A short survey showed him this. It showed him also that there was but little if any hope of sustaining life, and that he had escaped drowning only perhaps to perish by the more lingering agonies of starvation.
Already hunger and thirst had begun to be felt, and how to satisfy these wants he knew not. Still he would not despair. Perhaps the Java might return in search of him, and his confinement would only last for a day or so.
He understood the act of Cigole in a way that was satisfactory to himself. He had thrown him overboard, but had made it appear like an accident. As he fell he had heard the shout "Man overboard!" and was now able to account for it in this way. So a faint hope remained that the captain of the Java would not give him up.
Still subsistence of some kind was necessary, and there was nothing to be done but to explore the sandy tract before him. Setting forth he walked toward the rock along the sea-shore. On one side toward the north the shore was shallow and sloped gently into the water; but on the southern side it descended more abruptly. The tide was out. A steep beach appeared here covered with stones to which myriads of shell-fish were attached. The sight of these suggested the idea to him that on the opposite side there might be clams in the sand. He walked over there in search of them. Here the slope was so gradual that extensive flats were left uncovered by the receding tide.
When a boy he had been sometimes accustomed to wander on sand flats near his home, and dig up these clams in sport. Now his boyish experience became useful. Myriads of little holes dotted the sand, which he knew to be the indications of these molluscs, and he at once began to scoop in the sand with his hands. In a short time he had found enough to satisfy his hunger, and what was better, he saw all around an unlimited supply of such food.
Yet food was not enough. Drink was equally necessary. The salt of these shell-fish aggravated the thirst that he had already begun to feel, and now a fear came over him that there might be no water. The search seemed a hopeless one; but he determined to seek for it nevertheless, and the only place that seemed to promise success was the rock at the eastern end. Toward this he now once more directed his steps.
The island was all of sand except the rocks on the south beach and the cliff at the eastern end. Coarse grass grew very extensively over the surface, but the sand was fine and loose, and in many places thrown up into heaps of many different shapes. The grass grew in tufts or in spires and blades, thinly scattered, and nowhere forming a sod. The soil was difficult to walk over, and Brandon sought the beach, where the damp sand afforded a firmer foothold. In about an hour and a half he reached the rock.
It was between five hundred and six hundred feet in length, and about fifty in height. There was no resemblance to a coffin now as Brandon approached it, for that likeness was only discernible at a distance. Its sides were steep and precipitous. It was one black solid mass, without any outlying crags, or any fragments near it. Its upper surface appeared to be level, and in various places it was very easy to ascend. Up one of these places Brandon climbed, and soon stood on the top.
Near him the summit was somewhat rounded; at the farther end it was flat and irregular; but between the two ends it sank into a deep hollow, where he saw that which at once excited a tumult of hope and fear. It was a pool of water at least fifty feet in diameter, and deep too, since the sides of the rock went down steeply. But was it fresh or salt? Was it the accumulation from the showers of the rainy season of the tropics, or was it but the result of the past night's storm, which had hurled wave after wave here till the hollow was filled?
With hasty footsteps he rushed toward the margin of the pool, and bent down to taste. For a moment or so, by a very natural feeling, he hesitated, then, throwing off the fever of suspense, he bent down, kneeling on the margin, till his lips touched the water.
It was fresh! Yes, it was from the heavens above, and not from the sea below. It was the fresh rains from the sky that had filled this deep pool, and not the spray from the sea. Again and again he quaffed the refreshing liquid. Not a trace of the salt-water could be detected. It was a natural cistern which thus lay before him, formed as though for the reception of the rain. For the present, at least, he was safe.
He had food and drink. As long as the rainy season lasted, and for some time after, life was secure. Life becomes doubly sweet after being purchased by such efforts as those which Brandon had put forth, and the thought that for the present, at least, he was safe did not fail to fill him with the most buoyant hope. To him, indeed, it seemed just then as if nothing more could be desired. He had food and drink in abundance. In that climate shelter was scarcely needed. What more could he wish?
The first day was passed in exploring the rock to see if there was any place which he might select for his abode. There were several fissures in the rock at the eastern end, and one of these he selected. He then went back for his clothes, and brought them to this place. So the first day went.
All the time his eyes wandered round the horizon to see if a sail might be in sight. After two or three days, in which nothing appeared, he ceased his constant watch, though still from time to time, by a natural impulse, he continued to look. After all he thought that rescue might come. He was somewhat out of the track of the China ships, but still not very much so. An adverse wind might bring a ship close by. The hope of this sustained him.
But day succeeded to day and week to week with no appearance of any thing whatever on the wide ocean.
During these long days he passed the greater part of his time either under the shelter of the rock, where he could best avoid the hot sun, or when the sea-breeze blew on its summit. The frightful solitude offered to him absolutely nothing which could distract his thoughts, or prevent him from brooding upon the hopelessness of his situation.
Brooding thus, it became his chief occupation to read over and over his father's letter and the inclosure, and conjecture what might be his course of action if he ever escaped from this place. His father's voice seemed now to sound to him more imploringly than ever; and the winds at night, as they moaned round the rock, seemed to modulate themselves, to form their sounds to something like a wild cry, and wail forth, "Come home!" Yet that home was now surely farther removed than ever, and the winds seemed only to mock him. More sad and more despairing than Ulysses on the Ogygian shore, he too wasted away with home-sickness.
[Greek: kateibeto se glukus aion noston oduromeno.]
Fate thus far had been against him, and the melancholy recollections of his past life could yield nothing but despondency. Driven from home when but a boy, he had become an exile, had wandered to the other side of the world, and was just beginning to attain some prospect of a fortune when this letter came. Rising up from the prostration of that blow, he had struggled against fate, but only to encounter a more over-mastering force, and this last stroke had been the worst of all. Could he rally after this? Could he now hope to escape?
Fate had been against him; but yet, perhaps, here, on this lonely island, he might find a turning-point. Here he might find that turning in the long lane which the proverb speaks of. "The day is darkest before the morn," and perhaps he would yet have Fate on his side.
But the sternest and most courageous spirit can hardly maintain its fortitude in an utter and unmitigated solitude. St. Simeon Stylites could do so, but he felt that on the top of that pillar there rested the eyes of the heavenly hosts and of admiring mankind. It is when the consciousness of utter solitude comes that the soul sinks. When the prisoner thinks that he is forgotten by the outside world, then he loses that strength which sustained him while he believed himself remembered.
It was the lot of Brandon to have this sense of utter desolation: to feel that in all the world there was not one human being that knew of his fate; and to fear that the eye of Providence only saw him with indifference. With bitterness he thought of the last words of his father's letter: "If in that other world