Chapter XI.
Our readers will not be surprised to learn, that at the time when Mr. Crusoe parted from Charles, he was suffering from the beginning of a bad fever, which they had both caught from poor Captain Gordon, who had died of it. Sambo escaped, partly because the inhabitants of India are not equally subject to suffering this complaint with strangers, and partly because he had never been employed about the person of the deceased as they had, nor had he used his clothes, nor slept in his bed, as they did.
Mr. Crusoe had no idea that his poor friend had an infectious fever, though he knew he was ill; and he thought that fatigue and anxiety had quite as great a share in his death as any actual complaint; and under the same persuasion, when his own head ached, and his limbs felt unable to perform their office, he concluded that sorrow and toil had been too much for him, and became more than ever anxious to escape from a place where he could neither obtain comfort nor help, and where his poor wife could never hear from him, and of course must suffer all the agonies of grief and solicitude, under which he now languished himself.
Mr. Crusoe was not aware that his son was unwell at all, since he forbore all complaint, lest he should add to his father's troubles, and showed so much true heroism in making the best of their misfortunes, that Mr. Crusoe did not doubt but he would diligently watch at one end of the island, whilst he was at the other; and as he had much reliance on Sambo's accuracy of sight, he hoped that one or the other would see and hail the vessel, which his servant maintained he had seen. The day was exceedingly sultry; the terrible storm which was coming on, rendered the air heavy and unwholesome, and every step which the invalid took, rendered him less equal to his task; so that when he arrived at the little promontory, it was with the utmost difficulty that he could suspend the sheet he had carried with him to the tree; after which, he sunk down exhausted. It had been his full intention to swim out, and endeavour to secure the boat; but this he soon found to be utterly impossible, as his disorder being greatly accelerated by the state of the atmosphere, he became rapidly so ill, as to be absolutely helpless. By degrees his senses forsook him; but he had a vague notion that some help was at hand, if he could but attain it; and with this idea floating in his mind, by a violent effort he made shift to fire his piece as a signal of distress; after which, he threw himself on the ground, as if in despair, to wait for relief by death, or assistance from his fellow-creatures.
In the mean time, the vessel which Sambo had seen, really approached the island, and having perceived the flag, they did not hesitate in sending a boat to reconnoitre; but knowing the island had no good landing-place, it was some time before the seamen reached the spot where the flag was streaming. Here they found a single individual lying on the sands, in a state of complete exhaustion, who seemed, from the oppression on his breast, to be dying, and who uttered no other words than, "My son! my son!" which the sailors did not understand, being part of the crew of a Dutch vessel, trading between the islands on the coast of Asia and the Cape of Good Hope. Conceiving him to be in a state of famine, the consequence of shipwreck, their first care was to give him some kind of spirituous liquor, which his extreme thirst induced him at first to swallow eagerly, but in another moment he rejected it; nevertheless, the effects were instantly injurious, and brought on the highest state of delirium. It did not appear wonderful to the sailors, that the poor stranger should exhibit symptoms of madness, for they concluded that he had lost his all; and seeing he was well dressed, and of a fine athletic form, likely soon to recover and reward them, they lost not a moment in seizing him, and placing him in their boat, taking his gun along with them, and securing both that and his pistols, lest in the despair which seemed to actuate him, he should turn them against himself. Just as they were clearing their way from the sands, poor Sambo arrived, and with unutterable agonies beheld the strangers take away his master alone, at the very time when he was seeking that master, to aid his dying son. After vociferating in the most violent manner, and attracting the attention of the seamen, who yet did not understand any thing besides his distress, he cast off his cloak, and swam out to the boat, which received him willingly, but either could not, or would not understand his entreaties on the subject of Charles. It was in vain the poor boy knelt to them, or addressed his master, who now lay in a kind of fit, as if he were dead already; and when, in his distress, he would have jumped into the sea, to return to "dear Misser Sharly," they not only prevented him, but bound him, and compelled him to lie down in the boat, conceiving that, like his master, his sufferings from shipwreck and famine had touched his brain, and inflicted a temporary loss of reason. On reaching the ship, both master and servant were received humanely by the commander; but the storm, threatened, by sure signs, for some hours, was now coming on with frightful rapidity, and he reproved his men for delay, being anxious to get out to sea, as far as possible, lest they should be driven on either of the neighbouring islands. The strangers were placed in safety, but no farther care could be given to their case, for the present, as the tempest soon broke on them with the utmost fury, and the light ship flew before the wind with the velocity of a bird, far, far from the more immediate object of fear, and far from the sick boy, now pining on the desert island, and vainly calling on his father for that help he wanted so much for himself.
In the mean time, Sambo, as his sense of despair for Charles's sad case increased, began to see how necessary it was to attend to him whom he considered his only surviving friend—"Poor Misser Sharly! him die by himselb: he hab no fader, no servant; an see here, my own good sahib—he die too, he no speak, or speak foolish: what will Sambo do? him cry as a ribber, dat do no good." As the only intelligible word Mr. Crusoe now uttered was a cry for water, the poor boy's first care was to procure that for him; and even in the confusion of the hour, as it was plentiful, he was so happy as to get it, and from time to time he held it to the parched lips of the invalid, who found it the best palliative of his complaint. When the storm was over, he, like his poor son, experienced a degree of relief in his breathing, and the acute pangs in his head subsided; but his delirium was continued several days, in consequence (most probably) of the entire change of scene in all around him, the unknown language in which he was addressed, and fluctuating notions, of his being both at sea and upon a desert island, which he had no remembrance of having quitted. The appearance of Sambo hovering about him, he always thought very advantageous to him, at this afflictive period, as he associated the idea of his son with him; and when, in answer to his inquiries for Charles, the poor boy shook his head, and wept, he conceived that he too was sick, and confined to his bed; and often vehemently insisted on being taken to his room, that he might wait on his poor child, and give him the medicines he needed.
In the mean time, the ship had a fine run to the Cape; and on landing there, Mr. Crusoe, and even poor Sambo, were soon recognised by friends, eager to assist them; and into their hands the Dutchman was glad to put his charge, whose money and arms he honestly deposited with the governor, demanding only a proper payment for his trouble, which was paid doubly, with thanks; but the gentleman who transacted the business heard, with great regret, that hitherto the sick passenger had had no medical help. The best medical assistance was now rendered to poor Mr. Crusoe which Cape Town afforded; and when bleeding and medicine had been administered, the remaining fever was soon subdued, and the mind of the patient awoke as from sleep; and though reduced to the very brink of the grave, he might be said, in a short time, to be free from disorder.
At this time Sambo, whose fidelity and anxiety for his master, together with his lamentations for his son, had attracted much attention, had happily made a kind of acquaintance with Mr. Parker, whose sympathy was so much excited, that having some spare time on his hands, he gave it up to managing the weakened frame and anxious heart of this afflicted father. Acting on the supposition Mr. Crusoe entertained of Charles's illness, he suffered him to retain this delusion, until he could safely inform him of the truth, as revealed by Sambo; and then believing, as he did, that the poor boy's misfortunes must ere now have terminated by death, he earnestly entreated Mr. Crusoe to take a passage on board a ship then going to England. He hoped, that in the bosom of his beloved family, he would find the only solace that remained for the loss of his son; and he urged the very hopelessness of the case, as a reason for expediting his removal.
Vain, however, was all that could be urged on this point; from the moment the unhappy father understood the nature and extent of his misfortune, he determined not to revisit Europe till he had convinced himself that his poor forsaken child existed no longer. True, however, to all his duties, and aware that the wreck of the ship in which he had sailed from India must reach his wife in a short time, and occasion her the most poignant anguish, he exerted himself to see the passengers of the ship Mr. Parker mentioned, and engaged one of them (a lady, who proved to be an old friend) to see his wife on her arrival, and break to her, by degrees, the probable loss of her son, together with an assurance of his own safety; and his intention to come to her, as soon as the nature of his painful duties admitted. To this he added an earnest assurance, that however deep his affliction must be, for the loss of a son so fondly beloved, and so singularly bereft, he would yet, for her sake, and that of his dear surviving child, struggle to attain resignation to this awful dispensation.
He also sent a few lines to the widowed daughter of Captain Gordon, informing her of her father's death, and of the documents once in his possession, which secured provision to herself and fatherless children; and enclosed an authority, whereby she might draw on his banker for her present wants, which he knew to be pressing. Having exerted himself on this important point, Mr. Crusoe (though still too weak to leave his room) began to make every possible inquiry for the means of returning to the island of St. Paul. He found, that neither that nor the more important one of Amsterdam were now ever touched at: and although he made most liberal offers, for the present he had no chance whatever of engaging any vessel to go thither, the season of the year precluding the power of doing so. One disappointment on this head succeeding another, and all preying upon his health, which was still extremely delicate, he at length gladly acceded to the proposal of Mr. Parker, who was going out with a cargo to Ceylon (and being valuable, both as a passenger and a medical man, to the captain with whom he sailed), he promised him, on his return, to sail direct for St. Paul's island, and give Mr. Crusoe an opportunity of fully examining the island, and paying the rites of Christian burial to his unfortunate son. The voyage to Ceylon was not attended with those dangers from which Mr. Crusoe had suffered on former occasions; but it was singularly tedious, and he had, unhappily, too much leisure to meditate on his misfortune. Many a time did he think, that if he could find Charles had died of the fever, in the very spot where Sambo had left him, he could be happy and thankful; but he could not endure the pain of believing that his poor boy had wandered about the island, weary and sickly, harassed with fear, afflicted with sorrow, and perishing with hunger. Above all other grief, was that awakened by the idea, that Charles might think that he had willingly forsaken him—"Surely," he would exclaim, in agony, "my son does not consider me capable of this! I trust he rather believes me dead, watches for my corpse on the beach, and at length dies, broken-hearted for my loss; for even this fate (melancholy as it is) will be more easy to him, than suspecting me so changed—so wicked as to be capable of the cruelty of saving my own life, at the expense of my duty and affection to him." Under the pressure of these melancholy thoughts, the days seemed of tenfold length to the unfortunate voyager; and in despite of all the cares of his kind friend, Mr. Parker, he suffered much in his health; and, all our young readers will be aware, that, at this time, he was in a more deplorable state than Charles, as to his feelings, though the actual situation of the poor boy was apparently so much worse. Mr. Crusoe, being on shipboard, could not apply himself to any employment capable of diverting his thoughts from that one painful object which engrossed them; and as he neither worked as a mariner, nor commanded as an officer, he had nothing to do but to watch the wind, which, though not violent, was almost always contrary, so that his spirits were continually oppressed; and what was still more mortifying, was the certainty, that this very wind would take him to the place where of all others he desired to go. It appeared as if the hand of Heaven was drawing him to the desolate island, and the hand of man thwarting its design; therefore no possible state could be more irritating to the temper, or harassing to the heart.
During this period, we may remember that our young exile was enduring those evils which compelled him to forget the sorrows of the mind in the wants of the body: hunger and cold drove him to exertion—past suffering induced him to use contrivances how to escape it, for the future—and the hope of relief, at the end of a given season, led him to adopt every possible means of sustaining life till that time arrived. To this may be added, a laudable desire of proving himself a manly and clever boy, by using every resource his situation allowed; and above all, a continual sense of the goodness of God, in his daily preservation, from which he argued, that such mercies might be continued and increased.
Once arrived at Ceylon, Mr. Crusoe found the captain as active in the disposal of one cargo and reshipment of another, as he could desire; and as he met here with several persons whom he had known in India, and found the means of procuring assistance in pecuniary matters, which was a present convenience, he experienced relief to his mind, and partial renovation to his health; and being always active and acute, in all matters of business, he greatly assisted the captain and others in the management of their concerns; and so expedited their return, that the vessel sailed again, under the prevalence of those winds which had, during the first voyage, been the occasion of so much hindrance.
Though Mr. Crusoe's situation was every way improved, seeing that every person in the ship was now disposed to assist his search, and he had changed, in their estimation, from a fretful invalid (always repining and discontented), to that of a benevolent man, of great abilities, in whose anxiety every person of sensibility must partake, yet his actual distress was rather increased than diminished, as he drew nearer the object to which he had so long looked. In such situations, some hope will mingle with fear; and by that very means increase the pain of disappointment; and for this reason, whenever the anxious father dared to make any promising conjectures as to the fate of his son, both the captain and Mr. Parker thought it their duty to quench all hopes of the kind. He would sometimes speak of Peter, the wild boy, who was found in the forests of Hamelin, in Hanover, and appeared to be about thirteen years old when he was taken feeding on grass and moss, and that he thought it was possible human beings might find nourishment in substances they had never tried before. To this Mr. Parker would reply—"Yes, sir, an infant, left at two years old, might perhaps do so; but your son was thirteen years old when he was lost; his habits were those of a gentleman; and notwithstanding you might take pains to make him active and independent, eastern manners and eastern luxuries must have had considerable effect in enervating his mind, and weakening his body; and you say he was rather little of his age, and though active, not strong. How could a boy of this description live, when the fruits were gone? Besides, he must think both you and Sambo dead, and grief for your loss, in addition to his own miserable situation, would so prey on his spirits, as to increase the maladies consequent on hunger and bad food, and render it impossible for him to struggle long; and the deluging rains, to which the islands are subject, falling when the leaves afforded no shelter, and the cave, of which you speak, had probably fallen in, would add to his distress, and——" "Say no more—say no more!" poor Mr. Crusoe would cry, "for I cannot bear the dreadful images you bring to my mind! perhaps the storm that drove me, with such rapidity, far from him, might prove my poor boy's destruction; and happy should I be, if I thought he was struck by the lightning, and dead in a moment, rather than that he should know I was taken from him, and die in languishing misery." "Poor Misser Sharly! neither him die one of dem way, neither him die de oder," would Sambo say: "no, him die in him bed, wid head that ache him, wid fever that parch him, same as him fader. Him hab no boy to gib water, water, when that Sambo leave him is all drankee: nobody to hold him up, when he will pant, pant—so he die quike dead, on him mattress, and nobody bury—nobody burn." This sad conclusion was usually followed by a flood of tears, occasioned in the poor boy, not only by sorrow for the loss of his beloved "Misser Sharly," but the remembrance that his own mother had been burnt with the corpse of his father; after which, the Bramins, who had persuaded her to the sacrifice, deserted and defrauded her son, who would have been condemned to the most helpless poverty, if he had not been protected by his indulgent master—that master who now no longer hoped to find his own son living, and only became anxious to ascertain (so far as he was able) the manner of his death, and give to his remains a grave. When within a short distance of their present destination, a breeze sprang up, which was directly against them, being the same which had borne poor Charles so far from the island. This occasioned some delay, during which time the father's terrible solicitude increased to very agony; and no food reached his lips, no sleep visited his eyes, the two days preceding his arrival at the fatal spot. On landing, the first object he beheld was the grave of Captain Gordon, on which he had, with his own hands, laid the planks which still remained, and around which were planted trees, which could only have been done by human hands—the hands of Charles Crusoe.
"My boy must have survived the fever: he unquestionably planted those trees." "It certainly appears so," said Mr. Parker; "but as they are nearly all withered, one cannot tell how long they have been done. Some vessel may have touched at the island, as it is well known to have plenty of good water. Let us see a little further." Sambo had, in the mean time, ran to the hut, from whence he cried aloud to his young master; for finding no remains of his corpse on the bed (which was the place in which his imagination had always laid him), he instantly conceived that he must be alive. His voice, at this period, did not reach Charles, but soon led Mr. Parker and the trembling father thither; and the latter, in the improvement of the place, instantly saw that his son had lived and laboured long after he left him; and he then first fired the piece which had struck the ear of Charles, and ordered Sambo to go down towards the spot from whence they had both departed, as being that where (if still living) he was most likely to be found, and which comprehended a circle of two-thirds of the island.
The boy departed, shouting as he went, whilst the surgeon, anticipating that a shriek of horror might too soon be exchanged for his present exultation, tried to prepare Mr. Crusoe for the change he anticipated, by begging him to look round the hut, and see whether the few things now in it were the same as those he had left. It was, at this time, comparatively stripped, because all, save the bed, was removed to the boat, and a few empty gourds, an oil flask, and lamp, alone remained within view, except the sailor's jacket and trowsers, which Mr. Crusoe remarked he had never seen before. "It appears to me that somebody has really been to the island, and most probably taken away your son. These things have belonged to a common seaman, who has probably exchanged them for something belonging to you or Captain Gordon." "No! I dare not believe this solution of the mystery: if the island has been visited, Charles has been robbed, and probably murdered." At this moment one of the seamen fired, and that loud exulting cry was heard, which told them Charles must be found: the surgeon ran back to the beach, and beheld, to his great astonishment, Sambo and the strange boy. Mr. Crusoe, with trembling limbs, would have run also, but had scarcely power to move, until, by a sudden bound, he burst through the trees, and in another minute beheld his son. On his uttering a cry of joy, he became still more certain of his identity, for the poor boy sank, as if struck by the hand of death, on the ground before him; and such was the agitation which convulsed his own weakened frame, that, for some time, the spectators dreaded to see death ensue, at the very moment when father and son were thus miraculously restored to each other.
The kindness and skill of Mr. Parker probably saved one or the other from witnessing the end of their hopes, on this affecting occasion; and to him they were still further indebted, on returning to the ship, where he found it necessary to attend, for some time, to the health of Charles, who, after so long living, as it were, in the open air, could ill bear the confinement of the vessel, even during the hours of night, and whose food, for some time, disagreed with him, in consequence of its being so different to all that he had lately been able to procure.
