Tales of the Sea, and of Our Jack Tars

by William Henry Giles Kingston

I must obey him, so, observing some rocks, I hurried towards them, and with my pocket-knife cut off as many mussels and other shell-fish as I could carry. He had had a flint and steel and a powder-flask in his pocket, and had thus without difficulty kindled a fire. While he dressed and ate the shell-fish he sent me off to look for water. I went with the fear every instant of falling into the hands of savage natives, and it was not till I discovered the small size of the island that I began to hope that there might be none upon it. I hunted about for some time, till I at length came upon a stream of pure water bubbling out of a rock. My difficulty was to convey it to Owen. Some cocoa-nut shells were lying about. One less split than the rest I filled with water, but the greater part was spilt before I reached him. He cursed me for an idle hound for not bringing a larger supply, and sent me back for more. Fortunately, I observed some shells on the shore. These I slung round my neck, and with them brought as much water as he could require. Not till then did he allow me to cook any of the shell-fish I had collected. He had eaten all he himself had dressed. He then ordered me to collect materials for a hut, and when I expostulated, as I had only my pocket-knife to work with, he struck me with a stick, and said I must see to finding a better tool. Still, as I had determined to do my utmost to please him, I set to work to collect all the pieces of drift timber I could find. To my satisfaction, I discovered also the boat’s sail and some rope cast on shore, and these articles, with a number of thin sticks which I succeeded in cutting, I piled up near where he sat, and asked him what else he required.

“To help me build my hut,” he growled out.

By fixing the thinner sticks into the sand, fastening them at the top, and stretching the sail over them, I formed something like an Indian wigwam, strengthened by the heavier pieces of driftwood. I observed that Owen moved about with difficulty, and looked ill, but he made no remark on the subject.

“Now go and collect dry leaves and grass for my bed. Be off with you,” he exclaimed, glaring fiercely at me.

I obeyed as before, but when I returned, time after time, laden with bundles of grass, not an expression of approval even did he utter. Thus he kept me employed for the greater part of the day, and when I proposed collecting some grass for my own bed, he told me that I could not occupy his hut but must form one of boughs for myself. Such is an example of the way he treated me, not for one day only, but for day after day, not one passing without my being struck and cursed. It is wonderful that I could have borne it, but I was not weary of my life, and I had resolved to show my gratitude to him for having preserved it. I was very anxious, however, to escape, and whenever I could get away from him, I used to go to the highest part of the island to look out, in the hopes of a ship appearing. With indefatigable labour, I cut out a long pole and fixed it in the ground, with a part of my shirt, as a signal, fastened to the end. When Owen found out what I had done, he ordered me to take it down, and not again to visit the hill.

“Ah! ha! youngster, you’ve friends you wish to return to, and wealth you long to enjoy. I have neither, and I don’t intend to let you go while I can prevent it.”

This was almost more than I could bear, and I could not trust myself to reply to him. I might fill a volume with my extraordinary life on that islet in the Pacific—how I slaved on for that determined, stern, evil-disposed man. Constant occupation enabled me to keep my own health. I found cocoa-nuts and numerous roots and fruits, and invented various ways of cooking them. I even made clothes of the bark of the paper mulberry-tree, so that I was able to save my own before they were quite worn out. Thus months passed away. I might have lived there from youth to old age, as far as the necessaries of life were concerned, but it was dreary work. Owen grew worse and worse, and I became convinced that his days were numbered. He did not seem to be aware of the state of the case, though rapidly growing weaker. I may honestly say that I felt deep compassion for him. I told him at last that I thought him very ill, and feared that he would not recover.

“Don’t flatter yourself with that. I shall recover sufficiently to make you wish that you had never seen me,” he answered, as he raised himself on his arm and glared fiercely at me.

I thought that he uttered but an empty threat which he had no power to execute. Still he lived on, and I tended him as if he had been a friend or brother. I had made my hut at some little distance from his. I had one night gone to sleep, leaving him not worse than he had been for some time past, when I suddenly awoke with a start, and hearing a noise looked out. What was my horror to see Owen stalking stealthily along with a huge piece of heavy driftwood uplifted in his hands, as if it were a club. I darted out on the other side of the hut as down came the log with a crash above where my head had just been laid, and a fearful shriek rang through the night air. I expected to see Owen following me, but he lay, as I looked back, across the ruins of my hut. I slowly approached—he did not move—the timber had fallen from his grasp. I touched his hand. He was dead.

I must bring my tale to a close. I was convinced that the wretched man was mad, though, from what afterwards came to my knowledge, there was more reason than I had supposed why his madness should have taken the form of hatred towards me. I cannot describe how I managed to pass the many dreary days I was destined to spend in solitude on that island, or how I was at length rescued by a South-Sea whaler, and ultimately fell in with my own ship, on board which I was heartily welcomed, having long been given up as lost. Owen’s death excited universal horror. Pearson told me that he had been directed by the captain to examine his papers, among which he found parts of a journal, in which he described his bitter disappointment on discovering that the estate which he thought would be his had gone to another, and how, considering himself wronged, he had resolved to wreak his vengeance on the head of the person who had obtained what he conceived ought to have been his; how he had gone to see me, and finding that I had resolved to enter the navy, how he had formed the diabolical plan which he had attempted to carry out, but in every step of which he had been so mercifully frustrated.