The Crater, James Fenimore Cooper [good book club books TXT] 📗

artist could be, when it became necessary to judge of the colour of the water. On many occasions had Mark known him intimate that the ship was in a current, and had a weatherly or a lee set, when the fact had escaped not only the officers, but the manufacturers of the charts. He judged by ripples, and sea-weed, and the other familiar signs of the seas, and these seldom failed him. While, therefore, there was not a seaman living less likely to find the Reef again, when driven off from its vicinity, by means of observations and the charts, there was not a seaman living more likely to find it, by resorting to the other helps of the navigator. On this last peculiarity Mark hung all his hopes of seeing his friend again, when the gale should abate.

Since the moment when all the charge of the ship fell upon his shoulders, by the loss of Captain Crutchely, Mark had never felt so desolate, as when he lost sight of Bob and the Neshamony. Then, indeed, did he truly feel himself to be alone, with none between him and his God with whom to commune. It is not surprising, therefore, that one so much disposed to cherish his intercourse with the Divine Spirit, knelt on the naked rock and prayed. After this act of duty and devotion, the young man arose, and endeavoured to turn his attention to the state of things around him.

The gale still continued with unabated fury. Each instant the water rose higher and higher on the Reef, until it began to enter within the crater, by means of the gutters that had been worn in the lava, covering two or three acres of the lower part of its plain. As for the Rancocus, though occasionally pitching more heavily than our young man could have believed possible behind the sea-wall, her anchor still held, and no harm had yet come to her. Finding it impossible to do any more, Mark descended into the crater, where it was a perfect lull, though the wind fairly howled on every side, and got into one of the South American hammocks, of which there had been two or three in the ship, and of which he had caused one to be suspended beneath the sort of tent he and poor Bob had erected near the garden. Here Mark remained all the rest of that day, and during the whole of the succeeding night. But for what he had himself previously seen, the roar of the ocean on the other side of his rocky shelter, and the scuffling of the winds about the Summit, he might not have been made conscious of the violence of the tempest that was raging so near him. Once and awhile, however, a puff of air would pass over him; but, on the whole, he was little affected by the storm, until near morning, when it rained violently. Fortunately, Mark had taken the precaution to give a low ridge to all his awnings and tent-coverings, which turned the water perfectly. When, therefore, he heard the pattering of the drops on the canvas, he did not rise, but remained in his hammock until the day returned. Previously to that moment, however, he dropped into a deep sleep, in which he lay several hours.

When consciousness returned to Mark, he lay half a minute trying to recall the past. Then he listened for the sounds of the tempest. All was still without, and, rising, he found that the sun was shining, and that a perfect calm reigned in the outer world. Water was lying in spots, in holes on the surface of the crater, where the pigs were drinking and the ducks bathing. Kitty stood in sight, on the topmost knoll of the Summit, cropping the young sweet grass that had so lately been refreshed by rain, disliking it none the less, probably, from the circumstance that a few particles of salt were to be found among it, the deposit of the spray. The garden looked smiling, the plants refreshed, and nothing as yet touched in it, by the visitors who had necessarily been introduced.

Our young man washed himself in one of the pools, and then crossed the plain to drive out the pigs and poultry, the necessity of husbanding his stores pressing even pain fully on his mind. As he approached the gate-way, he saw that the sea had retired; and, certain that the animals would take care of themselves, he drove them through the hole, and dropped the sail before it. Then he sought one of the ascents, and was soon on the top of the hill. The trades had returned, but scarce blew in zephyrs; the sea was calm; the points in the reefs were easily to be seen; the ship was at rest and seemingly uninjured, and the whole view was one of the sweetest tranquillity and security. Already had the pent and piled waters diffused themselves, leaving the Reef as before, with the exception that those cavities which contained rain-water, during most of the year, now contained that which was not quite so palatable. This was a great temporary inconvenience, though the heavy showers of the past night had done a good deal towards sweetening the face of the rock, and had reduced most of the pools to a liquid that was brackish rather than salt. A great many fish lay scattered about, on the island, and Mark hastened down to examine their qualities.

The pigs and poultry were already at work on the game that was so liberally thrown in their way, and Mark felt indebted to these scavengers for aiding him in what he perceived was now a task indispensable to his comfort. After going to the ship, and breaking his fast, he returned to the crater, obtained a wheelbarrow, and set to work in earnest to collect the fish, which a very few hours' exposure to the sun of that climate would render so offensive as to make the island next to intolerable. Never in his life did our young friend work harder than he did all that morning. Each load of fish, as it was-wheeled into the crater, was thrown into a trench already prepared for that purpose, and the ashes were hauled over it, by means of the hoe. Feeling the necessity of occupation to lessen his sorrow, as well as that of getting rid of pestilence, which he seriously apprehended from this inroad of animal substances, Mark toiled two whole days at this work, until fairly driven from it by the intolerable effluvium which arose, notwithstanding all he had done, on every side of the island. It is impossible to say what would have been consequences had not the birds come, in thousands, to his relief. They made quick work of it, clearing off the fish in numbers that would be nearly incredible. As it was, however, our young hermit was driven into the ship, where-he passed a whole week, the steadiness of the trades driving the disagreeable odours to leeward. At the end of that time he ventured ashore, where he found it possible to remain, though the Reef did not get purified for more than a month. Finding a great many fish still remaining that neither hog nor bird would touch, Mark made a couple of voyages to Loam Island, whence he brought two cargoes of the deposit, and landed at the usual place. This he wheeled about the Reef, throwing two or three-shovels full on each offensive creature, thus getting rid of the effluvium and preparing a considerable store of excellent manure for his future husbandry. It may be as well said here, that, at odd times, he threw these little deposits into large heaps, and subsequently wheeled them into the crater, where they were mixed with the principal pile of compost that had now been, for months, collecting there.

It is a proof of the waywardness of human nature that we bear great misfortunes better than small ones. So it proved with Mark, on this occasion; for, much as he really regarded Bob, and serious as was the loss of his friend to himself, the effects of the inundation occupied his thoughts, and disturbed him more, just at that time, than the disappearance of the Neshamony. Nevertheless, our young man had not forgotten to look out for the missing boat, in readiness to hail its return with joy. He passed much of the week he was shut up in the ship in her topmast-cross-trees, vainly examining the sea to leeward, in the hope of catching a distant view of the pinnace endeavouring to bear up through the reefs. Several times he actually fancied he saw her; but it always turned out to be the wing of some gull, or the cap of a distant breaker. It was when Mark had come ashore again, and commenced the toil of covering the decayed fish, and of gathering them into piles, that these smaller matters supplanted the deep griefs of his solitude.

One of the annoyances to which our solitary man found himself most subject, was the glare produced by a burning sun on rocks and ashes of the drab colour of the crater. The spots of verdure that he had succeeded in producing on the Summit, not only relieved and refreshed his eyes, but they were truly delightful as aids to the view, as well as grateful to Kitty, which poor creature had, by this time, cropped them down to a pretty short herbage. This Mark knew, however, was an advantage to the grass, making it finer, and causing it to thicken at the roots. The success of this experiment, the annoyance to his eyes, and a feverish desire to be doing, which succeeded the disappearance of Botts, set Mark upon the project of sowing grass-seed over as much of the plain of the crater as he thought he should not have occasion to use for the purposes of tillage. To work he went then, scattering the seed in as much profusion as the quantity to be found in the ship would justify. Friend Abraham White had provided two barrels of the seed, and this went a good way. While thus employed a heavy shower fell, and thinking the rain a most favourable time to commit his grass-seeds to the earth, Mark worked through the whole of it, or for several hours, perspiring with the warmth and exercise.

This done, a look at the garden, with a free use of the hoe, was the next thing undertaken. That night Mark slept in his hammock, under the crater-awning, and when he awoke in the morning it was to experience a weight, like that of lead in his forehead, a raging thirst, and a burning fever. Now it was that our poor solitary hermit felt the magnitude of his imprudence and the weight of the evils of his peculiar situation. That he was about to be seriously ill he knew, and it behoved him to improve the time that remained to him, to the utmost. Everything useful to him was in the ship, and thither it became indispensable for him to repair, if he wished to retain even a chance for life. Opening an umbrella, then, and supporting his tottering legs by a cane, Mark commenced a walk of very near a mile, under an almost perpendicular sun, at the hottest season of the year. Twenty times did the young man think he should be compelled to sink on the bare rock, where there is little question he would soon have expired, under the united influence of the fever within and the burning heat without. Despair urged him on, and, after pausing often to rest, he succeeded in entering the cabin, at the end of the most perilous hour he had ever yet passed.

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