Palm Tree Island

by Herbert Strang

Night

We had to consider, I say, of how we should pass the night. I was not the least disposed to trudge back over the island, and indeed there was no need, for no part, so far as I knew, was better than any other; in short, we were both pretty tired, so that we determined to take shelter in a small wood on the edge of the cliff on the opposite side of the burning mountain from that where the lava had flowed. Our entrance caused a great disturbance among the birds, which flew out in great flocks and making shrill cries. We saw some brown rats, too, scuttering among the undergrowth, and these put Billy in mind of the rats in the Lovey Susan, which sometimes ran across the face of the seamen in the forecastle when they slept.

"I don't like them things, master," he said, "and we'd best climb up into a tree and sleep on a bough."

But it seemed to me that a bough of a tree would be a most uneasy resting-place; I should assuredly lose my balance and topple to the ground, though Billy, being accustomed to dizzy perches in the rigging of the Lovey Susan, might find it comfortable enough. Yet I had no mind for a lodging on the ground, without any defence from rats, to say nothing of wild animals, of which there might be some on the island, though we had not seen any. We talked about it for some time, and the end of it was that we set about collecting some broken branches that lay on the ground, and snapped off others that were within our reach, and so piled up a little shelter round about a thick trunk. By the time we had finished this work it was perfectly dark within the wood. We sat ourselves down on the mossy carpet, with our cudgels close to our hands, and then, bethinking us of the custom of setting watches on board ship, we determined that one of us should watch while the other slept. Being the older, I took the first watch, and Billy was soon fast asleep, and I sat very melancholy by him, thinking of our lonely situation, and of my good uncle and aunt at home, whose thoughts were, I doubt not, fondly busy about me.

There was no way whereby I might tell the time, and it might have been two hours or three had passed when, feeling my head very heavy, I waked Billy and told him to take his turn, which he did very willingly, though he rubbed his eyes and yawned in the manner of one who has not had his sleep out. In the midst of my slumber I was wakened by Billy grasping my arm, and when I sat up, he whispered to me, as if greatly affrighted, to listen. Since I heard nothing but the rustling of the wind in the trees, it having got up while I slept, I thought that Billy must have fallen into a doze and been visited by a nightmare. But all at once there came a strange howling sound, that seemed to be near at hand, and then it went into the distance, at one moment being quite low and soft, the next very loud, though it never altered in pitch. We clutched our cudgels and sat very close to each other, and Billy whispered that he felt a cold shiver running down his back, as I myself did, but I forbore to tell him so. The sound was very dreadful, as of some creature in agony, though it was not the least like any sound I had ever heard before, except once, when I heard a man tuning, as they say, the organ in our parish church; and falling upon our ears in pitchy darkness it made us very uneasy, as you may think. We were too much affrighted to rise and seek for the cause of it, even if it had been possible to find it in the dark; and so we listened to it, huddled thus together, for a very long time, as it seemed, until, being quite overcome with fatigue, we both fell asleep, and so remained until morning light without keeping any guard.

Wild Dogs

I awoke first, and was instantly aware of a scratching at some part of our barricade of branches. I sat up, grasping my cudgel, and in a moment, it being broad daylight, I saw a little opening in the barricado, and the nose of some animal pushing through it. I lifted up my cudgel and, thrusting myself forward, aimed a blow at the intruder so well that I hit him clean upon the point of the nose. There was a sudden yelp and a snarl, and the nose withdrew itself, and when we sprang to our feet—Billy having wakened at the sound—we spied a pack of small dogs, above a score, at some little distance from our shelter. They were of a strange kind, the like of which neither Billy nor I had ever seen, being of a yellowish brown in colour, and with smooth coats, not hairy like our dogs at home. Billy roared at them, asking whether it was they that had made such uproar in the night; and when they did not budge, but only looked at him without the least alarm, we both sprang over our fence and ran towards them, brandishing our cudgels and shouting very fiercely. Then they turned tail, and ran away yelping and snarling; but as soon as we stopped, thinking that we had put them to flight, instantly they stopped also, and sitting upon their haunches, gazed at us very solemnly again.

They did not offer to attack us, and, being of a small size, we did not fear them as if they were great hounds or mastiffs; but the very number of them making us somewhat uneasy, we set forward again to drive them away. It happened as at first: they ran while we ran, but the moment we stopped, they came to a stand also and gazed upon us in the same saucy manner as before. Billy shook his fist at them, and called them by a foul name which he had learnt, I suppose, from the rough seamen of the Lovey Susan; but I will say this, that on my telling him it was not a pretty word, he immediately promised never to use it again, since it offended me, and I never heard it from his lips but once after, which I will speak of in course, if I remember.

But to return to our dogs: when we saw that it was useless to pursue them, though we could scare them easily enough, we determined to go on our way as if they were not there. And as you may believe, we set our course first for the cocoa-nut grove, being amazing hungry, and as we went thither we saw some trees of the bread-fruit, and Billy climbed one of them, the trunk being no more than two feet thick, and threw one fruit at me and another at the dogs, which had still followed us, dogging us, as we say. They scampered after it as it rolled down the hill, like as kittens chase a ball of worsted, which amused Billy very much. As for me, I picked up the fruit he had cast at my feet—it was near two pounds weight, I should think—and having broken the rind, not without difficulty, for it was very tough, I tasted the milky juice and afterwards the pulp, but found them both so unpleasing that I cast it from me, very sorrowfully, for it seemed that we should never have any other food but cocoa-nuts, unless we could devise some means of cooking. We went on thence until we came to the palms, the dogs following us again, except two that found the fruit I had thrown away, and they stayed for a while sniffing at it, but finding it as unpalatable as I had done, they by and by left it and joined the pack. I observed that when Billy climbed up the cocoa-nut palm they drew in closer, as if they guessed him to be more violent than me, and supposed it no longer needful to keep at so great a distance. Indeed, when he flung down a cocoa-nut, they dashed towards it, as if he did it merely for their sport; but then I ran among them, striking at them smartly with my cudgel, though I never hit them, for they immediately fled, but came back when Billy and I sat down upon the ground to eat the fruit, and watched us with such gravity that I could not contain myself, but laughed very heartily.

When we had finished our breakfast, we went down the hill to drink at the lake, and the dogs still following at our heels, we began to feel it a persecution, and resolved to make another attempt to rid ourselves of them. The ground, as I have said before, was rough, and at one side of the lake, nearest the mountain, we saw many pieces of rock scattered about, and having collected them in a heap we began to throw them very briskly at the dogs, which kept so close together that we could not fail of hitting several. These ran yelping away, and after a while those that were not hit became aware of the discomfiture of their fellows and withdrew to a greater distance; but I observed that they went no farther than the range of our cast, from which I concluded that they were possessed of a certain intelligence. However, since their hovering was now at a more convenient distance, we paid them no further attention, and had freedom to think of other things.