Jethou; or, Crusoe Life in the Channel IslesSuffling, Ernest R. (Ernest Richard)
General
Jethou; or, Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles
Suffling, Ernest R. (Ernest Richard)
Channel Islands; Jethou
Still, there _was_ a chance, and I went along the beach, as far as the
nature of the rocky shore would allow me, up and down, up and down, like
a dog on a race course, till at last, among a lot of cordage and fishing
gear, I thought I espied a man cast ashore, and so it was. He was
entangled in the mass of wreckage, and appeared dead. As I thought a
spark of life might still remain, I tried to disengage him, but try as I
would I could not disentangle his legs, so had recourse to my knife to
cut away the ropes which held him so fast. This I found a long process,
but at length I freed the poor fellow, and carried, or rather half
dragged him to the shelter of some rocks, and tried to revive him. His
heart still beat, so I ran to the house and got a bundle of straw and
some brandy. With the straw I made him a kind of bed, as he was a big
man, and the pathway too steep for me to carry him up, and pouring some
brandy into his mouth as he lay back I succeeded in causing him to open
his eyes, after about twenty minutes. I chafed his hands and did all I
could for him, and then ran back to procure more comforts. When I
returned he appeared much better; but although he looked at me he
appeared unable to speak, although he made a curious unintelligible
noise, such as one hears a dumb man make when he wishes to call a
person's attention. I noticed that blood was oozing from the corners of
his mouth, and signed to him to open it, when, to my horror, I perceived
that he had bitten his tongue completely off; hence his inability to
articulate. I then proceeded to examine him all over, but when I touched
his body he gave great groans, so that I would fain have left him alone,
had I not considered it my duty to act the Good Samaritan to him.
I tried to persuade him by signs to rise, that I might support him to
the house, but he shook his head and groaned again, when it occurred to
me that his legs might be injured, and this I found to be but too true;
both his thighs were broken. Then an idea came happily to my mind, I
would fetch my donkey and cart, and so endeavour to get him by a
circuitous route to the house and put him to bed.
Away I went and harnessed my faithful servant to his wonderful cart, and
was back again in about twenty minutes; but that short period had bereft
me of my patient, for when I bent over him to see if he were better, I
found he was again senseless. Taking up the lantern so that it shed its
full light on his face, I at once saw, to my consternation, that he was
dead. His eyes were wide open, and his teeth clenched in such a ghastly
manner as to make me, for a brief time, tremble with horror to think I
was thus left alone with a corpse.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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