It was a beautiful day, the air crisp with as much winter as the island ever knew, and shot with the beams from a brilliant sun, but Robert was exhausted. He had passed through a night of intense emotions, various, every one of them poignant, and he had made physical and mental efforts of his own that fairly consumed the nerves. He felt as if he could lie down and sleep for a year, that it would take at least that long to build up his body and mind as they were yesterday.
He dragged himself through the woods, forced his unwilling muscles to cook a breakfast which he ate. Then he laid himself down on his bed, his nerves now quiet, and fell asleep at once. When he awoke it was night and he lay giving thanks for his great escape until he slept again. When he awoke a second time day had returned, and, rising, he went about his usual tasks with a light heart.
CHAPTER X
THE SLOOP OF WAR
Robert ate a light breakfast and went out to look at his domain, now unsullied. What a fine, trim, clean island it was! And how desirable to be alone on it, when the Gulf and the Caribbean produced only such visitors as those who had come two nights before! He looked toward the little bay, fearing to see the topmast of the schooner showing its tip over the trees, but the sky there, an unbroken blue, was fouled by no such presence. He was rid of the pirates—and forever he hoped.
It seemed to him that he had passed through an epic time, one of the great periods of his life. He wondered now how he had been able to carry out such a plan, how he had managed to summon up courage and resources enough, and he felt that the good spirits of earth and air and water must have been on his side. They had fought for him and they had won for him the victory.
He shouldered his rifle and strolled through the woods toward the beach. He had never noticed before what a fine forest it was. The trees were not as magnificent as those of the northern wilderness, but they had a beauty very peculiarly their own, and they were his. There was not a single other claimant to them anywhere in the world.
It was a noble beach too, smooth, sloping, piled with white sand, gleaming now in the sun, and the little frothy waves that ran up it and lapped at his feet, like puppies nibbling, were just the friendliest frothy little waves in the world. But there were the remains of the fire left by the ruffians to defile it, and broken bottles and broken food were scattered about. The litter hurt his eyes so much that he gathered up every fragment, one by one, and threw them into the sea. When the last vestige of the foul invasion was cleared away he felt that he had his lonely, clean island back again, and he was happy.
He strolled up and down the glistening beach, feeling a great content. After a while, he threw off his clothes and swam in the invigorating sea, keeping well inside the white line of the breakers, in those waters into which the sharks did not come. When he had sunned himself again on the sand he went to the creek, took his dinghy from the bushes, where it had been so well hidden, and rowed out to sea, partly to feel the spring of the muscles in his arms, and partly to sit off at a distance and look at his island. Surely if one had to be cast away that was the very island on which he would choose to be cast! Not too big! Not too hot! And not too cold! Without savage man or savage beasts, but with plenty of wild cattle for the taking, and good fish in the lakes, and in the seas about it. Plenty of stores of all kinds from the slaver's schooner, even books to read. So far from being unfortunate he was one of the lucky. A period of retirement from the companionship of his own kind might be trying on the spirit, but it also meant meditation and mental growth.