The Sun Of Quebec Part 18

"You're a good lad, Peter," said the slaver. "I've told you that before, but I repeat it now."

Robert then arrayed himself in dry garments. He was strangely and wonderfully attired in a shirt of fine linen with lace ruffles, a short, embroidered jacket of purple velvet, purple velvet knee-breeches, silk stockings and pumps, or low shoes, with large silver buckles. It was very gorgeous, and, just then, very comfortable.

"You look the dandy to the full, Peter," said the slaver. "The clothes have hung here more than a year. They came from a young Spaniard who had the misfortune to resist too much when we took the ship that carried him. They've come to a good use again."

Robert shuddered, but in a moment or two he forgot the origin of his new raiment. He had become too much inured to deadly peril to be excessively fastidious. Besides, he was feeling far better. Warmth returned to his body and the beat of the rain outside the house increased the comfort within.

"I think, Peter," said the slaver, "that you'd better go to sleep.

You've been through a lot, and you don't realize how near exhaustion you are."

Without giving a thought to the question of food, which must present itself before long, Robert lay down on the floor and fell almost at once into a sound slumber.

CHAPTER VII

THE PIRATE'S WARNING

When the lad awoke it was quite dark in the house, but there was no sound of rain. He went to the door and looked out upon a fairly clear night. The storm was gone and he heard only a light wind rustling through palms. There was no thunder of beating surf in the distance. It was a quiet sky and a quiet island.

He went back and looked at the slaver. The man was asleep on his couch, but he was stirring a little, and he was hot with fever. Robert felt pity for him, cruel and blood-stained though he knew him to be. Besides, he was the only human companion he had, and he did not wish to be left alone there. But he did not know what to do just then, and, lying down on the floor, he went to sleep again.

When he awoke the second time day had come, and the slaver too was awake, though looking very weak.

"I've been watching you quite a while, Peter," he said. "You must have slept fifteen or sixteen hours. Youth has a wonderful capacity for slumber and restoration. I dare say you're now as good as ever, and wondering where you'll find your breakfast. Well, when I built this house I didn't neglect the plenishings of it. Open the door next to you and you'll find boucan inside. 'Boucan,' as you doubtless know, is dried beef, and from it we got our name the buccaneers, because in the beginning we lived so much upon dried beef. Enough is in that closet to last us a month, and there are herds of wild cattle on the island, an inexhaustible larder."

"But we can't catch wild cattle with our hands," said Robert.

The slaver laughed.

"You don't think, Peter," he said, "that when I built a house here and furnished it I neglected some of the most necessary articles. In the other closet you'll find weapons and ammunition. But deal first with the boucan."

Robert opened the closet and found the boucan packed away in sheets or layers on shelves, and at once he became ravenously hungry.

"On a lower shelf," said the slaver, "you'll find flint and steel, and with them it shouldn't be hard for a wilderness lad like you to start a fire. There are also kettles, skillets and pans, and I think you know how to do the rest."

Robert went to work on a fire. The wood, which was abundant outside, was still damp, but he had a strong clasp knife and he whittled a pile of dry shavings which he succeeded in igniting with the flint and steel, though it was no light task, requiring both patience and skill. But the fire was burning at last and he managed to make in one of the kettles some soup of the dried beef, which he gave to the captain. The man had no appet.i.te, but he ate a little and declared that he felt stronger.

Then Robert broiled many strips for himself over the coals and ate ravenously. He would have preferred a greater variety of food, but it was better than a castaway had a right to expect.

His breakfast finished, he continued his examination of the house, which was furnished with many things, evidently captured from ships. He found in one of the closets a fine fowling piece, a hunting rifle, two excellent muskets, several pistols, ammunition for all the fire-arms and a number of edged weapons.

"You see, Peter, you're fitted for quite an active defense should enemies come," said the slaver. "You'll admit, I think, that I've been a good housekeeper."

"Good enough," said Peter. "Are there any medicines?"

"You'll find some salves and ointments on the top shelf in the second closet, and you can make a poultice for this hurt of mine. Between you and me, Peter, I've less pain, but much more weakness, which is a bad sign."

"Oh, you'll be well in a few days," said Robert cheerfully. "One wound won't carry off a man as strong as you are."

"One wound always suffices, provided it goes in deep enough, but I thank you for your rosy predictions, Peter. I think your good wishes are genuinely sincere."

Robert realized that they were so, in truth. In addition to the call of humanity, he had an intense horror of being left alone on the island, and he would fight hard to save the slaver's life. He compounded the poultice with no mean skill, and, after bathing the wound carefully with fresh water from a little spring behind the hut, he applied it.

"It's cooling, Peter, and I know it's healing, too," said the man, "but I think I'll try to go to sleep again. As long as I'm fastened to a couch that's about the only way I can pa.s.s the time. Little did I think when I built this house that I'd come here without a ship and without a crew to pa.s.s some helpless days."

He shut his eyes. After a while, Robert, not knowing whether he was asleep or not, took down the rifle, loaded it, and went out feeling that it was high time he should explore his new domain.

In the sunlight the island did not look forbidding. On the contrary, it was beautiful. From the crest of the hill near the house he saw a considerable expanse, but the western half of the island was cut off from view by a higher range of hills. It was all in dark green foliage, although he caught the sheen of a little lake about two miles away. As far as he could see a line of reefs stretched around the coast, and the white surf was breaking on them freely.

From the hill he went back to the point at which he and the captain had been swept ash.o.r.e, and, as he searched along the beach he found the bodies of all those who had been in the boat with them. He had been quite sure that none of them could possibly have escaped, but it gave him a shock nevertheless to secure the absolute proof that they were dead. He resolved if he could find a way to bury them in the sand beyond the reach of the waves, but, for the present, he could do nothing, and he continued along the sh.o.r.e several miles, finding its character everywhere the same, a gentle slope, a stretch of water, and beyond that the line of reefs on which the white surf was continually breaking, reefs with terrible teeth as he well knew.

But it was all very peaceful now. The sea stretched away into infinity the bluest of the blue, and a breeze both warm and stimulating came out of the west. Robert, however, looked mostly toward the north. Albany and his friends now seemed a world away. He had been wrenched out of his old life by a sudden and unimaginable catastrophe. What were Tayoga and Willet doing now? How was the war going? For him so far as real life was concerned the war simply did not exist. He was on a lost island with only a wounded man for company and the struggle to survive and escape would consume all his energies.

Presently he came to what was left of their boat. It was smashed badly and half buried in the sand. At first he thought he might be able to use it again, but a critical examination showed that it was damaged beyond any power of his to repair it, and with a sigh he abandoned the thought of escape that way.

He continued his explorations toward the south, and saw groves of wild banana, the bushes or shrubs fifteen or twenty feet high, some of them with ripe fruit hanging from them. He ate one and found it good, though he was glad to know that he would not have to depend upon bananas wholly for food.

A mile to the south and he turned inland, crossing a range of low hills, covered with dense vegetation. As he pa.s.sed among the bushes he kept his rifle ready, not knowing whether or not dangerous wild animals were to be found there. He had an idea they were lacking in both the Bahamas and the West Indies, but not being sure, he meant to be on his guard.

Before he reached the bottom of the slope he heard a puff, and then the sound of heavy feet. All his wilderness caution was alive in a moment, and, drawing back, he c.o.c.ked the rifle. Then he crept forward, conscious that some large wild beast was near. A few steps more and he realized that there were more than one. He heard several puffs and the heavy feet seemed to be moving about in an aimless fashion.

He came to the edge of the bushes, and, parting them, he looked cautiously from their cover. Then his apprehensions disappeared. Before him stretched a wide, gra.s.sy savanna and upon it was grazing a herd of wild cattle, at least fifty in number, stocky beasts with long horns.

Robert looked at them with satisfaction. Here was enough food on the hoof to last him for years. They might be tough, but he had experience enough to make them tender when it came to fire and the spit.

"Graze on in peace until I need you," he said, and crossing the savanna he found beyond, hidden at first from view by a fringe of forest, the lake that he had seen from the crest of the hill beside the house. It covered about half a square mile and was blue and deep. He surmised that it contained fish good to eat, but, for the present he was content to let them remain in the water. They, like the wild cattle, could wait.

Feeling that he had been gone long enough, he went back to the house and found the slaver asleep or in a stupor, and, when he looked at him closely, he was convinced that it was more stupor than sleep. He was very pale and much wasted. It occurred suddenly to Robert that the man would die and the thought gave him a great shock. Then, in very truth, he would be alone. He sat by him and watched anxiously, but the slaver did not come back to the world for a full two hours.

"Aye, Peter, you're there," he said. "As I've told you several times, you're a good lad."

"Can I make you some more of the beef broth?" asked Robert.

"I can take a little I think, though I've no appet.i.te at all."

"And I'd like to dress your wound again."

"If it's any relief to you, Peter, to do so, go ahead, though I think 'tis of little use."

"It will help a great deal. You'll be well again in a week or two. It isn't so bad here. With a good house and food it's just the place for a wounded man."

"Plenty of quiet, eh Peter? No people to disturb me in my period of convalescence."

"Well, that's a help."

Robert dressed the wound afresh, but he noticed during his ministrations that the slaver's weakness had increased, and his heart sank. It was a singular fact, but he began to feel a sort of attachment for the man who had done him so much ill. They had been comrades in a great hazard, and were yet. Moreover, the fear of being left alone in a tremendous solitude was recurrent and keen. These motives and that of humanity made him do his best.

"I thank you, Peter," said the wounded man. "You're standing by me in n.o.ble fashion. On the whole, I'm lucky in being cast away with you instead of one of my own men. But it hurts me more than my wound does to think that I should have been tricked, that a man of experience such as I am should have been lured under the broadside of the sloop of war by an old fellow playing a fiddle and a couple of sailors dancing. My mind keeps coming back to it. My brain must have gone soft for the time being, and so I've paid the price."