he went back to the house and busied himself, arranging his possessions. They were so numerous that he was rather crowded, but he was not willing to give up anything. One becomes very jealous over his treasures when he knows the source of supplies may have been cut off forever. So he rearranged them, trying to secure for himself better method and more room, and he also gave them a more minute examination.
In a small chest which he had not opened before he found, to his great delight, a number of books, all the plays of Shakespeare, several by Beaumont and Fletcher, others by Congreve and Marlowe, Monsieur Rollin's Ancient History, a copy of Telemachus, translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, Ovid, Horace, Virgil and other classics. Most of the books looked as if they had been read and he thought they might have belonged to the captain, but there was no inscription in any of them, and, on the other hand, they might have been taken from a captured ship.
With plenty of leisure and a mind driven in upon itself, Robert now read a great deal, and, as little choice was left to him, he read books that he might have ignored otherwise. Moreover, he thought well upon what he read. It seemed to him as he went over his Homer again and again that the gods were cruel. Men were made weak and fallible, and then they were punished because they failed or erred. The gods themselves were not at all exempt from the sins, or, rather, mistakes for which they punished men. He felt this with a special force when he read his Ovid. He thought, looking at it in a direct and straight manner, that Niobe had a right to be proud of her children, and for Apollo to slay them because of that pride was monstrous.
His mind also rebelled at his Virgil. He did not care much for the elderly lover, AEneas, who fled from Carthage and Dido, and when AEneas and his band came to Italy his sympathies were largely with Turnus, who tried to keep his country and the girl that really belonged to him. He was quite sure that something had been wrong in the mind of Virgil and that he ought to have chosen another kind of hero.
Shakespeare, whom he had been compelled to read at school, he now read of his own accord, and he felt his romance and poetry. But he lingered longer over the somewhat prosy ancient history of Monsieur Rollin. His imaginative mind did not need much of a hint to attempt the reconstruction of old empires. But he felt that always in them too much depended upon one man. When an emperor fell an empire fell, when a king was killed a kingdom went down.
He applied many of the lessons from those old, old wars to the great war that was now raging, and he was confirmed in his belief that England and her colonies would surely triumph. The French monarchy, to judge from all that he had heard, was now in the state of one of those old oriental monarchies, decayed and rotten, spreading corruption from a poisoned center to all parts of the body. However brave and tenacious the French people might be, and he knew that none were more so, he was sure they could not prevail over the strength of free peoples like those who fought under the British flag, free to grow, whatever their faults might be. So, old Monsieur Rollin, who had brought tedium to many, brought refreshment and courage to Robert.
But he did not bury himself in books. He had been a creature of action too long for that. He hunted the wild cattle over the hills, and, now and then, taking the dinghy he hunted the sharks also. Whenever he found one he did not spare the bullets. His finger did not stop at the trigger, but pulled hard, and he rarely missed.
But in spite of reading and action, time dragged heavily. The old loneliness and desolation would return and they were hard to dispel. He could not keep from crying aloud at the cruelty of fate. He was young, so vital, so intensely alive, so anxious to be in the middle of things, that it was torture to be held there. Yet he was absolutely helpless. It would be folly to attempt escape in the little dinghy, and he must wait until a ship came. He would spend hours every day on the highest hill, watching the horizon through his glasses for a ship, and then, bitter with disappointment, he would refuse to look again for a long time.
Whether his mind was up or down its essential healthiness and sanity held true. He always came back to the normal. Had he sought purposely to divest himself of hope he could not have done it. The ship was coming. Its coming was as certain as the rolling in of the tide, only one had to wait longer for it.
Yet time passed, and there was no sign of a sail on the horizon. His island was as lonely as if it were in the South Seas instead of the Atlantic. He began to suspect that it was not really a member of any group, but was a far flung outpost visited but rarely. Perhaps the war and its doubling the usual dangers of the sea would keep a ship of any kind whatever from visiting it. He refused to let the thought remain with him, suppressing it resolutely, and insisting to himself that such a pleasant little island was bound to have callers some time or other, some day.
But the weeks dragged by, and he was absolutely alone in his world. He had acquired so many stores from the schooner that life was comfortable. It even had a touch of luxury, and the struggle for existence was far from consuming all his hours. He found himself as time went on driven more and more upon his books, and he read them, as few have ever read anything, trying to penetrate everything and to draw from them the best lessons.
As a student, in a very real sense of the term, Robert became more reconciled to his isolation. His mind was broadening and deepening, and he felt that it was so. Many things that had before seemed a puzzle to him now became plain. He was compelled, despite his youth, to meditate upon life, and he resolved that when he took up its thread again among his kind he would put his new knowledge to the best of uses.
He noted a growth of the body as well as of the mind. An abundant and varied diet and plenty of rest gave him a great physical stimulus. It seemed to him that he was taller, and he was certainly heavier. Wishing to profit to the utmost, and, having a natural neatness, he looked after himself with great care, bathing inside the reefs once every day, and, whether there was work to be done or not, taking plenty of exercise.
He lost count of the days, but he knew that he was far into the autumn, that in truth winter must have come in his own and distant north. That thought at times was almost maddening. Doubtless the snow was already falling on the peaks that had seen so many gallant exploits by his comrades and himself, and on George and Champlain, the lakes so beautiful and majestic under any aspect. Those were the regions he loved. When would he see them again? But such thoughts, too, he crushed and saw only the ship that was to take him back to his own.
Some change in the weather came, and he was aware that the winter of the south was at hand. Yet it was not cold. There was merely a fresh sparkle in the air, a new touch of crispness. Low, gray skies were a relief, after so much blazing sunshine, and the cool winds whipped his blood to new life. The house had a fireplace and chimney and often he built a low fire, not so much for the sake of warmth as for the cheer that the sparkling blaze gave. Then he could imagine that he was back in his beloved province of New York. Now the snow was certainly pouring down there. The lofty peaks were hidden in clouds of white, and the ice was forming around the edges of Andiatarocte and Oneadatote. Perhaps Willet and Tayoga were scouting in the snowy forests, but they must often hang over the blazing fires, too.
The coldness without, the blaze on the hearth, and the warmth within increased his taste for reading and his comprehension seemed to grow also. He found new meanings in the classics and he became saturated also with style. His were the gifts of an orator, and it was often said in after years, when he became truly great, that his speech, in words, in metaphor and in illustration followed, or at least were influenced, by the best models. Some people found in him traces of Shakespeare, the lofty imagery and poetry and the deep and wide knowledge of human emotions, of life itself. Others detected the mighty surge of Homer, or the flow of Virgil, and a few discerning minds found the wit shown in the comedies of the Restoration, from which he had unconsciously plucked the good, leaving the bad.
It is but a truth to say that every day he lived in these days he lived a week or maybe a month. The stillness, the utter absence of his kind, drove his mind inward with extraordinary force. He gained a breadth of vision and a power of penetration of which he had not dreamed. He acquired toleration, too. Looking over the recent events in his perilous life, he failed to find hate for anybody. Perhaps untoward events had turned the slaver into his evil career, and at the last he had shown some good. The French were surely fighting for what they thought was their own, and they struck in order that they might not be struck. Tandakora himself was the creature of his circumstances. He hated the people of the English colonies, because they were spreading over the land and driving away the game. He was cruel because it was the Ojibway nature to be cruel. He would have to fight Tandakora, but it was because conditions had made it necessary.
His absorption as a student now made him forget often that he was alone, and there were long periods when he was not unhappy, especially when he was trying to solve some abstruse mental problem. He regretted sometimes that he did not have any book on mathematics, but perhaps it was as well for him that he did not. His mind turned more to the other side of life, to style, to poetry, to the imagination, and, now, as he was moving along the line of least resistance, under singularly favorable circumstances, he made extraordinary progress.
Heavy winds came and Robert liked them. He had plenty of warm clothing and it pleased him to walk on the beach, his face whipped by the gale, and to watch the great waves come in. It made him stronger to fight the storm. The response to its challenge rose in his blood. It was curious, but at such times his hope was highest. He stood up, defying the lash of wind and rain, and felt his courage rise with the contest. Often, he ran up and down the beach until he was soaked through, letting the fierce waves sweep almost to his feet, then he would go back to the house, change to dry clothing, and sleep without dreams.
There was no snow, although he longed for it, as do those who are born in northern regions. Once, when he stood on the crest of the tallest hill on the island, he thought he saw a few tiny flakes floating in the air over his head, but they were swept away by the wind, as if they were down, and he never knew whether it was an illusion or reality. But he was glad that it had happened. It gave him a fleeting touch of home, and he could imagine once more, and, for a few seconds, that he was not alone on the island, but back in his province of New York, with his friends not far away.
Then came several days of fierce and continuous cold rain, but he put on an oilskin coat that he found among the stores and spent much of the time out of doors, hunting ducks along the edges of the larger lake, walking now and then for the sake of walking, and, on rare occasions, seeking the wild cattle for fresh meat. The herds were in the timber most of the time for shelter, but he was invariably able to secure a tender cow or a yearling for his larder. He saw the big bull often, and, although he was charged by him once again, he refused to pull trigger on the old fellow. He preferred to look upon him as a friend whom he had met once in worthy combat, but with whom he was now at peace. When the bull charged him he dodged him easily among the bushes and called out whimsically:
"Let it be the last time! I don't mean you any harm!"
The fierce leader went peacefully back to his grazing, and it seemed to Robert that he had been taken at his word. The old bull apparently realized at last that he was in no danger from the human being who came to look at him at times, and he also was willing to call a truce. Robert saw him often after that, and invariably hailed him with words of friendship, though at a respectful distance. The old fellow would look up, shake his big head once or twice in a manner not at all hostile, and then go on peacefully with his grazing. It pleased Robert to think that in the absence of his own kind he had a friend here, and--still at a respectful distance--he confided to him some of his opinions upon matters of importance. He laughed at himself for doing so, but he was aware that he found in it a certain relief, and he continued the practice.
The dinghy became one of his most precious possessions. A little farther to the north he had found a creek that flowed down from the center of the island, rising among the hills. It was narrow and shallow, except near the mouth, but there it had sufficient depth for the boat, and he made of it a safe anchorage and port during the winter storms. He slept more easily now, as he knew that however hard the wind might blow there was no danger of its being carried out to sea. He thought several times of rigging a mast and sails for it and trying to make some other island, but he gave up the idea, owing to the smallness of the boat, and his own inexperience as a sailor. He was at least safe and comfortable where he was, and a voyage of discovery or escape meant almost certain death.
But he used the dinghy in calm weather for bringing back some of the stores that he had left on the other side of the island. The lighter articles he brought by land. There was not room for all of them in the house, but he built a shed under which he placed those not of a perishable nature, and covered them over with the tarpaulin and sails. He still had the feeling that he must not lose or waste anything, because he knew that in the back of his head lay an apprehension lest his time on the island should be long, very long.
He kept in iron health. His life in the wilderness had taught him how to take care of himself, and, with an abundant and varied diet and plenty of exercise, he never knew a touch of illness. He did not forget to be grateful for it. A long association with Tayoga had taught him to remember these things. It might be true that he was being guarded by good spirits. The white man's religion and the red man's differed only in name. His God and Tayoga's Manitou were the same, and the spirits of the Onondaga were the same as his angels of divine power and mercy.
Often in the moonlight he looked up at the great star upon which Tayoga said that Tododaho dwelled, that wise Onondaga chieftain who had gone away to the skies four hundred years before. Once or twice he thought he could see the face of Tododaho with the wise snakes, coil on coil in his hair, but, without his full faith, it was not given to him to have the full vision of Tayoga. He found comfort, however, in the effort. It gave new strength to the spirit, and, situated as he was, it was his soul, not his body, that needed fortifying.
He decided that Christmas was near at hand, and he decided to celebrate it. With the count of time lost it was impossible for him to know the exact day, but he fixed upon one in his mind, and resolved to use it whether right or wrong in date. The mere fact that he celebrated it would make it right in spirit. It might be the 20th or the 30th of December, but if he chose to call it the 25th, the 25th it would be. Endowed so liberally with fancy and with such a power of projecting the mind, it was easy for him to make believe, to turn imagination into reality. And this power was heightened by his loneliness and isolation, and by the turning in of his mind so tremendously upon itself.
After the thought of a Christmas dinner was struck out by his fancy it grew fast, and he made elaborate preparations. Ducks were shot, a yearling from the wild cattle was killed, the stores from the ship were drawn upon liberally, and he even found among them a pudding which could yet be made savory. Long experience had made him an excellent cook and he attended to every detail in the most thorough manner.
The dinner set, he arrayed himself in the finest clothes to be found in his stock, and then, when all was ready, he sat down to his improvised board. But there was not one plate alone, there were four, one for Willet opposite him, one for Tayoga at his right hand and one for Grosvenor at his left. And for every thing he ate he placed at least a small portion on every plate, while with unspoken words he talked with these three friends of his.
It was a dark day, very cold and raw for the island, and while there was no Christmas snow there was a cold rain lashing the windows that could very well take its place. A larger fire than usual, crackling and cheerful, was blazing on the hearth, throwing the red light of its flames over the table, and the three places where his invisible friends sat.
His power of evocation was so vivid and intense that he could very well say that he saw his comrades around the table. There was Willet big, grave and wise, but with the lurking humor in the corner of his eye, there was Tayoga, lean, calm, inscrutable, the young philosopher of the woods and the greatest trailer in the world, and there was Grosvenor, ruddy, frank, tenacious, eager to learn all the lore of the woods. Yes, he could see them and he was glad that he was serving Christmas food to them as well as to himself. Willet loved wild duck and so he gave him an extra portion. Tayoga was very partial to cakes of flour and so he gave him a double number, and Grosvenor, being an Englishman, must love beef, so he helped him often to steak.
It was fancy, but fancy breeds other and stronger fancies, and the feeling that it was all reality grew upon him. Dreams are of thin and fragile texture, but they are very vivid while they last. Of course Willet, Tayoga and Grosvenor were there, and when the food was all served, course by course, he filled four glasses, one at each plate, from a bottle of the old cordial that he had saved from the ship, lifted his own to his lips, tasted it and said aloud:
"To the victory of our cause under the walls of Quebec!"
Then he shut his eyes and when he shut them he saw the three tasting their own glasses, and he heard them say with him:
"To the victory of our cause under the walls of Quebec!" _