Chapter Thirty Two.
As soon as I could disconnect my tackle from the dead fish, I turned my face homewards, and struck out manfully for the shore; luckily I did not observe any sharks. I landed safely without further adventure, and immediately sought my kind friend and companion, whom I found, as usual, industriously employed in endeavouring to secure me additional comforts. If she were not engaged in ordinary woman’s work,—making, mending, cleaning, or improving, in our habitation, she was sure to be found doing something in the immediate neighbourhood, which, though less feminine, showed no less forethought, prudence, and sagacity.
Our garden had prospered wonderfully under her hands. The ground seemed now stocked with various kinds of vegetation, of which I neither knew the value nor the proper mode of cultivation; and we seemed about to be surrounded with shrubs and plants—many of very pleasing appearance—that must in a short time entirely change the aspect of the place.
She heard my adventure with a good deal of interest, only remonstrating with me upon my want of caution, and dwelling upon the fatal consequences that must have ensued to herself, had I been drowned or disabled by falling from the rock, or devoured by the sharks.
“You may consider yourself, my dear son,” she observed, with serious earnestness, “to have been under the Divine care. Nothing can be clearer than that a wise and kind Providence is continually watching over His creatures when placed in unusual or perilous circumstances. He occasionally affords them manifestations of His favour, to encourage them when engaged in good works. This shows the comprehensive eye of the master of many workmen, who overlooks the labours of his more industrious servants, and indicates to them his regard for their welfare and appreciation of their labours.”
“But surely,” I interposed, “if I had been under the superintendence of the Providence of which you speak, I should not have been obliged to abandon so capital a fish, when I had endured such trouble to capture it, and when its possession was so necessary to our comfort, nay, even to our existence.”
“The very abandonment of so unwieldy a creature,” she replied, “is unanswerable evidence of a Divine interposition in your favour; for had you persisted in your intention of carrying it to the shore, there is but little doubt that its weight would have overpowered you, and that you would have been drowned; and then what would have become of me? A woman left in this desolate spot to her own resources, must soon be forced to give up the struggle for existence, from want of physical strength. Nevertheless, there are numerous instances on record, of women having surmounted hardships which few men could endure. Supported by our Heavenly Father, who is so powerful a protector of the weak, and friend of the helpless, the weakest of our weak sex may triumph over the most intolerable sufferings. I, however, am not over confident of being so supported, and therefore, I think it would be but showing a proper consideration for your fellow exile, to act in every emergency with as much circumspection and prudence as possible.”
I promised that for the future I would run no such risks, and added many professions of regard for her safety. They had the desired effect; I pretended to think no more of my disappointment, nevertheless, I found myself constantly dwelling on the size of my lost fish, and lamenting my being obliged to abandon him to his more voracious brethren of the deep. These thoughts so filled my mind, that at night I continued to dream over again the whole incident, beginning with my patient angling from the rock, and concluding with my disconsolate swim to shore—and pursued my scaly antagonist quite as determinedly in my sleep as I had done in the deep waters.
I rose early, after having passed so disturbed a night, and soon made my way to the usual haunt of Nero, whom I discovered in the sea near the rocks making all sorts of strange tumblings and divings, apparently after some dark object that was floating in the water. I called him away, to examine what it was that had so attracted his attention, and my surprise may be imagined when I made out the huge form of my enemy of the preceding day. My shouts and exclamations of joy soon brought Mrs Reichardt to the scene, and when she discovered the shape of this prodigious fish, her surprise seemed scarcely less than my own.
How to land him was our first consideration; and after some debate on the ways and means, I got a rope and leaped into the water with it, fastened a noose round his gills, and then swimming back and climbing the rock, we jointly tried to pull him up on to the shore. We hauled and tugged with all our force for a considerable time, but to very little effect; he was too heavy to pull up perpendicularly. At last we managed to drag him to a low piece of rock, and there I divided him into several pieces, which Mrs Reichardt carried away to dry and preserve in some way that she said would make the fish capital eating all the year round.
It was very palatable when dressed by her, and as she changed the manner of cooking several times, I never got tired of it. By its flavour, as far as I could judge from subsequent knowledge, the creature was something of the sturgeon kind of fish; but its proper name I never could learn; nor was I ever able to catch another, therefore, I must presume that it was a stranger in those seas. Nevertheless, he proved most acceptable to us both, for we should have fared but ill for some time, had it not been for his providential capture.
It was one afternoon, when we had been enjoying a capital meal at the expense of our great friend, that I led the subject to Mrs Reichardt’s adventures, subsequently to where she broke off in the story of herself and the poor German boy; and though not without considerable reluctance, I induced her to proceed with her narrative.