The Argosy, Christmas 1912 — page 45: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LOOSING THE TEMPEST. “You keep speaking of what ‘he’ said and did. Who’s ‘he’?” asked Ordway. “Mr. Donaldson.” “Where is he now? ”’ The islander pointed out to sea. “Did he leave you here alone? ”’ “ He was out fishing. He was hit by a black dolphin. He was drowned.” ‘“ And were he and you all that lived on the island?” “There was another. Eat. Your food gets cold quick here. When you have done we talk. Please—laugh not at the way I speak. He taught me how, but since“he was drowned I have spoken to nobody and I forget.” “The amazing thing is that you can speak at all. You are excellent in your English. How long have you been_ alone?” ‘Fourteen years.” “Good Heavens!” breathed Ord- way. The islander, still with his hand- some face utterly immobile, continued his efforts to entertain us, and sat on the other side of the table drinking the concoction made from the native berry, which proved very satisfying. Perhaps it is needless to say that Ordway and I made a good meal.. Still, after our experience it would not do to.gormandize, so we stopped eating while we still had some appetite left. “ You have a wooden house,” I said, “yet apparently you really live here. Isn’t the house comfortable? ” “In summer it is well enough. But in winter the cave is more warmer. No, I mean more warm — warmer. That's what I mean. If you had tried hard to learn from a kind man till you were ten years old, and then had spent fourteen years alone, you would under- stand.” “ We understand now,” I said. “ It is marvelous. ‘Tell us more.” ‘There is much to tell. I am very glad in my heart you have come. It was very lonely.” He said it as a child might speak of an hour alone without its mother. 31 Very lonely! Fourteen years! And he sat there, speaking as calmly and evenly as though it had been fourteen days. And Ordway and I, having each other after years of friendship, were ready to fly at each other's throat after a short time spent on the ice. I looked at the man as I might have looked upon a Pharaoh come to life, telling me that three thousand years a mummy was a lonesome sort of propo- sition. “And you see,” he went on, harking back to the subject of the cave, “he told me always to keep the fire in here. The rain and snow cannot put it out.’’ “Your Mr. Donaldson must have been a wise man,” said Ordway. “He was. He knew everything.” CHAPTER XVI. THE BOATSWAIN’S LOC. THE meal being finished, the island- er rose and disappeared into another cavern. From it he came again with a handful of little rolls. “It is not tobacco,” he said. “ Mr. Donaldson liked to smoke, and he tried the leaves of the trees, but preferred this. It is the leaf of the same bush that grows the berry I make for coffee.” We each took one, but noticed that he did not. “I seldom use the smoke,” he said. “T was but a boy when Mr. Donaldson was drowned, and did not smoke. I make some, and some nights sit out on the shore and watch the stars and won- der what the world is like, and where I came from, and who Iam. It was all very lonely.” I could see pity gleaming in Ord- way’s eyes, and I know I felt it. “ And now that we have come, and of course will try to get back to that world of which you know so little, would you come with us?” I asked. He looked at me steadily. “T have books,” he replied. “I know people do and say things I know CoOMmicbook CO