Chapter VII: Man Friday

LITTLE ROBINSON CRUSOE went bravely down the descending path between the high sandbanks, Man Friday walking closely behind, for Eliza began to fear that they had sat too long in the warm sunshine at the top of the cliff, and wished they had not such a long walk to go before they could reach the camp, for she was afraid Nurse would grow anxious about them being away so long.

As the little boy drew near the chalk stairway, his steps grew more slow, and Eliza, noticing this, said—

"Master, Man Friday had better go first now," and as she spoke the little fellow gladly let her pass him with the wallet over her shoulder, while at the same moment a quantity of sand and lumps of clay came tumbling down the side of the bank, and the girl could not help wishing they were at the bottom instead of the top of this stairway. To enter the dark hole required some courage, but she took care not to let Eustace see that she had any fear, although she could hardly repress a shudder.

"It's like real Robinson Crusoe, isn't it?" said the little boy, trying hard to keep up his courage. "You are a girl, and girls don't like these things like men do, I suppose."

"No, they don't," said Eliza; "but girls' frocks are handy sometimes, and if you take hold of mine, and keep close to me, we can help each other to get down the steps better."

They had reached the chalk bank and groped their way into the darkness, Eliza carefully feeling with feet and hands along the wall lest they should slip down the roughly cut steps.

"Now we shall soon be down," she said, when they had descended about half a dozen steps.

Then they were cheered with a ray of light through a hole at the top of the cliff, by which they could see that they had come to a place where the steps made a sharp bend, and they had to turn the corner of the chalk wall very carefully.

"Now we shan't be long, master," said Eliza, cheerily; for after a few more steps she could see a tiny speck of light far below, and knew that this must be the lower entrance to the dark staircase, and that in a short time they would reach the cave into which it opened.

But almost at the same moment she heard the thunderous roar of the sea as it beat upon the cliffs below, and she stood still for a moment to listen.

"Did the sea make a noise like that before?" She spoke half to herself, half to the little boy, who was clinging closely to her skirts behind.

"Why, you silly, the sea always makes a noise like that," answered Eustace; and he tried to push Eliza forward, for he did not like the darkness, and was impatient to reach that spot of light below them, which he could see now as well as Eliza. She, too, would be glad enough to be out upon the beach once more, although she feared that Nurse would be angry with her for staying away so long. But even this was forgotten in the tenseness with which she listened, and the care she took that the little boy should not push past her or make her slip down the steps.

"Oh, you are slow!" said the little fellow, impatiently. "Let me come first," he added; and he tried again to push past the girl.

But she firmly kept her place, and held him back.

"Listen! Listen!" she said. "I think the water is in the cave where I picked up the pretty shells; and if it is, and you should fall in, you might be drowned."

The little fellow was awed for a minute, but quickly exclaimed—

"I am not afraid. If the water has got in we must run through it."

But Eliza was not to be moved from her determination, and would not go faster, for above the roar of the water outside and the swish-swish of it as it rose across the floor of the cave, she thought she could hear a closer lap-lap, as though the waves were trying to climb the stairs they were descending. So she put the foot that was to descend first very slowly and cautiously forward, and before the bottom was reached, her worst fears were realized, for the descending foot vent into deep water at last. The poor girl sank down upon the step on which the little boy was standing, and for the moment was quite overcome by the horror that seemed to have seized upon her. But she quickly mastered it for fear of frightening the child.

"We must go back again, Master Eustace," she said as quietly as she could.

"What for?" demanded the little boy, although as he spoke he ceased to push the girl, for he, too, felt that something had happened that he did not quite understand.

"The water has come into our cave," she said. "One foot went into it just now, so that we are close to the edge."

Eustace quickly clambered up the steps, holding fast by Eliza's frock.

"I must take care of you," he said, when she asked him not to pull quite so hard.

They made their way back to where the stairway turned, and were glad of the peep of daylight from above when they saw it again.

"We must make haste now," said Eliza, "for we shall have to walk home along the cliffs, and that is further round, I heard Nurse say."

They clambered on as quickly as they could for a few yards further, and then met a steep bank of earth, while the little bit of daylight visible was still a long way ahead of them.

"Why, what has happened?" exclaimed Eliza, as she stumbled forward on to the soft mass of sand and clay that rose like a wall before them, nearly closing the entrance of the stairway.

At the same moment the little boy's courage and endurance quite gave way, and he sank down.

"I am so tired I can't walk any further," he cried, and burst into a storm of sobs and tears.

For a minute or two Eliza was too much overwhelmed to do anything but look up at the tiny rift in the darkness. Then she stooped down and took the little boy in her arms.

"Master Eustace, God can take care of us in this dark place," she whispered. "He knows where we are and all about us."

The little fellow raised his head and tried to stop his tears.

"I'm so tired," he said, with a gasp. "If I wasn't so tired and my legs so stiff, I'd climb up this bank and help you to get out, but I can't, Eliza."

"No, dear, we must just stop here and let God take care of us. The water won't stop in the cave for all the time. When the tide goes down, the water will all run out again," she said.

As this thought occurred to her, half the trouble seemed to drop away and leave her able to think how she should comfort the little boy and make him warm and comfortable, so that he might go to sleep and forget all his weariness and discomfort.

"We'll go back a little way till we get to the wall down there," she said, pointing down to the bend in the stairway. "There I can make a tent of my frock, and we will have our supper and go to bed in our cave, and be real Robinson Crusoes."

The word "bed" had a charm for the tired little fellow, and he readily agreed to let Eliza take the direction of affairs. So they went back to the corner formed by the bend, and Eliza said—

"There, that will be my armchair. You can lie down against me, and I can cover you all up with my warm frock. Isn't it a good job Nurse made me put it on to-day?"

She kept talking like this for fear Eustace should cry again, for she was afraid she might cry too if he did.

When the corner was reached she took off her hat, drew the frock over her head, carefully wrapped her petticoats closely round her, and held out her arms for Eustace. The little boy was glad enough to creep into her lap, and then she folded the soft warm skirt all round him.

"Isn't that nice?" she said in a cheery tone, as Eustace laid his head against her.

"Shall I go to sleep?" he asked.

"Oh yes, of course, when we have had our supper. Robinson Crusoe always had supper, I think," she added, for she wanted him to eat some of the bread-and-butter they still had in the wallet.

She had to eat some, too, although she thought it would choke her at first. Still, for the sake of the child she must try; and they both ate some bread-and-butter. Then he kneeled down in her lap and said his prayers, as though he was at home in his own nursery.

When Eliza had made him as cosy and comfortable as she could, wrapped round in her frock, he said—

"When father says, 'God bless you, my little Eustace!' before he goes to bed, will God tell him we are out here in the dark, all alone?"

Eliza shook her head. "I don't know how God speaks to people," she said; "perhaps He puts the right kind of thoughts into their minds;" and as she said this, it occurred to her that the idea of the tide going out, that had never left her since it first entered her mind, was one of the thoughts that came from God to comfort and help her to be brave, that she might take care of Master Eustace. Of course the Vicar would pray that God would take care of all of them, and especially his own little boy, for she knew he was very fond of Eustace, and so perhaps the thought had come to her through the Vicar's prayer.

At any rate, it was such a comfort to the girl that soon after her little charge was asleep, she, too, had closed her eyes, and slept soundly for an hour or two, leaning against the chalk wall with her frock drawn closely round the child.

But she woke out of this sleep with a start that almost woke Eustace. She could not remember where she was for a minute or two.

She felt cramped and stiff, and her feet were very cold. Raising her head, she saw one star looking down upon her through the hole in the roof, and she remembered all that had happened, and that their one hope of escaping from the cave lay in the tide going down. She wondered when that would be, and what the time was now.

Then she managed to move the little boy without waking him, so that she could move her feet, and change the position in which she was sitting.

But having done this, she could not go to sleep again. That one star up above seemed to be watching her and inviting her to keep her eyes open and look at it.

By degrees she noted that the deep blue of the sky was growing paler and paler, and the joyful thought came to her that the night was almost over, and the morning was coming at last.

She kept her eyes steadily fixed on the one rift of sky until her star paled, and the purple sky hid it. Then her eyes grew tired, and try as she would she could not keep them open, but fell asleep once more.

Meanwhile, Nurse had a troublesome time with the little ones. Miss Winny had grown fond of her little nurse, who was always ready to play with her. When she saw her walk away with her brother, and show no signs of coming back, she called—

"Lila! Lila! Me want you! Me want you!" and then turned to Nurse, and said, "Make Lila come back."

"She will come soon," said Nurse, soothingly.

But this did not satisfy Winny. "Me want her now! Me want her now!" she screamed; and then burst into a flood of tears, in which baby very soon joined.

Nurse raised her voice then, and called "'Liza! 'Liza!" as loudly as she could; but the wind carried her words in the opposite direction, and no sounds reached the young explorers, who very soon disappeared from view altogether.

This brought a fresh outburst of lamentation from the little girl, who would not be pacified by anything Nurse said to her; and at last Nurse threatened to take her home, put her to bed, and not let her stay until the others came back. She tried to amuse her by scooping up some sand the little girl's spade, but it would not do. The child knew the difference now between this kind of play and the interest Eliza took in building a castle or digging a trench, and she shook herself, and screamed the louder for "Lila."

Nurse tried all sorts of plans to make the little one forget her playmate, but it was of no use; and after an hour or two, she decided to take the children home without waiting for Eliza to return.

"Winny is a naughty girl!" she said sharply, as she gathered up her various belongings, and prepared to return home.

But Winny refused to go without "Lila," seated herself on the sand, and screamed until Nurse grew desperate. So, asking another nurse who sat near to keep an eye on her till she came back, she rushed off with baby, and left him in charge of the landlady while she went back to fetch the little girl.

Altogether it was a most unhappy evening for Nurse, but she did not grow anxious about Eustace and Eliza until she had bathed Winny and baby, and put them both to bed, the little girl sobbing piteously even in her sleep, for she had refused to be comforted to the very last because "Lila" did not come home.

When, however, she was snugly tucked into her cot, Nurse had time to think of the young Robinson Crusoe. She went to the landlady of the house, and asked if she knew where the cave was.

"Cave! What cave?" she asked.

"I don't know; only I heard Master Eustace tell Eliza he was going to take her to some cave on the shore."

"There are no caves hereabouts," said the landlady, in a reassuring tone, "and there is no call for you to fidget over the children, for our shore is as safe as my back garden. They will be home in a few minutes, I dare say;" and she went about her business, leaving Nurse by the window to watch every one who came up the street from the beach.

Little groups of twos and threes were passing now, dragging spades and pails behind them and Nurse wished she could see Eustace and Eliza.

"Those children will be tired out," she said, when the landlady came in to lay the supper-cloth.

"They are late," she admitted, "for it is getting dusk, and you have never been so late as this with them."

"I wish I dare leave the children upstairs, and I would go and look for them."

She hoped the woman would offer to look after the baby if he should wake, but she was not disposed to make the offer.

"I expect my boy in every minute, and he knows every inch of the shore. I'll send him to find them the moment he comes in. I expect Master Eustace has fallen dead tired, and can't get along. My boy can carry him better than your girl can."

"I doubt whether Eliza could carry him many yards, for she is not at all strong."

The suggestion had relieved her a little, and a minute afterwards she saw the landlady's son come dashing in.

"We want you to go and look for that little Master Eustace and the girl, Tom," his mother said; and Nurse told what she had heard about their going to look for a cave.

"There ain't no cave on our beach," replied Tom. "There's just a hole or two in the cliff that the waves have scooped out. Which way have they gone? Down Prawn Point?"

"Which is Prawn Point?" asked Nurse.

The boy explained, and Nurse knew that it was that direction Eustace always had chosen for his rambles.

Tom scratched his head. "You ought not to have let them go to the Point," he said seriously.

"Is it dangerous?" asked Nurse, in a tone of alarm.

"Well, that depends upon the time. When did they go?"

"This afternoon, about four o'clock, I should think," answered his mother.

The boy whistled. "The tide would be coming in."

"Is there danger? Tell me if there is, for I must send for his mother and father at once," almost screamed Nurse.

"Well, I wouldn't care to be round Prawn Point, I can tell you," answered Tom.

Nurse did not wait to hear any more. There was a telegraph-office a little further up the street, and Nurse rushed off there.

"Can you send a message directly?" she panted.

"Oh yes," said the girl, calmly. "Will you write it down?"

"I can't write now," said Nurse, in agitation "Say, 'Come at once; Eustace and Eliza lost.'" The girl looked up as she finished pencilling down this message.

"Do you know which way they have gone?" she asked.

"To some place called Prawn Point," answered Nurse.

"Ah, that is a nasty place," said the girl. "You haven't told me the address," she added, as Nurse was turning away from the counter.

She gave the address where the Vicar was staying, and returned home almost distracted, but was relieved to hear that the landlady's son had started in search of the children, and that he expected he should find them on the other side of the Point, where they would be compelled to stay until the tide went down.

"Oh dear, they will be frightened to death, even if they are alive!" said Nurse, wringing her hands, and pacing up and down the small sitting-room.

In the course of an hour a reply came from the Vicar.

"Coming first train in the morning," he said.

The landlady assured her that the children would be safe at home in their own beds long before her master came, for three or four men besides her Tom had gone out now in search of the children, and they would be sure to find them.

But hour after hour of that terrible night passed bringing no news of the children to their distracted Nurse, and some began to whisper that they must have been carried out to sea by the outgoing tide, and that nothing might ever be seen of them again.