Foe (5 page)

'I
reflected long on these words, but they remained dark to me. When I
passed the terraces and saw this man, no longer young, labouring in
the heat of the day to lift a great stone out of the earth or
patiently chopping at the grass, while he waited year after year for
some saviour castaway to arrive in a boat with a sack of corn at his
feet, I found it a foolish kind of agriculture. It seemed to me he
might occupy his time as well in digging for gold, or digging graves.
first for himself and Friday and then if he wished for all the
castaways of the future history of the island, and for me too.

'Time
passed with increasing tediousness. When I had exhausted my questions
to Cruso about the terraces, and the boat he would not build, and the
journal he would not keep, and the tools he would not save from the
wreck, and Friday's tongue, there was nothing left to talk of save
the weather. Cruso had no stories to tell of the life he had lived as
a trader and planter before the shipwreck. He did not care how I came
to be in Bahia or what I did there. When I spoke of England and of
all the things I intended to see and do when I was rescued, he seemed
not to hear me. It was as though he wished his story to begin with
his arrival on the island, and mine to begin with my arrival, and the
story of us together to end on the island too. Let it not by any
means come to pass that Cruso is saved, I reflected to myself; for
the world expects stories from its adventurers, better stories than
tallies of how many stones they moved in fifteen years, and from
where, and to where; Cruso rescued will be a deep disappointment to
the world; the idea of a Cruso on his island is a better thing
than the true Cruso tight-lipped and sullen in an alien England.

'I
spent my days walking on the cliffs or along the shore, or else
sleeping. I did not offer to join Cruso in his work on the terraces,
for I held it a stupid labour. I made a cap with flaps to tic over my
cars; I wore this, and sometimes closed my ears with plugs too, to
shut out the sound of the wind. So I became deaf, as Friday was mute;
what difference did it make on an island where no one spoke? The
petticoat I had swum ashore in was in tatters. My skin was as brown
as an Indian's. I was in the flower of my life, and now this had
befallen me. I did not weep; but sometimes I would find myself
sitting on the bare earth with my hands over my eyes, rocking back
and forth and moaning to myself, and would not know how I had got
there. When Friday set food before me I took it with dirty fingers
and bolted it like a dog. I squatted in the garden, heedless of who
saw me. And I watched and watched the horizon. It mattered not who
came, Spaniard or Muscovite or cannibal, so long as I escaped.

'This
was the darkest time for me, this time of despair and lethargy; I was
as much a burden on Cruso now as he had been on me when he raved with
fever.

'Then
step by step I recovered my spirits and began to apply myself again
to little tasks. Though my heart was no warmer towards Cruso, I was
grateful he had suffered my moods and not turned me out.

'Cruso
did not use me again. On the contrary, he held himself as
distant as if nothing had passed be-tween us. For this I was not
sorry. Yet I will confess, had I been convinced I was to spend the
rest of my days on the island, I would have offered myself to him
again, or importuned him, or done whatever was necessary to conceive
and bear a child; for the morose silence which he impressed upon our
lives would have driven me mad, to say nothing of the prospect of
passing my last years alone with Friday.

'One
day I asked Cruso whether there were laws on his island, and what
such laws might be; or whether he preferred to follow his inner
dictates, trusting his heart to guide him on the path of
righteousness.

'"Laws
are made for one purpose only," he told me: "to hold us in
check when our desires grow immoderate. As long as our desires are
moderate we have no need of laws."

'"I
have a desire to be saved which I must call immoderate," I said.
"It burns in me night and day, I can think of nothing else."

"'I
do not wish to hear of your desire," said Cruso. "It
concerns other things, it does not concern the island, it is not a
matter of the island. On the island there is no law except the law
that we shall work for our bread, which is a commandment." And
with that he strode away.

'This
answer did not satisfy me. If I was but a third mouth to feed, doing
no useful labour on the terraces, what held Cruso back from binding
me hand and foot and tossing me from the cliffs into the sea? What
had held Friday back all these years from beating in his master's
head with a stone while he slept, so bringing slavehood to an end and
inaugurating a reign of idleness? And what held Cruso back from tying
Friday to a post every night, like a dog, to sleep the more secure,
or from blinding him, as they blind asses in Brazil? It seemed to me
that all things were possible on the island, all tyrannies and
cruelties, though in small; and if, in despite of what was possible,
we lived at peace one with another, surely this was proof that
certain laws unknown to us held sway, or else that we had been
following the promptings of our hearts all this time, and our hearts
had not betrayed us.

"'How.
do you punish Friday, when you punish him?" I asked on another
occasion.

'"There
is no call to punish Friday," replied Cruso. "Friday has
lived with me for many years. He has known no other master. He
follows me in all things."

'"Yet
Friday has lost his tongue," said I, the words uttering
themselves.

'"Friday
lost his tongue before he became mine," said Cruso, and stared
at me in challenge. I was silent. But I thought: We are all punished,
every day. This island is our punishment, this island and one
another's company, to the death.

'My
judgment on Cruso was not always so harsh. One evening, seeing him as
he stood on the Bluff with the sun behind him all red and purple,
staring out to sea, his staff in his hand and his great conical hat
on his head, I thought: He is a truly kingly figure; he is the true
king of his island. I thought back to the vale of melancholy through
which I had passed, when I had dragged about listlessly, weeping over
my misfortune. If I had then known misery, how much deeper must the
misery of Cruso not have been in his had braved the wilderness and
slain the monster of solitude and returned fortified by his victory?

'I
used once to think, when I saw Cruso in this evening posture, that,
like me, he was searching the horizon for a sail. But I was mistaken.
His visits to the Bluff belonged to a practice of losing himself in
the contemplation of the wastes of water and sky. Friday never
interrupted him during these retreats; when once I innocently
approached him, I was rebuffed with angry words, and for days
afterwards he and I did not speak. To me, sea and sky remained sea
and sky, vacant and tedious. I had not the temperament to love such
emptiness.

'I
must tell you of the death of Cruso, and of our rescue.

'One
morning, a year and more after I became an islander, Friday brought
his master home from the terraces weak and fainting. I saw at once
the fever had returned. With some foreboding I undressed him and put
him to bed and prepared to devote myself to his care, wishing I knew
more of cupping and bloodletting.

'This
time there was no raving or shouting or struggling. Cruso lay pale as
a ghost, a cold sweat standing out on his body, his eyes wide open,
his lips sometimes moving, though I could make out no word. I
thought: He is a dying man, I cannot save him.

'The
very next day, as if the spell of Cruso's gaze on the waters had been
broken, a merchantman named the 
John
Hobart
,
making for Bristol with a cargo of cotton and indigo, cast
anchor off the island and sent a party ashore. Of this I knew nothing
till Friday suddenly came scampering into the hut and snatched up his
fishing-spears and dashed off towards the crags where the apes were.
Then I came out and saw the ship below. and the sailors in the
rigging, and the oars of the rowboat dipping in the waves, and I gave
a great cry of joy and fell to my knees.

'Of
the arrival of strangers in his kingdom Cruso had his first
intimation when three seamen lifted him from his bed into a litter
and proceeded to bear him down the path to the shore; and even then
he likely thought it all a dream. But when he was hoisted aboard the
Hobart
,
and smelled the tar. and heard the creak of timbers, he came to
himself and fought so hard to be free that it took strong men to
master him and convey him below.

'"There
is another person on the island," I told the ship's-master. "He
is a Negro slave, his name is Friday, and he is fled among the crags
above the north shore. Nothing you can say will persuade him to yield
himself up. for he has no understanding of words or power of speech.
It will cost great effort to take him. Nevertheless, I beseech you to
send your men ashore again; inasmuch as Friday is a slave and a
child, it is our duty to care for him in all things, and not abandon
him to a solitude worse than death."

'My
plea for Friday was heeded. A new party was sent ashore under the
command of the third mate, with orders by no means to harm Friday,
since he was a poor simpleton, but to effect what was needed to bring
him aboard. I offered to accompany the party, but Captain Smith would
not allow this.

'So
I sat with the captain in his cabin and ate a plate of salt pork and
biscuit, very good after a year of fish, and drank a glass of
Madeira, and told him my story, as I have told it to you, which he
heard with great attention. "It is a story you should set down
in writing and offer to the booksellers," he urged -"There
has never before, to my knowledge, been a female castaway of our
nation. It will cause a great stir." I shook my head sadly. "As
I relate it to you, my story passes the time well enough," I
replied; "but what little I know of book-writing tells me its
charm will quite vanish when it is set down baldly in print. A
liveliness is lost in the writing down which must be supplied by art,
and I have no art." "As to art I cannot pronounce, being
only a sailor," said Captain Smith; "but you may depend on
it, the booksellers will hire a man to set your story to rights, and
put in a dash of colour too, here and there." "I will not
have any lies told," said I. The captain smiled. "There I
cannot vouch for them," he said: "their trade is in books,
not in truth." "I would rather be the author of my own
story than have lies told about me," I persisted -"If I
cannot come forward, as author, and swear to the truth of my tale,
what will be the worth of it? I might as well have dreamed it in a
snug bed in Chichester."

'At
this juncture we were summoned above deck. The landing party was on
its way back, and to my joy I made out the dark figure of Friday
among the sailors. "Friday, Friday!" I called as the boat
came alongside, and smiled to show that all was well, the seamen were
friends, not foes. But when he was brought aboard Friday would not
meet my eye. With sunken shoulders and bowed head he awaited whatever
was to befall him. "Can he not be taken to his master?" I
asked the captain -"When he sees Mr Cruso is well cared for,
perhaps he will accept that we mean no harm."

'So
while sail was hoisted and the head of the ship put about, I led
Friday below to the cabin where Cruso lay. "Here is your master,
Friday," I said. "He is sleeping, he has taken a sleeping
draught. You can see that these are good people. They will bring us
back to England, which is your master's home, and there you will be
set free. You will discover that life in England is better than life
ever was on the island."

'I
knew of course that Friday did not understand the words. But it had
been my belief from early on that Friday understood tones, that he
could hear kindness in a human voice when kindness was sincerely
meant. So I went on speaking to him, saying the same words over and
over, laying my hand on his arm to soothe him; I guided him to his
master's bedside and made him kneel there till I felt calm overtake
us, and the sailor who escorted us began to yawn and shuffle.

'It
was agreed that I should sleep in Cruso's cabin. As for Friday, I
pleaded that he not be quartered with the common seamen. "He
would rather sleep on the floor at his master's feet than on the
softest bed in Christendom," I said. So Friday was allowed to
sleep under the transoms a few paces from the door of Cruso's cabin;
from this little den he barely stirred for the duration of the
voyage, except when I brought him to visit his master. Whenever I
spoke to him I was sure to smile and touch his arm, treating him as
we treat a frightened horse. For I saw that the ship and the sailors
must be awakening the darkest of memories in him of the time when he
was torn from his homeland and transported into captivity in the New
World.