On Blue's waters

We anchored there and refilled our water bottles, and I sent Babbie ashore and let him trot around and explore the steep green wood. To tell the truth, I was feeling very guilty about having made him stay on the sloop so often when we were going up the coast, and was half minded to leave him there to recover his health as well as his freedom; I felt sure it would be a happier as well as a healthier place for him than my cramped little boat, and I recalled that Silk had tried more than once to free Oreb. Throughout my life I have done my best to imitate Silk (as I am doing here in Gaon), at times with some success.

Perhaps I am getting better at it. They seem to think so, at least. But I had better sleep.

I should not have stopped last night before mentioning that we lay at anchor in the bay that night. Seawrack and I slept side by side under the foredeck, thankfully without Babbie; and that soon after we lay down she asked whether we would put out again in the morning. From her tone it was clear that she did not want to.

Neither did I; and so I said that I planned to stay another day to hunt, and that with luck we would have fresh meat for supper the next night. To the best of my memory, we had no meat left on board at that time except the shank of the very salty ham that Marrow had given me; and I was thoroughly tired of that, and still more tired of fish.

The following day began bright and clear, and presented me with what I then considered a serious problem, I having not the least presentiment of what the island held in store for me. Seawrack was anxious to go with me, and Babbie was even more anxious, if that were possible-it would have been sheer cruelty to leave him behind. Nonetheless, I was very conscious that if anything happened to the sloop all hope of bringing Silk to New Viron would be gone.

I considered leaving Babbie on board, as I had there; but how much protection could a young hus provide? A young hus, I should have said, who had by no means recovered all his strength? Against a sudden gale, very little. Against the crew of some other boat that put in to water as we had, just enough to get him killed.

I also considered asking Seawrack to stay. But if bad weather struck, the best thing she could possibly do would be to furl the sails (and they were furled already) and remain at anchor in the little cove we had found, which the sloop would do by herself. As for protecting it from the crew of another boat, how much could one young woman do, without a weapon or a right arm? Against honest men, the sloop would require no protection. By the other kind she would be raped, killed, or both.

For a second or two, I even considered remaining behind myself; but Seawrack could not use the slug gun, and might easily find herself in danger. In the end, we all went. No doubt it was inevitable.

It was a silent, peaceful, lonesome place whose thickly forested slopes seemed to be inhabited only by a few birds. Mighty trees clung to rocks upon which it seemed that no tree could live, or plunged deep roots into the black soil of little hidden dales. On Green one finds trees without number, monstrous cannibals ten times the height of the tallest trees I saw on the island; but they are forever at war with their own kind, and are troubled all the while by the trailing, coiling, murderous lianas that have seemed to me the living embodiment of evil ever since I first beheld them.

There was nothing of Green here save the huge trunks, and bluffs and rocky outcrops resembling Green’s distant, towering escarpments in about the same way that a housecat resembles a baletiger. In one, we discovered a deep cave with its feet in clear cold water, a dry cave with a ceiling high enough for a man to have ridden a tall horse into it without bowing his head or taking off his hat; and we spoke, Seawrack and I, of returning there after we had brought Silk to New Viron. We would build a wall of stout logs to close the entrance, and live there in peace and privacy all our days, plant a garden, trap birds and small animals, and fish. Was it really criminal of us to talk in that fashion? I knew that it could never be, that Nettle and my sons and the mill would be waiting when I came back to the Lizard.

And that even if I did not return, it could never be. Seawrack, I feel sure, did not. So it was wrong of me, was cruel and cowardly, to share her snug dream and encourage her in it. I must be honest here. It was, as Silk would say, seriously evil. It was a crime, and I was (and am) a monster of cruelty. All that is true, but give me this-I have done worse, and for half an hour we were as happy as it is possible for two people to be. The Outsider may condemn me for it, but I cannot regret that half hour.