Barty Crusoe and His Man Saturday
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"Why," he cried out the next instant, "they are all sitting together at the very top of the tree as if they were holding a meeting. I am sure they are talking to each other about something important."
"Perhaps they are talking about us," the Good Wolf said.
"I do think they are," laughed Barty. "They keep turning their heads to look down on us." Then he jumped up and stood on his feet and shouted out to them as he had shouted before. "Hello!" he said. "I don't know whether you are the ones who played in the band at the Snow Feast, but will you be friends? Let us be friends."
They all chattered so fast at this that it seemed as if they had gone crazy.
"You can't understand what they say," said Barty, "but I believe they mean that they will."
"Ah, they'll be friends," the Good Wolf answered. "You see, there is something about you that makes friends."
"Is there?" cried Barty, quite delighted. "I am glad. I wonder what it is that does it?"
"Well, you're a jolly little chap," said the Good Wolf. "You've got such stout little legs, and you always seem to be enjoying yourself."
"I am always enjoying myself," Barty answered. "I'm enjoying myself now 'normously. What shall we do next?"
The Good Wolf scratched behind his right ear, and Barty saw it was that thoughtful sort of scratch of his – the one he scratched when he was turning things over in his mind.
"Well," he said, after being quiet for a few moments, "Robinson Crusoe looked for a good many things that first day, didn't he?"
"Yes, he did," murmured Barty.
"Now what do you think we had better look for first?" the Good Wolf asked him.
"What do you think?" said Barty.
"I want you to tell me," replied the Good Wolf. "It's your desert island, you know, and you ought to take some of the responsibility."
Barty stood still and looked down at the ground, and the crowd of black monkeys at the top of the tree looked down at him and stopped chattering as if they wanted to hear what he would say. After about a minute he looked up.
"We can't roast potatoes unless we have a fire, and we can't have a fire unless we have some matches, and we haven't any matches," he said.
The Good Wolf shook his head seriously.
"No, we haven't any matches," he answered.
"Do you think we should find any if we went to look for some?" Barty asked, feeling rather uncertain.
The Good Wolf got up and shook his fur coat thoroughly.
"There is no knowing what one may find on a desert island," he remarked. "There is absolutely no knowing." Then he stopped a minute. "Is that all you can think of just now?" he asked Barty. "Just look about you."
Barty looked about him on the grass and under the trees, but he saw nothing which made him think of anything new.
"Look all about you," said the Good Wolf.
So he looked not only on the ground, but up into the tree tops and over them into the sky. It looked very blue and hot and beautiful, but far away he saw a rather small cloud of a very queer color – it was purplish-black and had ragged edges.
"It's a storm cloud," said the Good Wolf, looking serious, "and it's coming towards the island. Do you see the wind beginning to stir the tops of the trees?"
"Yes," said Barty, looking rather anxious himself. "On Robinson Crusoe's desert island there was a kind of storm they call a tropical storm – I don't know what 'tropical' means, but the storms were dreadful. Is there going to be one now?"
"There is," said the Good Wolf. "Tropical storms are storms in the hot countries, and they are not nice to be out in."
Barty gave a shout.
"Then it's a house we must find first," he said, "as quickly as ever we can. We can't stay in the forest because the wind roots up the trees and the lightning strikes them and they fall crashing and crashing. We must find a house or a place to hide in. Could we run back to the beach and dig a hole in the sand and creep into it?"
"The kind of storm that cloud is bringing here," answered the Good Wolf, "will lash the sea into waves like mountains, and they will roll in and cover the beach like a big tide."
"The tree tops are beginning to shake now and the monkeys are chattering as if they were frightened," said Barty. "It's very queer and exciting."
"We must get away from the trees," said the Good Wolf. "Are you frightened?"
"Yes, I am frightened," answered Barty, "but there isn't any time to cry. Shall we run as fast as ever we can and look about us everywhere while we are running?"
"Yes," answered the Good Wolf; "we had better run to a place where there will be nothing to fall on us. One to be ready, two to be steady, three and – away!" And off they both started as fast as they could, and left the monkeys chattering and screaming behind them.
There were trees everywhere except near the shore, so they ran back towards where the sea was.
"If we stay on the cliffs the mountain waves won't dash up that high, will they?" Barty panted as he ran.
"No, they won't," answered the Good Wolf, "but the wind may blow us off the cliffs into the water."
"I don't see any house anywhere," said Barty.
"Neither do I," said the Good Wolf. "You don't find houses on desert islands; you have to build them."
Barty's stout little legs were flying over the ground faster than they had ever flown before, and he was in such a hurry he could scarcely find breath to speak, but he gave a little gasping laugh.
"There isn't much time to build one now," he said. And the Good Wolf grinned from ear to ear.
How they did run – over the grass and up the slopes and down the hollows and over the green gullies! The wind came in hot puffs and shook the tree tops, and the purplish-black cloud looked more ragged than ever, and was growing bigger and coming nearer. By the time they got to the bottom of the long green slope which led to the top of the cliff they had to stop a few moments to take breath.
It was just then that Barty thought he saw a little black head dart out of the long grass and then dart back again.
"Did you see anything near that big leaf?" he asked his companion.
"No," answered the Good Wolf.
"I thought I saw something, but perhaps I didn't," Barty said.
Then they began to climb the long green slope, and it was very steep, and the hot puffs of wind seemed to rush down it to push them back.
"Did you see anything peep out from behind that bush?" Barty said, stopping suddenly again.
"No," answered the Good Wolf, "nothing."
Then they climbed and climbed. The big puffs of wind grew hotter and fiercer, and the cloud spread until it was blotting out the blue of the skies quite fast. Barty's stout little legs were very tired.
"Did you see anything peep up from behind that bit of rock?" he said suddenly, for the third time.
"No," answered the Good Wolf; "nothing at all."
"I was almost sure I did," said Barty, "But it was gone so quickly that I couldn't see what it was."
The Good Wolf looked at him out of the corner of his eye.
"Was it black?" he inquired.
"Yes," answered Barty. "Perhaps you did see it."
"No," replied the Good Wolf; "I didn't see it exactly, but I thought that if you were to see anything just at this time it would be something black."
"Why?" asked Barty. "Why?"
"Trot along, trot along, trot along," said the Good Wolf. "We haven't found a house yet, but at the top of the cliff there is a hollow in the ground that we might lie down in."
The cloud had grown so big that it had spread itself over the sun and was making the sky look quite dark. The hot wind was blowing so hard that the Good Wolf had to bend his head and stiffen himself on his four legs to stand up against it.
"Take hold of my hair and hold on tight!" he called out.
His thick coat was being blown all about, and Barty's curly hair was streaming straight out behind him. The wind made such a noise that they could hardly hear each other's voices. The waves off the shore were rolling and breaking on the beach with a sound like thunder.
"It's getting worse," gasped the Good Wolf. "Hold on to me and we will push as hard as we can until we get to the top."
"Th-this is a t-t-tropical storm," Barty panted.
"Do you wish you were at home?" the Good Wolf managed to ask before the wind blew his breath away.
"N-no-not yet," Barty managed to shout back, almost without any breath at all. "I s-said a desert island."
"Y-y-you are a j-jolly little ch-chap!" the Good Wolf shouted back. "Y-you are a-a st-stayer. Hold on to me tighter – here's a b-big blow coming."
It was such a tremendous blow that they had to throw themselves flat on the ground and let it pass over them. But they were nearly at the top of the cliff by this time, and after a few more battles and gasping short runs they reached the place where the green hollow was and threw themselves down into it and huddled close together.
They lay there for some time before they could get their breath again.
"The purple-black cloud looks as if it were dragging in the sea, and flashes are coming out of it," said Barty, when he could speak.
As soon as he could get breath again the Good Wolf sat up and scratched behind his ear very seriously.
"What has happened?" cried Barty suddenly. "It seems as if the wind had stopped all at once."
"I'm afraid it hasn't stopped for long," the Good Wolf answered. "I don't like the look of this at all."
A big drop fell on Barty's nose and made him jump.
"That was a 'mense drop of rain!" he cried out; "and it felt as heavy as a stone."
"That's what I don't like," the Good Wolf said. "When the rain comes down it will come in a deluge, and if the wind doesn't blow us over the cliff the deluge will half drown us."
Barty gave another jump, but this time it was not because a raindrop had startled him. It was because he heard something a few yards away behind him. It was a squeaky, gibbering little voice, and it sounded as if it said something very much like this:
"Chatterdy-chatterdy-chat-chat-chatterdy. Chat-chatter-chat!"
Barty heard it because the wind had stopped blowing and everything seemed for a few moments to be quite still. He stood up to look.
"It's the black thing!" he cried out. "It's one of the black monkeys who has followed us. He keeps popping his head in and out of a hole."
"I thought it was about time," the Good Wolf remarked. "Let us go and look at the hole."
"Chat-chat-chattery, chattery-chatterdy," said the black monkey, as if he were telling them to come.
They went to look, and as they drew near it the monkey kept darting in and out and chattering all the time.
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.
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 Saturday," 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 Saturday." And Man Saturday 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 grass, 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 Saturday?" 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 Saturday, 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 passage which led from the hole outside to which Saturday 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 passage 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 grass 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.
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:
"Saturday! Saturday! Saturday!" he cried out. "It was Man Saturday 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."
Man Saturday came running across to his little master. It was plain to be be seen that he was so pleased about something that he did not know what to do. He caught hold of Barty's hand and chatterdy-chattered at him and tried to pull him towards the corner.
"He wants me to do something," said Barty. "He brought the leaves for something. He wants me to find out what they are for."
Man Saturday danced before him to the corner where the bundle of leaves lay. He began to pull at the twigs which tied them together, and Barty knelt down and helped him.
"I'm sure they are for something important," he said. "I am going to think very hard."
He stood up and put his hands in his pockets and he stood astride because boys can often think harder when they stand that way. Man Saturday tried to imitate him, but as he hadn't any pockets he put his hands on his hips and held his head on one side while he watched Barty with his sharp little eyes, all eagerness to see if he would find out what he meant. He looked so funny.
"You couldn't eat them however loose your belt was," Barty said, looking at the leaves. "And you couldn't drink them even if you were dreadfully thirsty – and you couldn't wear them even if your clothes were worn out as Robinson Crusoe's were. Even if you had a needle and thread to stitch them together they would break to pieces because they are so dry and brittle."
"Yes, they are very dry," remarked the Good Wolf, quietly.
And then all in a minute Barty felt sure he knew.
"If there were enough of them you could lie down on them," he said in great excitement. "That's what they are for! Saturday knows where there are more of them and they are for a bed." When he said that, Man Saturday gave a squeak of delight and he immediately caught at Barty's hand and began to pull him towards the passage which was the way out of the cave.
"He has got a store of them somewhere," said the Good Wolf, "and it is a place where the rain could not reach it. Let us trot along and see."
Barty and Man Saturday were trotting along already, at least Man Saturday was trotting and Barty was creeping through the passage, and in two minutes he was out on the side of the cliff again and standing upon the ledge outside the cave. It was a very convenient ledge, and you could walk nearly all round the cliff on it. It was the kind of ledge you would only find on a desert island like Barty's – a really nice desert island.
Man Saturday led the way, and after a few yards they came to a place where some trees and bushes hung over the edge, and beneath them was a hole in the rock, rather like a very little cave, and there were a great many leaves near the entrance to it. Anyone could see how they had got there. They were blown from the trees and bushes, and when Barty bent down and peeped into the hole he saw that it was full of leaves which had been blowing in there for years until the tiny cave seemed almost stuffed with them. No rain could reach them and so they were quite nice and dry.
The hole was too small for Barty to crawl into, but it was more than large enough for Man Saturday, and chattering to Barty as fast as he could he crawled in and began to put together another bundle. He got the twigs from a bush close by and he pushed leaves out to Barty, so that he might help him.
It was great fun for Barty. He knew he could carry quite a bundle, and so he made a big one and when it was done he carried it back to his cave and pushed it before him when he crawled through the passage. Man Saturday brought one suited to his own size, because he was determined to work, too. Then they went back and made more bundles and the Good Wolf carried a big one on his back. In about half an hour the corner of the cave had a beautiful soft, heaped up, dry leaf bed in it, and Barty was rolling over and jumping and turning somersaults on it, and Man Saturday was jumping about with him. The leaves were piled so high and were so springy to jump on that it was like dancing in a hay stack, but rather nicer.
"Now," said Barty, stopping a minute to take breath after turning six somersaults on end, "we have a beautiful bath and we have a house and we have a bed and we have a Man Saturday – and we found something to eat when we looked, and I believe we shall find something more when we look again. I think just now I will lie down and have a sleep. Running very hard in storms does make you sleepy."
"That's a good idea, too," answered the Good Wolf. "I believe I should like to curl up and get a few thousand winks myself. Forty wouldn't be enough."