James De Mille - Cord and Creese - James De Mille

The first day was passed in exploring the rock to see if there was any place which he might select for his abode. There were several fissures in the rock at the eastern end, and one of these he selected. He then went back for his clothes, and brought them to this place. So the first day went.

All the time his eyes wandered round the horizon to see if a sail might be in sight. After two or three days, in which nothing appeared, he ceased his constant watch, though still from time to time, by a natural impulse, he continued to look. After all he thought that rescue might come. He was somewhat out of the track of the China ships, but still not very much so. An adverse wind might bring a ship close by. The hope of this sustained him.

But day succeeded to day and week to week with no appearance of any thing whatever on the wide ocean.

During these long days he passed the greater part of his time either under the shelter of the rock, where he could best avoid the hot sun, or when the sea-breeze blew on its summit. The frightful solitude offered to him absolutely nothing which could distract his thoughts, or prevent him from brooding upon the hopelessness of his situation.

Brooding thus, it became his chief occupation to read over and over his father's letter and the inclosure, and conjecture what might be his course of action if he ever escaped from this place. His father's voice seemed now to sound to him more imploringly than ever; and the winds at night, as they moaned round the rock, seemed to modulate themselves, to form their sounds to something like a wild cry, and wail forth, "Come home!" Yet that home was now surely farther removed than ever, and the winds seemed only to mock him. More sad and more despairing than Ulysses on the Ogygian shore, he too wasted away with home-sickness.

[Greek: kateibeto se glukus aion noston oduromeno.]

Fate thus far had been against him, and the melancholy recollections of his past life could yield nothing but despondency. Driven from home when but a boy, he had become an exile, had wandered to the other side of the world, and was just beginning to attain some prospect of a fortune when this letter came. Rising up from the prostration of that blow, he had struggled against fate, but only to encounter a more over-mastering force, and this last stroke had been the worst of all. Could he rally after this? Could he now hope to escape?

Fate had been against him; but yet, perhaps, here, on this lonely island, he might find a turning-point. Here he might find that turning in the long lane which the proverb speaks of. "The day is darkest before the morn," and perhaps he would yet have Fate on his side.

But the sternest and most courageous spirit can hardly maintain its fortitude in an utter and unmitigated solitude. St. Simeon Stylites could do so, but he felt that on the top of that pillar there rested the eyes of the heavenly hosts and of admiring mankind. It is when the consciousness of utter solitude comes that the soul sinks. When the prisoner thinks that he is forgotten by the outside world, then he loses that strength which sustained him while he believed himself remembered.

It was the lot of Brandon to have this sense of utter desolation: to feel that in all the world there was not one human being that knew of his fate; and to fear that the eye of Providence only saw him with indifference. With bitterness he thought of the last words of his father's letter: "If in that other world to which I am going the disembodied spirit can assist man, then be sure, O my son, I will assist you, and in the crisis of your fate I will be near, if it is only to communicate to your spirit what you ought to do."

A melancholy smile passed over his face as he thought of what seemed to him the utter futility of that promise.

Now, as the weeks passed, his whole mode of life affected both mind and body. Yet, if it be the highest state of man for the soul to live by itself, as Socrates used to teach, and sever itself from bodily association, Brandon surely had attained, without knowing it, a most exalted stage of existence. Perhaps it was the period of purification and preparation for future work.

The weather varied incessantly, calms and storms alternating; sometimes all the sea lying dull, listless, and glassy under the burning sky; at other times both sea and sky convulsed with the war of elements.

At last there came one storm so tremendous that it exceeded all that Brandon had ever seen any where.

The wind gathered itself up from the south-east, and for a whole day the forces of the tempest collected themselves, till at last they burst in fury upon the island. In sustained violence and in the frenzy of its assault it far surpassed that first storm. Before sundown the storm was at its height, and, though yet day, the clouds were so dense and so black that it became like night. Night came on, and the storm, and roar, and darkness increased steadily every hour. So intense was the darkness that the hand, when held close by the face, could not be distinguished. So restless was the force of the wind that Brandon, on looking out to sea, had to cling to the rock to prevent himself from being blown away. A dense rain of spray streamed through the air, and the surf, rolling up, flung its crest all across the island. Brandon could hear beneath him, amidst some of the pauses of the storm, the hissing and bubbling of foaming waters, as though the whole island, submerged by the waves, was slowly settling down into the depths of the ocean.

Brandon's place of shelter was sufficiently elevated to be out of the reach of the waves that might rush upon the land, and on the lee-side of the rock, so that he was sufficiently protected. Sand, which he had carried up, formed his bed. In this place, which was more like the lair of a wild beast than the abode of a human being, he had to live. Many wakeful nights he had passed there, but never had he known such a night as this.

There was a frenzy about this hurricane that would have been inconceivable if he had not witnessed it. His senses, refined and rendered acute by long vigils and slender diet, seemed to detect audible words in the voice of the storm. Looking out through the gloom his sight seemed to discern shapes flitting by like lightning, as though the fabled spirits of the storm had gathered here.

It needed all the robust courage of his strong nature to sustain himself in the presence of the wild fancies that now came rushing and thronging before his mind. The words of his father sounded in his ears; he thought he heard them spoken from the air; he thought he saw an aged spectral face, wan with suffering and grief, in front of his cave. He covered his eyes with his hands, and sought to reason down his superstitious feeling. In vain. Words rang in his ears, muffled words, as though muttered in the storm, and his mind, which had brooded so long over his father's letter, now gave shape to the noise of winds and waves.

"—In the crisis of your fate I will be near."

"I shall go mad!" cried Brandon, aloud, and he started to his feet.

But the storm went on with its fury, and still his eyes saw shapes, and his ears heard fantastic sounds. So the night passed until at last the storm had exhausted itself. Then Brandon sank down and slept far on into the day.

When he awaked again the storm had subsided. The sea was still boisterous, and a fresh breeze blew which he inhaled with pleasure. After obtaining some shell-fish, and satisfying his appetite, he went to the summit of the rock for water, and then stood looking out at sea.

His eye swept the whole circuit of the horizon without seeing any thing, until at length he turned to look in a westwardly direction where the island spread out before him. Here an amazing sight met his eyes.

The mound at the other end had become completely and marvelously changed. On the previous day it had preserved its usual shape, but now it was no longer smoothly rounded. On the contrary it was irregular, the northern end being still a sort of hillock, but the middle and southern end was flat on the surface and dark in color. From the distance at which he stood it looked like a rock, around which the sand had accumulated, but which had been uncovered by the violent storm of the preceding night.