PAGE 24
The New Gulliver
by
“When you found me in the forest,” she said, “I was very sad because I had spoken to no one for many days, and I was to die and there was no escape. Then because of your companionship and because you seem to hope and to fear nothing, I became lifted up again. It is necessary for you to think as I think, or I shall grow sad again. Therefore you must believe in the great serpent.”
“We will not speak of him. Show me where you sleep.”
She took me by a passage that rapidly grew narrower until I could hardly force my way into the chamber beyond. It was a simple sleeping-apartment containing a bed of dried bracken and nothing more.
“Yes,” she said, “I chose this place because the passage was so narrow and the great serpent which was in the lake was so big. Here he could not get to me.”
“And how do you manage about food?”
“I have plenty–far too much. Every night some one or other of my people brings food and puts it at the entrance of the cave. They do not go near to the cave because they believe in the serpent, not being so wise as you are. I would not go into the cave myself were it not that I have to die anyhow.”
“But do your gods permit this?”
“I do not know. They do not care to come very near to the caves. I myself think that they do know that food is brought to me and do not wish to prevent it. They have only one punishment. They would not starve me slowly. They would point the death-rod at me and burn my heart out in an instant. But you remind me that I have become very hungry after my swim. You also must think as I do and be hungry too, and we will eat together.”
She showed me another room nearer to the entrance where she kept her supplies. They were simple enough. There was a pile of thin sweet biscuit and another pile of dried fruit. This in colour and flavour was like a raisin, but four times the size.
“That grows in the forest,” said Dream. “In the autumn when the fresh fruit is ripe it is very good indeed. I shall not live to pick any more of it, and for that I am very sorry.”
She was still, I think, rather offended with me for my disbelief in the creature that came out of the sea, but on the whole we chatted amicably enough. I can see now that I did a clumsy thing in thus suddenly and crudely trying to upset a tradition in which she had grown up. It is not perhaps very desirable to shake the faith of anybody in anything, unless that faith be distinctly and immediately harmful. I am a simple seaman and unused to missionary work, and it is small wonder that I bungled it.
After we had feasted, Dream went off to her bed of bracken and I once more climbed the hill to watch the sea. All that afternoon I watched, using at times my perspective-glass, but never once could I make out a sail.
I may admit that my plans were now changed and that the change was entirely due to the strong fascination which Dream had for me–far stronger than I cared to let her know at present. I no longer cared to explore the town or to find out more of the condition of the workers than Dream herself could tell me. I had decided to throw in my lot with her and, if it were possible, to save her from the cruel death with which she was threatened. How I was to do this I did not know. I could only wait and see what chance might offer itself.
I cut bracken for my bed, and laden with this I made my way back to the cave again. There Dream awaited me and all traces of her ill-humour had vanished. I did not insist on my swim in the sea that night, lest it should pain her further. We sat and talked together until the stars came out. It was the first time since I had been on the island that I had looked up at the stars. I could find nothing that I recognised. I wondered where in the world or out of the world I now found myself. The problem did not disturb me greatly. It was pleasant to sit and hear Dream’s recital of her story of the squirrel that she captured and tamed. Her voice was curiously soft and caressing.