Young Folks' Treasury, Volume 3 — Robinson Crusoe: Robinson Sees A Footprint On The Sand, Finds A Cave, And Rescues Friday

V

ROBINSON SEES A FOOTPRINT ON THE SAND, FINDS A CAVE, AND RESCUES FRIDAY

All this time Robinson had never gone near his canoe, but now the longing came on him to go over to where he had left her, though he felt that he should be afraid again to put to sea in her.

This time, however, when he got to the hill from which he had watched the set of the current the day that he had been carried out to sea, he noticed that there was no current to be seen, from which he concluded that it must depend on the ebb and flow of the tide.

Still, he was afraid to venture far in the canoe, though he stopped some time at his country-house, and went out sailing very often.

One day when Robinson was walking along the sand towards his boat, suddenly, close to the water, he stopped as if he had been shot, and, with thumping heart, stood staring in wonder and fear at something that he saw.

The mark of a naked foot on the sand!

It could not be his own, he knew, for the shape was quite different.

Whose could it be?

He listened, he looked about, but nothing could he hear or see.

To the top of a rising ground he ran, and looked all around.

There was nothing to be seen.

And though he searched everywhere on the beach for more footmarks, he found none.

Whose footprint could it be?

That of some man, perhaps, he thought, who might come stealing on him out from the trees, or murder him while he slept.

Back to his house he hurried, all the way in a state of terror, starting every now and again and facing round, thinking he was being followed, and fancying often that a stump or a bush was a man, waiting to spring on him.

That night he slept not at all, and so shaken was his nerve that every cry of a night-bird, even every sound made by an insect or a frog, caused him to start with fear, so that the perspiration ran down his brow.

As day followed day, however, and nothing happened, Robinson began to be less uneasy in his mind, and went about his usual work again.

But he strengthened the fence round his castle, and cut in it seven small loopholes, in which, fixed on frames, he placed loaded muskets, all ready to fire if he should be attacked.

And some distance from the outside of the fence he planted a thick belt of small stakes, so that in a few years' time a perfect thicket of trees and bushes hid all trace of his dwelling.

Years passed quietly, and nothing further happened to disturb Robinson, or to make him think more of the footprint that had frightened him so much.

But he kept more than formerly to the interior of the island, and lost no chance of looking for good places to hide in, if he should ever need them.

And he always carried a cutlass now, as well as his gun and a couple of pistols.

One day it chanced, however, that he had gone further to the west of the island than he had ever done before, and, looking over the sea, he fancied that he saw, at a great distance, something like a boat or a long canoe, but it was so far off that he he could not be sure what it was.

This made him determine that always in future he would bring with him to his lookout-place the telescope which he had saved from the wreck.

The sight of this supposed boat brought back his uneasiness to some extent, but he went on down to the beach, and there he saw a sight which filled him with horror.

All about the shore were scattered men's skulls and bones, and bits of burnt flesh, and in one place were the remains of a big fire.

Robinson stood aghast, feeling deadly sick.

It was easy for him to know the meaning of the terrible sight.

It meant that cannibals had been there, killing and eating their prisoners; for when the natives of some parts of the world go to war, and catch any of their enemies, it is their habit to build a fire, then to kill the prisoners and feast on their roasted bodies, eating till they can eat no more.

Sometimes, if the man they are going to eat is too thin, they keep him, and feed him up, till they think he is fat enough.

Now Robinson knew all this, though he had never yet met any cannibals.

And when he looked around he saw many bones lying about.

They were so old that it seemed certain to him that all those years he had been living on an island which was a regular place for the natives to come to for such feasts.

Then he saw what a mercy it was that he had been wrecked on the other side of the island, to which, he supposed, the cannibals never came, because the beach was not so good for them to land on.

Full of horror, Robinson hurried back to his house, and for almost two years he never again came near that part of the island where the bones lay, nor ever visited his boat.

But all the time he kept thinking how he might some day kill those cannibals while they were at their feast, and perhaps save some of the poor men whom they had not yet killed.

Now one day when Robinson was down in the bottom of the valley, cutting thick branches to burn for charcoal, he cleared away some undergrowth at the foot of a great rock, in which, near the ground, there was a sort of hole, or opening.

Into this hole Robinson squeezed, not very easily, and found himself in a cave of good size, high enough, at least, to stand up in.

It was quite dark, of course, to him coming in from the sunlight, and he turned his back to the entrance to feel his way further in, when suddenly, from the back of the cave he saw two great fiery eyes glaring at him.

His very hair bristled with fright, for he could only think that it must be the Devil at least that he saw; and through the mouth of the cave he fled with a yell.

But when he got into the bright sunshine he began to feel ashamed of his panic, and to reason with himself that what he had seen must be only his own fancy.

So, taking up a big burning branch from his fire, in he went again.

Before Robinson had taken three steps he stopped, in almost as great a fright as at first.

Close to him he heard a great sigh, as if of some one in pain, then a sound like a muttering, as of words that he could not understand; again another deep sigh.

Cold sweat broke out all over him, and he stepped back trembling, yet determined this time not to run away.

Holding his torch well over his head, he looked around, and there on the floor of the cave lay a huge old he goat, gasping for breath, dying, seemingly of mere old age.

He stirred him with his toe to see if he could get him out of the cave, but the poor beast could not rise, and Robinson left him to die where he was.

Now that he had got over his fright, Robinson looked carefully about him.

The cave was small, not more than twelve feet across at its widest, but he noticed at the far end another opening.

This was so low down, however, that he had to creep on his hands and knees to get in, and without a better light than the burning torch, he could not see how far it went.

So he made up his mind to come again.

Robinson had long before this made a good supply of very fair candles from the tallow of the goats he had killed, and next day he returned to the cave with six of these, and his tinder-box to light them with.

In those days there were no matches, and men used to strike a light with a flint and steel, and tinder, which was a stuff that caught fire very easily from a spark.

Entering the cave, Robinson found, on lighting a candle, that the goat was now dead.

Moving it aside, to be buried later, he went down on his hands and knees, and crawled about ten yards through the small passage, till at last he found himself in a great chamber, the roof of which was quite twenty feet high.

On every side the walls reflected the light of his candle, and glittered like gold, or almost like diamonds, he thought.

The floor was perfectly dry and level, even on the walls there was no damp, and Robinson was delighted with his discovery.

Its only drawback was the low entrance; but, as he decided to use the cave chiefly as a place to retreat to if he should ever be attacked, that was in reality an advantage, because one man, if he had firearms could easily defend it against hundreds.

At once Robinson set about storing in it all his powder, except three or four pounds, all his lead for making bullets, and his spare guns and muskets.

When moving the powder, he thought he might as well open a barrel which had drifted ashore out of the wreck 'after the earthquake, and though water had got into it, there was not a great deal of damage done, for the powder had crusted on the outside only, and in the inside there was about sixty pounds weight, quite dry and good.

This, with what remained of the first lot, gave him a very large supply, enough to last all his life.

For more than two-and-twenty years Robinson had now been in the island, and he had grown quite used to it, and to his manner of living.

If he could only have been sure that no savages would come near him, he felt almost that he would be content to spend all the rest of his days there, to die at last, as the goat he found in the cave had died, of old age.

At times, when his spirits were more than usually low, when the burden of the lonely years pressed most heavily upon him, Robinson used to think that surely if the savages could come to his land, he could go to theirs.

How far did they come?

Where was their country?

What kind of boats had they?

And so eager to go was he sometimes, that he forgot to think of what he would do when he got there, or what would become of him if he fell into the hands of the savages.

His mind was utterly taken up with the one thought of getting to the mainland, and even his dreams were of little else.

One night, when he had put himself almost into a fever with the trouble of his mind, he had lain long awake, tossing and moaning, but at last he had fallen asleep.

And he dreamed, not as he had usually done of late, that he was sailing to the mainland, but that as he was leaving his castle in the morning he saw on the shore two canoes and eleven savages landing, and that they had with them another man, whom they were just about to kill and eat, when suddenly the prisoner jumped up and ran for his life.

And in his dream Robinson fancied that the man came running to hide in the thicket round the castle, and that thereupon he went out to help him.

Then in the dream, the savage kneeled down, as if begging for mercy, and Robinson took him over the ladder into the castle, saying to himself, "Now that I've got this fellow, I can certainly go to the mainland, for he will show me what course to steer, and where to go when we land."

And he woke, with the joyful feeling that now at last all was well.

But when he was wide awake, and knew that it was only a dream after all, poor Robinson was more cast down than ever, and more unhappy than he had been during all the years he had lived on the island.

The dream had, however, this result; that he saw his only plan to get away was, if possible, to rescue some day one of the prisoners whom the cannibals were about to kill, and in time get the man to help him to navigate his canoe across the sea.

With this idea, he set himself to watch, more closely than ever he had done before, for the savages to land, and during more than a year and a half he went nearly every day to his lookout-place, and swept the sea with his telescope, in the hope of seeing canoes coming.

But none came, and Robinson was getting terribly tired of the constant watch.

Still he did not give up, for he knew that sooner or later the savages would land again.

Yet many months passed, and still they did not come, till one morning, very early, almost to his surprise, he saw no fewer than five canoes hauled up on the shore on his own side of the island.

The savages who had come in them were nowhere to be seen.

Now, he knew that always from four to six men came in each canoe, which meant that at least twenty, and perhaps as many as thirty men had landed.

This was a greater number than he cared to face, so he kept inside his castle, in great doubt what to do, but ready to fight, in case they should attack him.

When he had waited a long time and still could hear nothing of the savages, he climbed up his ladder and got to the top of the rock, taking great care not to show himself against the skyline.

Looking through his glass, he saw that there were at least thirty savages, dancing wildly round a fire.

As he looked, some of the men left the others, and going over to the canoes dragged from' them two prisoners.

One of these almost at once fell forward on his face, knocked down from behind, as it seemed to Robinson, with a wooden club, and two or three of the cannibals at once cut him open to be ready for cooking, while for a moment or two they left the other prisoner standing by himself.

Seeing a chance of escape, the man made a dash for his life, running with tremendous speed along the sands straight for that part of the beach near Robinson's castle.

Now this alarmed Robinson very much, for it seemed to him that the whole of the savages started after the prisoner.

He could not help thinking it likely that, as in his dream, this man would take shelter in the thicket round the castle, in which case Robinson was likely soon to have more fighting than he would relish, for the whole body of the cannibals would be on him at once.

As he watched the poor man racing for life, however, he was relieved to see that he ran much faster than his pursuers, of whom only three continued to run after him.

If he could hold out for another mile or two there was little doubt that he would escape.

Between the castle and the runners was the creek up which Robinson used to run his rafts from the wreck, and when the escaped prisoner came to that, he plunged in, and though the tide was full, with less than thirty powerful strokes he reached the other side, and with long easy strides continued his run.

Of the men in pursuit, two also plunged in and swam through, but less quickly than the man escaping, being more blown with running, because of what they had eaten before starting.

The third man stopped altogether, and went back the way he came.

Seeing the turn things were taking, it seemed to Robinson that now had come his chance to get a servant, and he resolved to try to save the life of the man who was fleeing from the cannibals.

At once he hurried down the ladder, snatched up his two guns, and running as fast as he could, got between the man and his pursuers, calling out to him at the same time to stop.

The man looked back, and the sight of Robinson seemed to frighten him at first as much as did the men who were trying to catch him.

But Robinson again spoke, and signed to him with his hand to come back, and in the meantime went slowly towards the other men, who were now coming near.

Then, rushing at the foremost, he knocked him senseless with the butt of his gun, for it seemed to him safer not to fire, lest the noise should bring the other cannibals around.

The second man, seeing his comrade fall, hesitated, and stopped, but Robinson saw when nearer to him that the savage had in his hands a bow and arrow with which he was just about to shoot.

There was then no choice but to fire first, which Robinson did, killing the man on the spot.

Thereupon the man who had been chased by the others was so terrified by the flash and noise of the gun, and at seeing his enemy fall dead, that he stood stock still, trembling, and it was with great difficulty that Robinson coaxed him to come near.

This at last he did, stopping every few paces and kneeling down.

At length, coming close to Robinson, he again knelt, kissed the ground, and taking hold of Robinson's foot, set it on his head as it rested on the sand.

While this was going on, Robinson noticed that the savage whom he had knocked down had begun to move, and to come to his senses.

To this he drew the attention of the man whom he had rescued, who said some words that Robinson could not understand, but which sounded pleasant to an ear that had heard no voice but his own for more than twenty-five years.

Next he made a motion with his hand, as if asking for the cutlass that hung at Robinson's belt, and when the weapon was given to him he ran at his enemy, and with one clean blow cut off his head.

Then, laughing, he brought the head, and laid it with the cutlass at Robinson's feet.

But what caused most wonder to the man was how the savage whom Robinson shot had been killed at so great a distance, and he went to look as the body, turning it over and over, and looking long at the wound in the breast that the bullet had made, evidently much puzzled.

Robinson then turned to go away, beckoning to the savage to follow, but the man made signs that he would bury the two bodies in the sand, so that the others might not find them if they followed.

With his hands he soon scraped holes deep enough to cover the bodies, and in less than a quarter of an hour there was hardly a trace left of what had happened.

Calling him away, Robinson now took him, not to his castle, but to the cave, where he gave him food and water; and then he made signs for him to lie down and rest, pointing to a bundle of rice straw.

Soon the man was sound asleep.

He was, Robinson thought, a handsome and well-made man; the muscles of his arms and back and legs showed great strength, and all his limbs were beautifully formed.

As near as Robinson could guess, he was about twenty-six years of age, with a good and manly face, and long black hair.

His nose and lips were like those of a European, and his teeth were white and even.

In color he was not black, but of a sort of rich chocolate brown, the skin shining with health, and pleasant to look upon.