CHAPTER XXVIII.THE CAGED TIGER.
When Captain Spear awoke his rage knew no bounds, but Justin firmly made him acquainted with the state of affairs, whereupon the captain became sulky and refused to take any food, saying that he preferred to die and that his death would be laid at the door of Justin, who would meet his due reward when his crime was discovered.
Next morning he had so far relented as to drink a cup of Judy’s tea, given with reluctance by the Irishwoman, who vowed that hanging was too good for him.
In the course of a few days he came sulkily out of his cavern and crept about through the groves and by the streams, or along the seashore of the beautiful island. He had a limited use of his fettered limbs—enough to help himself in all absolute personal needs; for instance, he could walk slowly, wash his face, or feed himself; but he could not inflict the slightest injury upon either of the women, if he happened to meet them together or singly in his rambles about the island.
Whenever he met Judith, she mocked him.
When he met Miss Conyers, she returned his greeting kindly. If the arch enemy of God and man had been their prisoner she could not have treated him unkindly.
Justin always used him humanely, and encouraged his companions in exile to do likewise.
“The man has forfeited his life by every law of every civilized land! but we are not warranted to become hisexecutioners. We have only to deprive him of the power of committing more crime, and then to treat him with Christian charity,†he argued.
Justin Rosenthal was now a very busy man. In the two years that he and his friends had spent upon the island he had made what progress was possible in “making the wilderness to bloom and blossom as the rose.†The first few months had been spent in the stupendous labor of getting the stores, the animals and the furniture from the wreck over the long, rugged, almost impassable reef of rocks to the island.
By the time that nearly incredible work had been successfully accomplished, the rainy season, the winter of these latitudes, had set in, and all further outdoor work was suspended for several months.
When spring and sunshine had come again, it was necessary, first of all, to build fences to guard the fields and gardens that were to be cultivated from the intrusion of the cattle and poultry; then to till the ground and plant the seeds, of which he had found a great variety in the stores of the missionaries, consisting of wheat, rye and Indian corn among the field grains, and beans, peas, potatoes, turnips, cabbage, lettuce and so forth among the garden seeds.
Of course, the planting of all these seeds, many of which were indigenous to the north temperate zone only, was a questionable experiment, to be tried.
All this—fence building, soil tilling, seed planting and cultivating—was a long labor for one pair of hands, and it occupied the whole spring and half the summer.
But the labor was crowned with all the prosperity that could be hoped. At least half the garden seeds produced good crops of table vegetables. Among the grain the wheat did very well, the Indian corn still better, but the cotton was the greatest success of all. Justin had traveled all over the cotton growing States of his native country, but never had he seen such great white pods of such rich, fine fibre anywhere.
The early autumn months were occupied in harvesting these crops.
In this work Britomarte and Judith were able to help Justin. While Justin cut the wheat, Britomarte pickedthe great pods of cotton from their stalks and housed them in the grotto, and Judith pulled the ripe ears of Indian corn and stored them in her kitchen.
The end of this work had brought the beginning of their second winter on the island, and again all outdoor labor was suspended.
Those wintry days and evenings were spent very profitably.
Judith and Britomarte picked the cotton, separating the seed from the wool with their fingers.
Justin, who possessed great mechanical ingenuity, constructed a wheel for Judith. A pair of cards had been found among the stores of the wreck.
Judith carded and spun the cotton wool into fine yarn, and Britomarte knit it into hose for her two friends and herself.
Justin also began to try to construct a loom for weaving, but as the task was a difficult one to a man not brought up to the trade, he had many failures before he had any prospect of success.
Thus had passed the second winter of their sojourn upon the island. It was near the end of the second summer that the pirate ship had anchored near their island, and the captain, by a strange turn of fate, had become their prisoner.
And now Justin was very busy getting in his second summer’s crops and building up his long delayed dwelling houses.