Cradock saw his lovely island, and was well content with it. It was not more than four miles long, and perhaps three miles across; but it was gifted with three grand things—beauty, health, and nourishment. It might have been ages, for all he saw then, since man had sworn or forsworn in it; perhaps none since the voyagers of Necho, whose grand truth was so incredible. There were no high hills, and no very deep holes; but a pleasant undulating place, ever full of leaves and breezes. And as for wild beasts, he had no fear; he knew that they would require more square miles than he owned. As for snakes, he was not so sure; and indeed there were some nasty ones, as we shall see by–and–by.
Then he went to the shore, and looked far away, even after the Taprobane. The sea was yet heaving heavily, and tumbling back into itself with a roar, and some fishing eagles were very busy, stooping along the foam of it; but no ship was to be seen anywhere, and far away in the south and south–east the selvage of black clouds, lopping over the mist of the horizon, showed that still the typhoon was there, and no one could tell how bad it was.
Cradock found a turtle, at which Wena looked first in mute wonder, with her eyes taking jumps from their orbits, and then, like all females, she found tongue, and ran away, and barked furiously. Presently she came back, sniffing along, and drawing her nose on the sand, yet determined to stick by her master, even if the turtle should eat him. But, to her immense satisfaction, the result was quite the converse: she and her master ate the turtle; beginning, ab ovo, that morning.
For, although Crad could not quite eat the eggs raw (by–the–by, they are not so bad that way), and although he could not quite strike a light by twirling one stick in the back of another, he had long ago found reason for, and he rapidly found that excellent goddess in, the roasting of eggs. And for that, he had to thank Amy. Only see how thoughtful women are!—yes, a mark of astonishment.
But the astonishment will subside, perhaps, when we come to know all about it; for then all the misogynes may declare that the thought was born of vanity. Let them do so. Facts are facts, I say.
Amy had sent him a photograph of her faithful self, beautifully done by Mr. Silvy, of Bayswater, and framed in a patent loverʼs box, I forget the proper name for it—something French, of course—so ingeniously contrived, that when a spring at the back was pressed, a little wax match would present itself, from a lining of asbestos, together with a groove to draw it in. Thus by night, as well as by day, the smile of the loved one might illumine the lonely heart of the lover.
Now this device stood him in good stead—as doubtless it was intended to do by the practical mind of the giver—for it served to light the fire wherewith man roasteth roast, and is satisfied. And a fire once lit in the hollow heart of that vast mowana–tree (where twenty men might sit and smoke, when the rainy season came), if you only supplied some fuel daily, and cleared away the ashes weekly, there need be no fear of philanthropy making a trespasser of Prometheus. Cradock soon resolved to keep his head–quarters there, for the tree stood upon a little hill, overlooking land and sea, for many a league of solitude. And it was not long before he found that the soft bark of the baobab might easily be cut so as to make a winding staircase up it; and the work would be an amusement to him, as well as a great advantage.
Master and dog having made a most admirable breakfast upon turtles’ eggs, “roasted very knowingly”—as Homer well expresses it—with a large pineapple to follow, started, before the heat of the day, in search of water, the indispensable. Shaddocks, and limes, and mangosteens, bananas—with their long leaves quilling—pineapples, mawas, and mamoshoes, cocoa–nuts, plantains, mangoes, palms, and palmyras, custard–apples, and gourds without end—besides fifty other ground–fruits, ay, and tree–fruits for that matter, quite unknown to Cradock, there was no fear of dying from drought; and yet the first thing to seek was pure water. If Cradock had thought much about the thing, very likely it would have struck him that some of the fruits which he saw are proof not so much of human cultivation, as of human presence, at some time.
But he never thought about that; and indeed his mind was too full for thinking. So he cut himself a most tremendous bludgeon of camelthorn, as heavy and almost as hard as iron, and off he went whistling, with Wena wondering whether the stick would beat her.
He certainly took things easily; more so than is quite in accord with human nature and reason. But the state of his mind was to blame for it; and the freshness of the island air, after the storm of the night.