The Little Savage

by Frederick Marryat

Mrs Reichardt opened her eyes and gazed at me with a more painful interest. She knew I was haunted by the chimeras created by famine and thirst; but she seemed to have lost all power of speech. She motioned me to join her in prayer; I, however, was too much occupied with the prospect of landing, and paid no attention to her signs.

Presently the bright landscape faded away, and I beheld nothing but the wide expanse of water, the circle of which appeared to expand and spread into the sky, and the sky seemed lost and broken up in the water, and for a few minutes they were mixed together in the wildest and strangest confusion. Subsequently to this I must have dropped asleep, for after a while I found myself huddled up in a corner of the boat, and must have fallen there from my seat. I stared about me for some time unconscious where I was. The bright sun still shone over my head; the everlasting sea still rolled beneath my feet.

I looked to the bottom of the boat, and met the upturned gaze of my fellow voyager. The pale face had grown paler, and the expression of the painful eye had become less intelligent. I thought she was as I had seen her in my dream when she changed from her own likeness to that of the poor drowned girl we buried in the guano.

I turned away my gaze—the sight was too painful to look upon. I felt assured that she was dying, and that in a very short space of time, that faithful and affectionate nature I must part from for ever.

I thought I would make a last effort—though faint and trembling, burning with fever, and feeling deadly sick, I managed by the support of the awning to crawl to the mast, and embracing it with one arm, I raised the glass with the other hand, and looked carefully about. My hand was very unsteady and my eyes seemed dim. I could discern nothing but water.

I should have sunk in despair to the bottom of the boat, had I not been attracted at the moment by a singular appearance in the sky. A cloud was approaching, of a shape and appearance I had never observed before. I raised the glass again, and after observing this cloud for some time with great attention, I felt assured that what I considered to be long lines of vapour was an immense flock of birds.

This discovery interested me—I forgot the intensity of my sufferings in observing the motions of this apparently endless flock. As the first file approached, I looked again, to see if I could make out what they were. God of Heaven! They were gannets.

I crawled back to my companion as rapidly as my feeble limbs would allow, to inform her of the discovery I had made. Alas! I found that I was unheeded. I could not believe that her fine spirit had fled: no, she moved her hand; but the dull spiritless gaze seemed to warn me that her dissolution was fast approaching. I looked for the spirit-flask, and found a few drops were still left there; I poured these into her mouth, and watched the result with the deepest anxiety I had ever known since the day of my birth.

In a few minutes I found that she breathed more regularly and distinctly—presently her eyes lost that fixedness which had made them so painful to look upon. Then she recognised me, and took hold of my hand, regarding me with the sweet smile with which I was so familiar.

As soon as I found that consciousness had returned, I told her of the great flock of gannets that were evidently wending their way to their customary resting-place, and the hope I entertained that if they could be kept in sight, and the wind remained in the same quarter, the boat might be led by them to the place where they laid their eggs.