Adventures in Southern Seas: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century

by George Forbes

CHAPTER XIV

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE

Most of the islands we visited on our return to the South Seas we found to be inhabited. But some, although well-wooded, and possessing a luxuriant vegetation, were unoccupied except by sea-fowl. It was toward one of these islands we now directed our course in order to fill our water tanks, when we observed a solitary figure upon the beach whose hair and beard hung down in a tangled mass upon his chest and shoulders, while the skins of some small fur-coated animal, roughly sewn together, made him a covering for his body unlike any we had seen adopted by savage tribes. His attitude, moreover, as he stood upon the beach, shading his eyes and gazing intently at us as we rowed towards the shore, suggested the European rather than, the savage, and upon coming close up to him we knew him to be some castaway marooned upon the island. He appeared to have lost the power of speech, although he made guttural sounds when he saw us, and, what was more remarkable, he seemed to recognize us.

It then came to me in a flash that this solitary man was none other than Van Luck, whom we had last seen drifting away from the "Endraght" upon his lonely voyage after the mutiny, and, in pity at the sight of his forlorn condition, I held out my hand to him in reconciliation. So great, however, was his hatred of me, which he had probably nursed, that, instead of taking my hand, he rushed upon me and tried to strangle me, in which he might have succeeded had not others of our party come to my assistance. He seemed demented, and he had acquired such strength during his exile that it was as much as four men could do to hold him down. But, notwithstanding his unprovoked attack upon me, I felt I could not abandon him again to his solitude. I therefore ordered him to be taken on board our vessel, where Hartog would be the judge of his ultimate fate.

Hartog's surprise at seeing his old officer in such a deplorable condition was equal to my own, but the terrible change which years of solitude had wrought in Van Luck appealed to the humane side of the captain's nature so forcibly that he determined to give the castaway a chance of redemption.

After some days, during which Van Luck was cared for, he began to regain some semblance to his former self. He also, by degrees, remembered his native tongue, but he spoke in a halting manner like a child. While we remained at this island we visited the cave in which Van Luck had lived during the time he had been marooned. It contained nothing belonging to the boat in which he had been set adrift, from which we inferred the boat had been lost at the time when he was washed ashore. He seemed to have subsisted chiefly upon turtles, of which there were numbers basking upon the beach, and also upon a small species of squirrel, of the skins of which, roughly sewn together, his robe was made, but we could find no sign of a fire, so we concluded he had devoured his food raw. There were streams and springs on the islands from which to quench his thirst, but his sufferings must have been very severe during his enforced solitude, nor was it a matter for wonder that his mind had become deranged.

But although Hartog took pity upon Van Luck to the extent of taking him off the island, he would not admit him to his old place in the cabin at the officers' mess, so he lived with the seamen in the forecastle, where his jealousy wanted to send me on our first voyage. This, however, did not seem to trouble him. He seldom spoke, but went about such work as was given him without complaint. Sometimes he would stand for hours watching the sea, with his hand shading his eyes, in the same attitude as we had found him.

I could see that Hartog was troubled by this man's appearance, as indeed was I also. It seemed a reproach to us to have been the means of bringing a fellow-creature into such a condition. Yet we had acted as necessity demanded and in no spirit of malice or revenge. Still, the consequences which had sprung from my fight with Van Luck and his subsequent part in the mutiny were not such as we cared to contemplate. If judges could see those whom they sentence after they have endured their punishment they would pause before passing fresh sentences upon wrongdoers, however guilty.

I could see that Van Luck attributed to me all his misfortunes, for he watched me closely, but when I spoke to him he shifted his gaze uneasily, as though afraid to look me in the face. I can honestly say I felt nothing but pity for him, and I made allowance for his animosity toward me when I remembered his cruel punishment.

"Of a truth, Peter," said Hartog to me one evening when we sat together in the cabin, "I had better have shot Van Luck than let him live to become what he is. Never again will I send a man adrift upon such a voyage, though by all the rules of the sea the mutinous dog deserved what he got for his treachery. It was not his fault that you and I were not marooned instead of him."

I did not answer, but had I then known the malice in Van, Luck toward me, of which I shall hereafter tell, the compassion which I felt for him would have been lessened.