Barty Crusoe and His Man Saturday Part 5

The hole was in a piece of rock which stood out of the cliff. The opening was just big enough to crawl into.

"If we can get in it will keep the rain off us," cried Barty, and he went right down on his stomach and crawled in to see if there was room enough.

"Chattery-chattery-chat-chat-chatterdy," said the black monkey, running before him.

Almost as soon as Barty had crawled into the hole he gave a shout. He found he had crawled into an open place like a room, with walls of rock, and on one side there was actually an opening like a window, which looked out on the sea.

"It's a cave! It's a cave!" he called back to the Good Wolf, and the Good Wolf came scrambling in after him.

"It's a cave in the cliff," he said, "and the storm may do what it likes; it can't touch us. We found it just in time."

They were _only_ just in time, for at that very moment there came a great bellowing roar of thunder and a great rushing roar of rain. But it was all outside and they were safe and warm, and Barty danced for joy, and the black monkey danced too.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR

The tropical storm went on. The thunder crashed and the lightning flashed and the rain poured down in torrents. Barty had never heard such a noise in his life, but inside the cave everything was dry and warm and comfortable. The floor was covered with fine white sparkling sand, like a wonderful new kind of carpet. The walls and roof were made of white rock which sparkled also. The Good Wolf sat down on the white sand floor and smiled cheerfully. Barty sat down, too, and the black monkey sat down at the same time, because he was still perched on Barty's shoulder. He seemed an affectionate monkey, for he put one funny arm round the little boy's neck and leaned a black cheek against his curly hair.

"Come down and sit on my knee," Barty said to him, "I want to look at you. I never had a monkey for a friend in all my life before."

The black monkey jumped down on to his knee as if he had learned boys'

language in his cradle. He could only chatter monkey chatter himself, but it was quite plain that he understood Barty. He _was_ funny when he sat down and folded his tiny hands before him, as if he were waiting to hear what was going to be said to him.

"He has such nice eyes," said Barty. "I believe he is asking me to tell him to do something."

"Yes, that's what he wants," replied the Good Wolf. "That is what he came for. I knew he was coming. That was why I asked you if you had seen something black."

"Was it?" said Barty. "You know all about this desert island, don't you?"

"Yes," the Good Wolf answered. "Every single thing," and he said it with such a peculiar smile that Barty knew there was some secret in his mind and he wondered what it was, but he did not ask because he felt sure that the Good Wolf would tell him some time.

The black monkey was looking at him so eagerly and with such a funny expression that Barty could not help laughing.

"His face is so tiny and wrinkled that he looks like a baby a hundred years old--only babies never are a hundred years old," he said. "Will you stay with me?" he asked the monkey. "If I were really Robinson Crusoe and you were bigger you might be my Man Friday."

"Chat-chat--chattery-chatterdy-chatterdy," replied the little black creature, getting so excited that he quite jumped up and down as if he could not keep still. He chattered so hard and his chatter sounded so much as if he were talking that it made Barty laugh more than ever and put a queer new thought into his head.

"It seems as if he were trying to say Sat.u.r.day," he cried out.

"Perhaps he is saying it in monkey language. I'm going to call him that. If he isn't a Man Friday he can be a Man Sat.u.r.day." And Man Sat.u.r.day seemed so pleased and the Good Wolf thought it such a good idea, that Barty was delighted and hugged his new little black friend quite tight in his arms.

"Things get nicer and nicer," he chuckled. "I wouldn't have missed coming to this desert island for anything."

Tropical storms come very quickly and go very quickly. Suddenly this one seemed to end all at once. The thunder stopped and the lightning stopped and the rain was over and the huge black cloud disappeared and out came the blazing sun looking as if it were pretending that it had never been hidden at all.

Barty and the Good Wolf went to look out through the big hole in the wall of the cave which was like a window. Everything was sparkling and blue and green and splendid again.

The sea, and the sky, and the gra.s.s, and the trees all looked so beautiful that Barty stood and gazed out of the window for about five minutes, forgetting everything else. Then suddenly he turned and looked around the cave.

"Where is Sat.u.r.day?" he cried out.

The Good Wolf turned and looked about too, and after he had done it he shook his ears in a mystified way.

"I don't see him anywhere," he said. "He is not in that corner and he is not in _that_ one, and he is not in that one, and he is not in the _other_ one. If he were in the middle we should see him, of course."

"I am sure he wouldn't run away," said Barty. "I feel quite sure he wouldn't. He had such a nice look in his eyes and I know he took me for his friend. And I took him for mine. When people are friends they don't run away."

"Oh no," answered the Good Wolf. "Certainly not. Let us walk slowly all round the cave and look very carefully. This cave is a queer shape and it may have corners we can't see just at first."

So they walked round side by side and looked very carefully indeed.

Once they walked round, twice they walked round, three times they walked round, and then they stopped and looked at each other. The Good Wolf sat down and scratched his ear with his hind foot in a very careful manner, and Barty put his hands in his pockets and whistled a little, quite thoughtfully. But almost the very next minute he cheered up and his face beamed all over.

"Why," he exclaimed, "you see, if he is my Man Sat.u.r.day, he has things to do for me! I've not lived on a desert island long enough to know what they are, but I daresay they are very important. I believe he has gone to do something for me which he knows is his duty."

The Good Wolf stopped scratching his ear with his hind foot and became as cheerful as Barty.

"_Of course!_" he exclaimed emphatically. "You are a very clever boy to think of that. You always think of the right things at the right time, instead of thinking of the right things at the wrong time or the wrong things at the right time, which is very confusing."

"Shall we go outside and see if he is anywhere about?" said Barty.

"That is a good idea, too," responded the Good Wolf. "You are full of good ideas, and they are the most useful things a person can have on a desert island."

They walked down the cave--it was rather a long cave--towards the narrow pa.s.sage which led from the hole outside to which Sat.u.r.day had led Barty. As they came to the entrance to it they both drew back to look at something very queer which was coming towards them through the pa.s.sage itself. It certainly was the queerest thing Barty had ever beheld since he had been a boy, and the Good Wolf himself looked as if it seemed a queer thing even to him. It would have seemed queer to you, too. What it really was Barty could not possibly have told, but what it _looked_ like was a bundle of dried leaves bound together by long gra.s.s and _walking_ over the ground by itself as if it were alive.

"It _is_ walking, isn't it?" asked Barty, too much astonished to be sure his eyes did not deceive him.

"It certainly is," the Good Wolf replied, "there is no mistake about that, and though I am Noah's Ark Wolf and have lived for ages and ages, I have never seen a bundle of dry leaves walk before. It is very interesting, indeed." He actually sat down to watch it and Barty leaned forward with his hands on his knees and gazed with all his might. On it came. It did not walk fast at all, but rather slowly as if it found it rather hard to get along--which seemed very natural, because no bundle of dried leaves could have had much practice in walking.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Barty leaned forward with his hands on his knees and gazed with all his might.]

It walked past them and it walked the full length of the cave until it reached the corner nearest the window.

"It's stopping," called out Barty, and the next minute he called out again: "It's lying down."

It did lie down, almost as if it were tired, but it did not lie still more than a minute. It rolled over on its side and lay there, and there was a scuffling and a couple of black legs were to be seen kicking themselves loose, and a pair of black arms twisting themselves from under it, and a little black wrinkled face and head with cunning, bright eyes pushed themselves out, and the minute Barty saw them he shouted aloud with glee:

"Sat.u.r.day! Sat.u.r.day! Sat.u.r.day!" he cried out. "It was Man Sat.u.r.day all the time. He was carrying the bundle of leaves himself and it was so big and he was so little and the leaves hung down so that we didn't see him."