I read to her the history of Joseph and his brethren, which was my favourite story in the Bible.
“Who taught you to read?” said she, as I shut the book, and put the fish on the embers.
“Jackson,” said I.
“He was a good man, was he not?” replied she.
I shook my head. “No, not very good,” said I, at last. “If you knew all about him, you would say the same; but he taught me to read.”
“How long have you been on this island?” said she.
“I was born on it, but my father and mother are both dead, and Jackson died three years ago—since that I have been quite alone, only Nero with me.”
She then asked me a great many more questions, and I gave her a short narration of what had passed, and what Jackson had told me; I also informed her how it was I procured food, and how we must soon leave the island, now that we were so many, or the food would not last out till the birds came again.
By this time the fish was cooked, and I took it off the fire and put it into the kid, and we sat down to breakfast; in an hour or so we had become very sociable.
I must, however, now stop a little to describe her. What the men had told me was quite true. She had lost her husband, and was intending to proceed to England. Her name was Reichardt, for her husband was a German, or of German family. She was, as I have since ascertained, about thirty-seven years old, and very tall and elegant; she must have been very handsome when she was younger, but she had suffered much hardship in following her husband as she had done, through all the vicissitudes of his travels.