The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe

by Peter Clines, Daniel Defoe, H. P. Lovecraft

  I thought I was sitting on the ground on the outside of my wall, where I sat when the storm blew after the earthquake, and I saw a thing rise from the sea beneath a great black cloud and light upon the shore. He, for I somehow knew it to be male, was all over as dark as pitch and projected from him a terrible wrongness, so I could but just bear to look towards him. His countenance was most inexpressibly dreadful, impossible for words to describe, with a beard of thick ropes of flesh, like those of a cuttel fish, and cold eyes that bit at the skin like winter wind. When he stepped upon the shore with his broad feet the island trembled, just as it had done before in the earthquake, and all the air looked, to my apprehension, as if it had been fill’d with flashes of fire.

  He had no sooner lighted upon the shore but his wrongness spread out across the island as ripples spread across a pool of water, and every hill became changed and every stone black and unnatural. He moved forward towards me, and he did tower so high he looked down upon me and seem'd to cover leagues with each step. When he came to a rising ground, still enormous at some distance, he spoke to me, or I heard a voice so terrible it is impossible to express the terror of it. All I can say I understood, was this:

  "Robinson Crusoe. There you are. Seeing all these things have not brought thee to my service, now thou shalt die."

  At which words he lifted up his great and terrible hand to kill me. A terrible howl filled the air, and it was somehow made known to me, as is the way of dreams, that this was the beast, which also fear'd this great dark lord, but rally'd against him as well. At this point I start'd awake, though my heart did race in terror, and for some time I could not believe the dream was not a true thing I had remembered.

  No one that shall ever read this account will expect I should be able to describe the horrors of my soul at this terrible vision. I mean, even while it was a dream, I even dreamed of those horrors. Nor is it any more possible to describe the impression that remained upon my mind when I awaked and found it was but a dream.

  I had, alas! no divine knowledge. What I had received by the good instruction of my father was then worn out by an uninterrupted series of seafaring wickedness and a constant conversation with none but such as were, like myself, wicked and profane to the last degree. I do not remember I had, in all that time, one thought that so much as tended either to looking upward towards God or inward towards a reflection upon my own ways. A certain stupidity of soul, without desire of good, or consciousness of evil, had overwhelmed me. I was all the most hardened, unthinking, wicked creature among our common sailors can be supposed to be, not having the least sense either of the fear of God in danger or of thankfulness to him in deliverances.

  Even when I was, on due consideration, made sensible of my condition, how I was cast on this dreadful place, out of the reach of human kind, out of all prospect of redemption, as soon as I saw but a prospect of living, and that I should not starve and perish for hunger, all the sense of my affliction wore off. These were thoughts which very seldom entered into my head.

  But now, when I began to be sick, and a leisure view of the miseries of death came to place itself before me, when my spirits began to sink under the burden of a strong distemper, and nature was exhausted with the violence of the fever, conscience, that had slept so long, began to awake. I reproached myself with my past life, in which I had, by uncommon wickedness, invited dark creatures unto my soul which God in his vindictiveness did allow.

  It is good that I mention some may find the beast to be a dark creature, and it is a wild and vicious one, but in truth it is a part of nature, as has my father often taught all his sons, and as his father taught him.

  These reflections oppressed me for the second or third day of my distemper. In the violence, as well of the fever as of the dreadful terror of my dream, extorted from me some words like praying to God. Tho’ I cannot say it was a prayer attended either with desires or with hopes. It was rather the voice of mere fright and distress. It was exclamation, such as, "Lord, what a miserable creature am I! What will become of me?" Then the tears burst out of my eyes, and I could say no more for a good while.

  In this interval, the good advice of my father came to my mind, and his prediction which I mentioned at the beginning of this story. "Now," said I, aloud, "my dear father's words are come to pass. God's justice has overtaken me, and I have none to help or hear me. I rejected the voice of Providence, which had mercifully put me in a station of life wherein I might have been happy and easy. I would neither see it myself, nor learn from my parents to know the blessing of it. I left them to mourn over my folly, and now I am left to mourn under the consequences of it."

  This was the first prayer, if I may call it so, I had made for many years.

  But I return to my Journal.

  June 28.

  Having been somewhat refreshed with the sleep I had had, and the fit being entirely off, I got up. Tho’ the fright and terror of my dream was very great, yet I considered the fit of the ague would return again the next day, and now was my time to get something to refresh and support myself when I should be ill. The first thing I did was to fill a large square case-bottle with water and set it upon my table in reach of my bed. To take off the chill or aguish disposition of the water, I put about a quarter of a pint of rum into it and mixed them together, which the sailors call grog. Then I got me a piece of goat's flesh, and broiled it on the coals, but could eat very little. I walked about but was very weak and withal very sad and heavy-hearted under a sense of my miserable condition, dreading the return of my distemper the next day and a return of the dream if I slept. At night, I made my supper of three of the turtle's eggs, which I roasted in the ashes and ate in the shell.

  After I had eaten, I tried to walk, but found myself so weak I could hardly carry the gun, for I never went out without that. So I went but a little way and sat down upon the ground, looking out upon the sea, which was just before me, and very calm and smooth. It did appear in my thoughts that this was the same place I had sat for the earthquake and the same place I also sat during my most horrible dream.

  As I sat here, some such thoughts as these occurred to me. What was the awful dream lord which still darken'd my mood so? Whence did such a vision produce from? Did the beast truly see this dark lord, or was that meerly part of the dream as well? Surely some secret power was having influence over me. And who is that?

  It did come to my mind that this power was guilt, or riding upon my guilt the way one would ride a horse. The death of the mate still hung heavy in my thoughts, and as guilty as his death made me was that I, who considered myself good among men, had not even made clear to learn or remember his name, a point I had not put to words before. Truly was I a wretch, and the beast as thrice-damned as the church did teach. Could there be another reason God had seen fit to have this banishment befall me?

  However, I then bethought myself that if God guides and governs all his creations, and all things that concern them, for the power that could make all things must have power to guide and direct them, nothing can happen in the great circuit of his works either without his knowledge or appointment. How, then, did this come to pass? If I was a wretch and the beast thrice-damned, why were we not long ago destroyed? Why was I not drown'd in Yarmouth Roads, kill'd in the fight when the ship was taken by the Sallee pirates, or devoured by the wild creatures of Africk? Why was I not allowed to throw myself from the rail here when all the crew perish'd but myself?

  I was struck dumb with these reflections, as one astonished, and had not a word to say. Rising up pensive, I walked back to my retreat and went over my wall, as if I had been going to bed. But my thoughts were many, and I had no inclination to sleep. So I sat down in the chair and lighted my lamp, for it began to be dark.

  Now, as the apprehension of the return of my distemper and the dreams it brought terrified me very much, it occurred to my thought that the Brasilians took no physic but their tobacco for almost all distempers. I had a piece of a roll of tobacco in one of the chests, whic
h was quite cured, and some also that was green and not quite cured.

  I went directed by Heaven no doubt, for in this chest I found a cure both for soul and body. I opened the chest and found what I looked for, viz. the tobacco. As the few books I had saved lay there too, I took out one of the Bibles which I mentioned before and which to this time I had not found leisure, or so much as inclination, to look into. I took it out and brought both that and the tobacco with me to the table.

  What use to make of the tobacco I knew not, as to my distemper, nor whether it was good for it or not. I try’d several experiments with it, as if I was resolv’d it should hit one way or other.

  In the interval of this operation I took up the Bible and began to read, but my head was too much disturbed with the tobacco to bear reading, at least at that time. Having opened the book, the first words that occurred to me were these:

  Call on me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

  These words were very apt to my case and made some impression upon my thoughts at the time of reading them, tho’ not so much as they did afterwards. It now grew late and the tobacco had dozed my head so much I inclined to sleep. So I left my lamp burning in the cave, lest I should want any thing in the night, and went to bed.

  I fell into a sound sleep and waked no more till, by the sun, it must necessarily be near three o'clock in the afternoon the next day. Nay, to this hour I am partly of opinion I slept all the next day and night and till almost three the day after. Otherwise, I know not how I should lose a day out of my reckoning in the days of the week, as it appeared some years after I had done. If I had lost it by crossing and re-crossing the Line, I should have lost more than one day, but certainly I lost a day or more in my account and never knew which way.

  Be that, however, one way or the other, when I awaked I found myself refreshed, and my spirits lively and cheerful. When I got up, I was stronger than I was the day before, and my stomach better, for I was hungry. In short, I had no fit the next day, but continued much altered for the better. This was the 29th.

  The 30th was my well day, of course. I went abroad with my gun, but did not care to travel too far. I killed a sea-fowl or two, something like a brand goose, and brought them home, but was not very forward to eat them. I ate some more of the turtle's eggs, which were very good. However, I was not so well the next day, which was the 1st of July, as I hoped I should have been. I had a little of the cold fit, but it was not much.

  July 2.

  I renewed the tobacco medicine in many ways. Dosed myself with it as at first, and doubled the quantity which I drank steeped in rum.

  3.

  I miss’d the fit for good and all, tho’ I did not recover my full strength for some weeks after. While I was thus gathering strength, my thoughts ran upon this scripture, I will deliver thee. As I was discouraging myself with such thoughts, it occurred to my mind that I pored so much upon my deliverance from the main affliction, I disregarded the deliverance I had receiv’d. It was then that my soul did see the light even as my eyes saw the truth of this place. This island was not to be my banishment, but my refuge, for here the beast could run free and harm no other man. Here I could meditate on the crime for which I could not be punish'd in society without bringing shame and danger to my family. Here on this island, through the grace of God, the beast and I could be free. This touched my heart very much, and immediately I gave God thanks aloud.

  July 4.

  In the morning I took the Bible and, beginning at the New Testament, I began to read it and imposed upon myself to read awhile every morning and every night, as long as my thoughts should engage me. It was not long after I set seriously to this work that I found my heart more deeply and sincerely affected with the wickedness of my past life.

  Now I began to construe the words mentioned above, Call on me, and I will deliver thee, in a different sense from what I had ever done before. Then I had no notion of any thing being called deliverance, but my being delivered from the captivity I first saw myself in. But now I learned to take it in another sense. Now I looked back upon my past life and my sins appeared so dreadful, my soul sought nothing of God but deliverance from the load of guilt that bore down all my comfort.

  But, leaving this part, I return to my Journal.

  My condition began now to be much easier to my mind. My thoughts being directed to things of a higher nature I had a great deal of comfort within, which till now I knew nothing of. Also, as my health and strength returned, I bestirred me to furnish myself with every thing I wanted and make my way of living as regular as I could.

  From the 4th of July to the 14th, I was chiefly employed in walking about with my gun in my hand, a little and a little at a time, as a man that was gathering up his strength after a fit of sickness. It is hardly to be imagined how low I was and to what weakness I was reduced. The application which I made use of was new and perhaps what had never cured an ague before. Neither can I recommend it to any one to practise, by this experiment. Tho’ it did carry off the fit it rather contributed to weakening me, for I had frequent convulsions in my nerves and limbs for some time.

  I learned from it also this, in particular. Being abroad in the rainy season was the most pernicious thing to my health that could be, especially in those rains which came attended with storms and hurricanes of wind. As the rain which came in the dry season was almost always accompanied with such storms, so I found this rain was much more dangerous than the rain which fell in September and October.

  I had now been on this unhappy island above 10 months. All possibility of rescue or escape from this condition seemed to be taken from me. I firmly believed no human shape had ever set foot upon that place, and yet I was lighter of heart and spirit than ever in my memory. Having secured my habitation fully to my mind, I had a great desire to make a more perfect discovery of the island and to see what other productions I might find which I yet knew nothing of.

  The fruitful valley, strange behaviors,

  my anniversary

  It was on the 15th of July I began to take a more particular survey of the island itself. I went up the creek first, where, as I hinted, I brought my rafts on shore. I found, after I came about two miles up, the tyde did not flow any higher. It was no more than a little brook of running water, very fresh and good. This being the dry season, there was hardly any water in some parts of it.

  On the banks of this brook I found many pleasant savannahs or meadows, plain, smooth, and covered with grass. On the rising parts of them, next to the higher grounds where the water never overflowed, I found a great deal of tobacco growing to a very great and strong stalk. There were diverse other plants which I had no knowledge of, or understanding about, and might, perhaps, have virtues of their own, which I could not find out.

  I searched for the cassava root, which the Indians in all that climate make their bread of, but I could find none. I saw large plants of aloes but did not understand them. I saw several sugar-canes, but wild and, for want of cultivation, imperfect. I contented myself with these discoveries for this time and came back, musing with myself what course I might take to know the virtue of any of the fruits or plants which I should discover, but could bring it to no conclusion. For, in short, I had made so little observation while I was in the Brasils that I knew little of the plants in the field. At least, very little that might serve me to any purpose now.

  The next day, the 16th, I went up the same way again. After going something farther than I had gone the day before, I found the brook and the savannahs began to cease, and the country became more woody than before. In this part I found different fruits. I found melons upon the ground, in great abundance, and grapes upon the trees. The vines, indeed, had spread over the trees and the clusters of grapes were now just in their prime, very ripe and rich. This was a surprising discovery and I was exceedingly glad of them, but I was warned by my experience to eat sparingly of them. When I was ashore in Barbary, the eating of grapes killed several of our Eng
lishmen who were slaves there, throwing them into fluxes and fevers. I found, however, an excellent use for these grapes, and that was to cure or dry them in the sun and keep them as dried grapes or raisins are kept.

  I spent all evening there and went not back to my habitation, which, by the way, was the first night I had lain from home, as I might say, discounting those nights when the beast ran free. At night I got up into a tree, where I slept well, and the next morning proceeded on my discovery, traveling near four miles, as I might judge by the length of the valley, keeping still due north, with a ridge of hills on the south and north sides of me.

  At the end of this march, I came to an opening where the country seemed to descend to the west. A little spring of fresh water, which issued out of the side of the hill by me, ran the other way, due east. The country appeared so fresh, so green, so flourishing, every thing being in a constant verdure, or flourish of spring, that it looked like a planted garden.

  I descended a little on the side of that delicious vale, surveying it with a secret kind of pleasure to think this was all my own. I was king and lord of all this country indefeasibly, and had a right of possession. If I could convey it, I might have it in inheritance as completely as any lord of a manor in England. I saw here abundance of cocoa trees, and orange, lemon, and citron trees, but all wild and very few bearing any fruit, at least not then. However, the green limes I gathered were not only pleasant to eat but very wholesome. I mixed their juice afterwards with water, which made it very cool and refreshing.

  I found now I had business enough to gather and carry home. I resolv’d to lay up a store of grapes and limes and lemons to furnish myself for the wet season, which I knew was approaching. In order to this, I gathered a great heap of grapes in one place, a lesser heap in another place, and a great parcel of limes and melons in another place. Taking a few of each with me, I traveled homeward and resolv’d to come again and bring a bag or sack or what I could make to carry the rest home.