Waldo yet craved his books, but they alone would no longer suffice. He
wanted something bigger, something more real and tangible--he wanted to
read and study, but even more he wanted to do. And back there in his
own world there would be plenty awaiting the doing.
His heart thrilled at the possibilities that lay before the new
Waldo Emerson--possibilities of which he never would have dreamed
but for the strange chance which had snatched him bodily from one
life to throw him into this new one, which had forced upon him the
development of attributes of self-reliance, courage, initiative, and
resourcefulness that would have lain dormant within him always but for
the necessity which had given birth to them.
Yes, Waldo realized that he owed a great deal to this experience--a
great deal to--. And then a sudden realization of the truth rushed in
upon him--he owed everything to Nadara.
"I was never ship-wrecked on a desert island," said the second mate,
breaking in upon Waldo's reveries, "but I can imagine just about how
good you feel at the thought that you are at last rescued and that in
an hour or so you will see the shoreline of your prison growing smaller
and smaller upon the southern horizon."
"Yes," acquiesced Waldo in a far away voice: "it's awfully good of you,
but I am not going with you."
* * * * *
Two hours later Waldo Emerson stood alone upon the beach, watching the
diminishing hull of a great ship as it dropped over the rim of the
world far to the north.
A vague hint of tears dimmed his vision; then he threw back his
shoulders, swallowed the thing that had risen into his throat, and
with high held head turned back into the forest.
In one hand he carried a razor and a plug of tobacco--the sole mementos
of his recent brief contact with the world of civilization. The kindly
sailors had urged him to reconsider his decision, but when he remained
obdurate they had insisted that they be permitted to leave some of the
comforts of life with him.
The only thing that he could think of that he wanted very badly
was a razor--firearms he would not accept, for he had worked out a
rather fine chivalry of his own here in this savage world--a chivalry
which would not permit him to take any advantage over the primeval
inhabitants he had found here other than what his own hands and head
might give him.
At the last moment one of the seamen, prompted by a generous heart and
a keen realization of what life must be without even bare necessities,
had thrust upon Waldo the plug of tobacco. As he looked at it now the
young man smiled.
"That would indeed be the last step, according to mother's ideas," he
soliloquized. "No lower could I sink."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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