Chapter 16
Yes! the unfortunate man had wept! Some recollection doubtless had flashed across his brain, and to use Cyrus Harding's expression, by those tears he was once more a man.
The colonists left him for some time on the plateau, and withdrew themselves to a short distance, so that he might feel himself free; but he did not think of profiting by this liberty, and Harding soon brought him back to Granite House. Two days after this occurrence, the stranger appeared to wish gradually to mingle with their common life. He evidently heard and understood, but no less evidently was he strangely determined not to speak to the colonists; for one evening, Pencroft, listening at the door of his room, heard these words escape from his lips:-
"No! here! I! never!"
The sailor reported these words to his companions. "There is some painful mystery there!" said Harding.
The stranger had begun to use the laboring tools, and he worked in the garden. When he stopped in his work, as was often the case, he remained retired within himself, but on the engineer's recommendation, they respected the reserve which he apparently wished to keep. If one of the settlers approached him, he drew back, and his chest heaved with sobs, as if overburdened!
Was it remorse that overwhelmed him thus? They were compelled to believe so, and Gideon Spilett could not help one day making this observation,--
"If he does not speak it is because he has, I fear, things too serious to be told!" They must be patient and wait.
A few days later, on the 3rd of November, the stranger, working on the plateau, had stopped, letting his spade drop to the ground, and Harding, who was observing him from a little distance, saw that tears were again flowing from his eyes. A sort of irresistible pity led him towards the unfortunate man, and he touched his arm lightly.
"My friend!" said he.
The stranger tried to avoid his look, and Cyrus Harding having endeavored to take his hand, he drew back quickly.
"My friend," said Harding in a firmer voice, "look at me, I wish it!"
The stranger looked at the engineer, and seemed to be under his power, as a subject under the influence of a mesmerist. He wished to run away. But then his countenance suddenly underwent a transformation. His eyes flashed. Words struggled to escape from his lips. He could no longer contain himself! At last he folded his arms; then, in a hollow voice,--"Who are you?" he asked Cyrus Harding.
"Castaways, like you," replied the engineer, whose emotion was deep. "We have brought you here, among your fellow-men."
"My fellow-men!... I have none!' "You are in the midst of friends."
"Friends!--for me! friends!" exclaimed the stranger, hiding his face in his hands. "No--never--leave me! leave me!"
Then he rushed to the side of the plateau which overlooked the sea, and remained there a long time motionless.
Harding rejoined his companions and related to them what had just happened. "Yes! there is some mystery in that man's life," said Gideon Spilett, "and it appears as if he had only re-entered society by the path of remorse."
"I don't know what sort of a man we have brought here," said the sailor. "He has secrets--"
"Which we will respect," interrupted Cyrus Harding quickly. "If he has committed any crime, he has most fearfully expiated it, and in our eyes he is absolved."
For two hours the stranger remained alone on the shore, evidently under the influence of recollections which recalled all his past life--a melancholy life doubtless--and the colonists, without losing sight of him, did not attempt to disturb his solitude. However, after two hours, appearing to have formed a resolution, he came to find Cyrus Harding. His eyes were red with the tears he had shed, but he wept no longer. His countenance expressed deep humility. He appeared anxious, timorous, ashamed, and his eyes were constantly fixed on the ground.
"Sir," said he to Harding, "your companions and you, are you English?"
"No," answered the engineer, "we are Americans."
"Ah!" said the stranger, and he murmured, "I prefer that!"
"And you, my friend?" asked the engineer.
"English," replied he hastily.
And as if these few words had been difficult to say, he retreated to the beach, where he walked up and down between the cascade and the mouth of the Mercy, in a state of extreme agitation.
Then, passing one moment close to Herbert, he stopped and in a stifled voice,-- "What month?" he asked.
"December," replied Herbert. "What year?"
"1866."
"Twelve years! twelve years!" he exclaimed. Then he left him abruptly.
Herbert reported to the colonists the questions and answers which had been made.
"This unfortunate man," observed Gideon Spilett, "was no longer acquainted with either months or years!"
"Yes!" added Herbert, "and he had been twelve years already on the islet when we found him there!"
"Twelve years!" rejoined Harding. "Ah! twelve years of solitude, after a wicked life, perhaps, may well impair a man's reason!"
"I am induced to think," said Pencroft, "that this man was not wrecked on Tabor Island, but that in consequence of some crime he was left there."
"You must be right, Pencroft," replied the reporter, "and if it is so it is not impossible that those who left him on the island may return to fetch him some day!"
"And they will no longer find him," said Herbert.
"But then," added Pencroft, "they must return, and--"
"My friends," said Cyrus Harding, "do not let us discuss this question until we know more about it. I believe that the unhappy man has suffered, that he has severely expiated his faults, whatever they may have been, and that the wish to unburden himself stifles him. Do not let us press him to tell us his history! He will tell it to us doubtless, and when we know it, we shall see what course it will be best to follow. He alone besides can tell us, if he has more than a hope, a certainty, of returning some day to his country, but I doubt it!"
"And why?" asked the reporter.
"Because that, in the event of his being sure of being delivered at a certain time, he would have waited the hour of his deliverance and would not have thrown this document into the sea. No, it is more probable that he was condemned to die on that islet, and that he never expected to see his fellow-creatures again!"
"But," observed the sailor, "there is one thing which I cannot explain."
"What is it?"
"If this man had been left for twelve years on Tabor Island, one may well suppose that he had been several years already in the wild state in which we found him!"
"That is probable," replied Cyrus Harding.
"It must then be many years since he wrote that document!"
"No doubt," and yet the document appears to have been recently written! "Besides, how do you know that the bottle which enclosed the document may not have taken several years to come from Tabor Island to Lincoln Island?"
"That is not absolutely impossible," replied the reporter.
"Might it not have been a long time already on the coast of the island?"
"No," answered Pencroft, "for it was still floating. We could not even suppose that after it had stayed for any length of time on the shore, it would have been swept off by the sea, for the south coast is all rocks, and it would certainly have been smashed to pieces there!"
"That is true," rejoined Cyrus Harding thoughtfully.
"And then," continued the sailor, "if the document was several years old, if it had been shut up in that bottle for several years, it would have been injured by damp.
Now, there is nothing of the kind, and it was found in a perfect state of preservation."
The sailor's reasoning was very just, and pointed out an incomprehensible fact, for the document appeared to have been recently written, when the colonists found it in the bottle. Moreover, it gave the latitude and longitude of Tabor Island correctly, which implied that its author had a more complete knowledge of hydrography than could be expected of a common sailor.
"There is in this, again, something unaccountable," said the engineer, "but we will not urge our companions to speak. When he likes, my friends, then we shall be ready to hear him!"
During the following days the stranger did not speak a word, and did not once leave the precincts of the plateau. He worked away, without losing a moment, without taking a minute's rest, but always in a retired place. At meal times he never came to Granite House, although invited several times to do so, but contented himself with eating a few raw vegetables. At nightfall he did not return to the room assigned to him, but remained under some clump of trees, or when the weather was bad crouched in some cleft of the rocks. Thus he lived in the same manner as when he had no other shelter than the forests of Tabor Island, and as all persuasion to induce him to improve his life was in vain, the colonists waited patiently. And the time was near, when, as it seemed, almost involuntarily urged by his conscience, a terrible confession escaped him.
On the 10th of November, about eight o'clock in the evening, as night was coming on, the stranger appeared unexpectedly before the settlers, who were assembled under the veranda. His eyes burned strangely, and he had quite resumed the wild aspect of his worst days.
Cyrus Harding and his companions were astounded on seeing that, overcome by some terrible emotion, his teeth chattered like those of a person in a fever. What was the matter with him? Was the sight of his fellow-creatures insupportable to him? Was he weary of this return to a civilized mode of existence? Was he pining for his former savage life? It appeared so, as soon he was heard to express himself in these incoherent sentences:--
"Why am I here?.... By what right have you dragged me from my islet?.... Do you think there could be any tie between you and me?.... Do you know who I am-- what I have done--why I was there--alone? And who told you that I was not abandoned there--that I was not condemned to die there?.... Do you know my past?.... How do you know that I have not stolen, murdered--that I am not a wretch--an accursed being--only fit to live like a wild beast, far from all--speak--do you know it?"
The colonists listened without interrupting the miserable creature, from whom these broken confessions escaped, as it were, in spite of himself. Harding wishing to calm him, approached him, but he hastily drew back.
"No! no!" he exclaimed; "one word only--am I free?"
"You are free," answered the engineer.
"Farewell, then!" he cried, and fled like a madman.
Neb, Pencroft, and Herbert ran also towards the edge of the wood--but they returned alone.
"We must let him alone!" said Cyrus Harding. "He will never come back!" exclaimed Pencroft. "He will come back," replied the engineer.
Many days passed; but Harding--was it a sort of presentiment? --persisted in the fixed idea that