Even a rejected lover, or a disconsolate husband, gives a jerk to his knee–joints, and carries his elbows more briskly, when the bright spring morning shortens his shadow at every step. Cradock, moreover, felt quite sure that he would not be left too long there; that his friends on board the Taprobane would come aside from their track to find him, on their return–voyage from Ceylon; and so no doubt they would have done, if it had been in their power. But the Taprobane, as we shall see, never made her escape, in spite of weatherly helm and good seamanship, from the power of that typhoon. She was lost on the shoals of Benguela Bay, thirty miles south of Quicombo; and not a man ever reached the shore to tell the name of the ship. But a Portuguese half–caste, trading there, found the name on a piece of the taffrail, and a boat which was driven ashore.
After all, we see then that Cradock was wonderfully lucky—at least, if it be luck to live—in having been left behind, that evening, on an uninhabited island. “Desolate” nobody could call it, for the gifts of life lay around in abundance, and he soon had proof that the feet of men, ay, of white men, trod it sometimes. Following the shore, a little further than the sailors had gone, he came on a pure narrow thread of crystal, a current of bright water dimpling and twinkling down the sand. Wena at once lay down and rolled, and wetted every bit of herself; and then began to lap the water wherein her own very active and industrious friends were drowning. That Wena was such a ladylike dog; she washed herself before drinking, and she never would wash in salt water. It made her hair so unbecoming.
Cradock followed up that stream, and found quite a tidy little brook, when he got above the sand–ridge, full of fish, and fringed with trees, and edged with many a quaint bright bird, scissor–bills and avosets, demoiselles and flamingoes. Wena plunged in and went hunting blue–rats, and birds, and fishes, while her master stooped down, and drank, and thanked God for this discovery.
A little way up the brook he found a rude shanty, a sort of wigwam, thatched with leaves and waterproof, backed by a low rock, but quite open in front and at both ends. Under the shelter were blocks of ebony, billets of bar–wood piled up to the roof, a dozen tusks of ivory, bales of dried bark, and piles of rough cylinders full of caoutchouc, and many other things which Cradock could not wait to examine. But he felt quite certain that this must be some traderʼs depôt for shipping: the only thing that surprised him was that the goods were left unprotected. For he knew that the West Africans are the biggest thieves in the world, while he did not understand the virtue of the hideous great Fetich, hanging there.
It was made of a long dried codfish, with glass eyes, ground in the iris, and polished again in the pupil, and a glaring stripe of red over them, and the neck of a bottle fixed as for a tongue, and the body skewered open and painted bright blue, ribbed with white, like a skeleton, and the tail prolonged with two spinal columns, which rattled as it went round. The effect of the whole was greatly increased by the tattered cage of crinoline in which it was suspended, and which went creaking round, now and then, in the opposite direction.
No nigger would dare to steal anything from such a noble idol. At least so thought the Yankee trader who knew a thing or two about them. He had left his things here in perfect faith, while he was travelling towards the Gaboon, to complete his cargo.
Cradock was greatly astounded. He thought that it must be a white manʼs work; and soon he became quite certain, for he saw near a cask the clear mark of a boot, of civilized make, unquestionably. Then he prized out the head of the cask, after a deal of trouble, and found a store of ship–biscuit, a little the worse for weevil, but in very fair condition. He gave Wena one, but she would not touch it, for she set much store by her teeth, and had eaten a noble breakfast.
Having made a rough examination of the deserted shed, and found no sort of clothing—which did not vex him much, except that he wanted shoes—he resolved to continue the circuit of his new dominions, and look out perhaps for another hut. He might meet a man at any time; so he carried his big stick ready, though none but cannibals could have any good reason to hurt him. As he went on, and struck inland to cut off the northern promontory, the lie of the land and the look of the woods brought to his mind more clearly and brightly his own beloved New Forest. He saw no quadruped larger than a beautiful little deer, lighter than a gazelle, and of a species quite unknown to him. They stood and looked at him prettily, without either fear or defiance, and Wena wanted to hunt them. But he did not allow her to indulge that evil inclination. He had made up his mind to destroy nothing, even for his own subsistence, except the cold–blooded creatures which seem to feel less of the death–pang. But he saw a foul snake, with a flat heavy head, which hissed at and frightened the doggie, and he felt sure that it was venomous: monkeys also of three varieties met him in his pilgrimage, and seemed disposed to be sociable; while birds of every tint and plumage fluttered, and flashed, and flitted. Then Wena ran up to him howling, and limping, and begging for help; and he found her clutched by the seed–vessels of the terrible uncaria. He could scarcely manage to get them off, for they seemed to be crawling upon her.
When he had made nearly half his circuit, without any other discovery—except that the grapes were worthless—the heat of the noonday sun grew so strong, although it was autumn there—so far as they have any autumn—that Cradock lay down in the shade of a plantain; and, in a few seconds afterwards, was fast asleep and dreaming. Wena sat up on guard and snapped at the nasty poisonous flies, which came to annoy her master.