Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Fantasy literature; Nature -- Juvenile fiction; Self-reliance -- Juvenile fiction
After a night spent in the roar of the sea, a drenched and bruised
prisoner among the rocks, it was nice to see the dawn again. No sooner
was it light than Martin set about trying to make his escape. He had
been washed by that big wave into a deep cleft among the rocks and
masses of hard clay, and shut in there he could not see the water nor
anything excepting a patch of sky above him. Now he began climbing over
the stones and crawling and forcing himself through crevices and other
small openings, making a little progress, for he was sore from his
bruises and very weak from his long fast, and at intervals, tired and
beaten, he would drop down crying with pain and misery. But Martin was
by nature a very resolute little boy, and after two or three minutes'
rest his tears would cease, and he would be up struggling on
determinedly as before. He was like some little wild animal when it
finds itself captive in a cage or box or room, who tries without ceasing
to find a way out. There may be no way, but it will not give up trying
to find one. And at last, after so trying, Martin's efforts were
rewarded: he succeeded in getting into the steep passage by which he had
come down to the sea on the previous day, and in the end got to the top
of the cliff once more. It was a great relief, and after resting a
little while he began to feel glad and happy at the sight before him:
there was the glorious sea again, not as he had seen it before, its wide
surface roughened by the wind and flecked with foam; for now the water
was smooth, but not still; it rose and fell in vast rollers, or long
waves that were like ridges, wave following wave in a very grand and
ordered manner. And as he gazed, the clouds broke and floated away, and
the sky grew clear and bright, and then all at once the great red sun
came up out of the waters!
But it was impossible for him to stay there longer when there was
nothing to eat; his extreme hunger compelled him to get up and leave the
cliff and the sandy hills behind it; and then for an hour or two he
walked feebly about searching for sweet roots, but finding none. It
would have gone hard with him then if he had not seen some low,
dark-looking bushes at a distance on the dry, yellow plain, and gone to
them. They looked like yew-bushes, and when he got to them he found that
they were thickly covered with small berries; on some bushes they were
purple-black, on others crimson, but all were ripe, and many small
birds were there feasting on them. The berries were pleasant to the
taste, and he feasted with the little birds on them until his hunger was
satisfied; and then, with his mouth and fingers stained purple with the
juice, he went to sleep in the shade of one of the bushes. There, too,
he spent the whole of that day and the night, hearing the low murmur of
the sea when waking, and when morning came he was strong and happy once
more, and, after filling himself with the fruit, set off to the sea
again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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