God knows all he does for the poor baby; how he cheerfully carries him in
his arms when he himself is weak and ill; how he feeds him when he
himself is griped with want; how he folds his ragged jacket round him,
lays his little worn face with a woman’s tenderness upon his sunburnt
breast, soothes him in his sufferings, sings to him as he limps along,
unmindful of his own parched and bleeding feet. Divided for a few days
from the rest, they dig a grave in the sand and bury their good friend
the cooper—these two companions alone in the wilderness—and then the time
comes when they both are ill, and beg their wretched partners in despair,
reduced and few in number now, to wait by them one day. They wait by
them one day, they wait by them two days. On the morning of the third,
they move very softly about, in making their preparations for the
resumption of their journey; for, the child is sleeping by the fire, and
it is agreed with one consent that he shall not be disturbed until the
last moment. The moment comes, the fire is dying—and the child is dead.
His faithful friend, the steward, lingers but a little while behind him.
His grief is great, he staggers on for a few days, lies down in the
desert, and dies. But he shall be re-united in his immortal spirit—who
can doubt it!—with the child, when he and the poor carpenter shall be
raised up with the words, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of
these, ye have done it unto Me.’
As I recall the dispersal and disappearance of nearly all the
participators in this once famous shipwreck (a mere handful being
recovered at last), and the legends that were long afterwards revived
from time to time among the English officers at the Cape, of a white
woman with an infant, said to have been seen weeping outside a savage hut
far in the interior, who was whisperingly associated with the remembrance
of the missing ladies saved from the wrecked vessel, and who was often
sought but never found, thoughts of another kind of travel came into my
mind.
Thoughts of a voyager unexpectedly summoned from home, who travelled a
vast distance, and could never return. Thoughts of this unhappy wayfarer
in the depths of his sorrow, in the bitterness of his anguish, in the
helplessness of his self-reproach, in the desperation of his desire to
set right what he had left wrong, and do what he had left undone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account