The Admirable Lady Biddy Fane. Barrett Frank

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СКАЧАТЬ he could take meat instead of slops to his diet. Yet was he greatly changed, his skin having lost its freshness and healthful color, and his face much wasted. Also he was very weak, and for days lay exhausted and unable to move, yet with his eyes wide open and very bright. After a while I persuaded him to rise in the cool of the morning and evening, and then would he take a turn, leaning on my arm. And though he said nothing, I perceived he recognized the love I bore for him, and was grateful for my care. What pleased me vastly was to perceive that a change had been wrought in his spirit; it seemed as though his sluggish indifference had been purged away. When the fever had quite left him, his eyes continued bright and eager, and there was in his face an eager expression, telling of an anxiety which only exists where there is hope. But what his hope was he told me not. This encouraged me to believe that he designed leaving the island (where there was, as I could see, naught to hope for), and not dying there, as he had at first resigned himself to. I again began to meditate on the means of reaching Trinidado, but I refrained from opening the subject yet awhile, because he was still too feeble to undertake the fatigue of it.

      One day, when I had returned to the hut by the shore from the inner parts, where I had been planting a snare to catch a pig, I found Sir Harry absent; but soon after I heard him shouting, and, turning my eyes, I spied him running towards me along the sand with something in his hand, which, as he came nearer, I perceived was the stave of a barrel.

      "Look at that," says he, with much emotion; "there have been men on this island before us. Up in the wood there is a broken barrel; this is a stave of it. Men brought it here."

      "Why, for a certainty," says I, "this wood never sprang out of the earth fashioned thus?"

      "No," says he, "nor did the pigs on this island spring out of the earth."

      "What do you mean by that?" I asked, perplexed by this observation.

      "I mean," says he, "that the men who came here to fetch water in that barrel left the swine and the fowls to multiply against the time they should come here to revictual. I thought as much as I lay there in my sickness hearing the cock crow, and now I have the proof. Do you doubt it, man – do you doubt it?"

      "Not a whit," says I; "and I wonder I have not drawn the conclusion before, for I remember now how Rodrigues told me it was the habit of pirates, who fight shy of towns, to provide for themselves in this wise."

      "Then you think," says he eagerly, "that they are pirates who came hither?"

      "Ay, and not honest men; that is my fear," says I.

      "And I trust they be pirates, and not honest men, if they are to come here again," says he; "for then may I get back all I have lost, and more to boot."

      "As how?" says I, not without trouble in my mind.

      "By the same means my fortune was taken from me – by strategy and force."

      "Surely you would not become a pirate – you, a gentleman of birth and breeding?"

      "And what was Drake but a gentleman?" says he; "and Candish: what of him?"

      I shook my head, and heaved a sigh to hear this argument from the lips of my friend, which I had listened to from such a rascal as Rodrigues.

      "Why," says he, in a rallying tone, "you were not so squeamish aboard the Sure Hawk."

      "No," says I; "but I thank the Lord I have not taken his warning in vain."

      He laughed scornfully, as though thinking my peril had made me prayerful, and caressing the barrel stave with his hand, lifted his head and scanned the sea, as already expecting the return of those pirates we talked of.

      "And is your fortune all you expect to get by becoming a pirate?" I asked, laying my hand on his arm.

      "What more do I want, forsooth?" asks he lightly.

      "Why, sir," says I, "the peace of mind to enjoy it."

      "As for that," says he, "however I get it I warrant it shall bring me more enjoyment than I can expect stopping here, or going back to England a beggar."

      "Are you so daunted by the outset that you despair of getting gold honestly in Guiana?"

      "Hum!" says he; "I cannot see that it is much more honest to take gold from the Ingas of Manoa, who have never done us harm, than from the Spaniard, who has sought to undo us with his flotilla; but, be that as it may, you will show me how we are to get to Manoa, who are not yet beyond the mouth of the Oronoque, ere I give that enterprise the preference."

      "Single-handed we can do nothing, but I will answer for it that my uncle, Sir Bartlemy, instead of being discouraged by our first failure, will be more inclined to persevere in it. You know his nature as well as I do. A reverse does but strengthen his determination, as a bite infuriates a bulldog."

      "That is true," says he; "he is an Englishman to the very marrow of his bones."

      "Well, then," says I, "shall he not fit you out another expedition?"

      "Why, man, how can he? Nearly all he had was united to my fortune in buying the two ships I have lost and in equipping them. He is a ruined man. Ruined by me!"

      "If he lacks money, other shall be found. He will move heaven and earth to save you from the disgrace of sinking to the level of such wretches as Morgan and Sawkins, and this Rodrigues."

      In this sort I argued with him persistently, till at length, seeing that I was not to be shaken off by argument, he turns about and says:

      "Look you, Pengilly, I will never go begging in England, even for a second chance to be cast away on this island. I can not easily consent that another should beg for me; for a craven I must appear in either cases. But since your mind is set on this thing, go you to England without me; and if any, for my sake, will make this venture, lead them hither; then, if I be still here and alive, I will attempt this expedition to Manoa. Nay," he adds, interrupting me, when I began to protest that I would not quit him; "leave me here and go about this business as you will, you shall still be the more generous of the two; for I swear to you that if the worst pirate that sails the seas comes here I will cast in my lot with him, whether you accompany me, or whether you refuse to take part with us."

      Seeing him very stubborn and resolved upon this point, I then began to think seriously of getting away as best I could; for, thinks I, 'twere more humane to leave him here alone, with the chance of bringing him succor and the means of honestly escaping from his solitude, than to rest here inactive until perchance there comes some villainous sea-rover with whom he shall take his departure. For my own part I had no leaning to piracy; for, though I love the Spaniard no more than any other true Englishman may, yet I knew full well that Rodrigues and such fellows would not question closely whether their prey was Spanish, but would pillage and sink any craft that sailed so that it had not the strength to resist attack.

      So, going along the border of that upper stream, which in my ignorance I will call North River. I came upon a great tree that was dead and decayed about the roots, so that it needed but little cutting to make it fall, and that close to the water. This tree was fully three fathoms in girth, and proportionately tall, straight, and fair, decayed only where the humors of the earth had attacked its base, light and very proper in all ways to my use. Wherefore I set to work, and, cutting on that side I wished it to fall, I felled it with no very great difficulty. When it was down I found the upper part sound, as I expected, and not so hard but that with patient labor I succeeded in cutting two lengths each of five fathoms long. These two lengths I set side by side, the thicker end of one against the thinner end of the other; then I got a quantity of those long vines which the Indians call lianas, which СКАЧАТЬ