Alden A New Robinson Crusoe

1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-3-98826-321-6
Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 107 Seiten

Reihe: Classics To Go

A New Robinson Crusoe is a novel by W. L. Alden, published in 1888. It tells the story of young Ralph Osborne, who is stranded on a deserted island in the South Pacific after a shipwreck. Ralph has to learn to survive on the island and fend for himself, using his intelligence and resourcefulness to overcome various challenges such as finding food, shelter, and building a raft to escape the island. Along the way, he befriends an abandoned dog, who becomes his loyal companion. Eventually, Ralph is rescued and returns to civilization, but he realizes that his time on the island has changed him forever. The novel explores themes of self-reliance, perseverance, and the power of the human spirit to overcome adversity.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Alden, W. L.

Leseproben

CHAPTER I.
I did not exactly write this story, for I can’t write very much except my name, but I talked it all, from beginning to end, to a man who writes just as plain as print, and he wrote it down just as I told it to him. At least he said he would, and I am pretty sure he kept his word; but if he did happen to put any mistakes into it, you will know they are his, and not mine. My name is Mike Flanagan—my father was Michael Flanagan, and my uncle was Patrick Flanagan—and I was born in Ireland, in the city of Cork. We all came to America when I was a baby, and after everybody that belonged to me died I went to sea. I never saw my uncle Patrick, but I always thought a great deal of him because I was told he was a pirate, and that, of course, made the family very proud; but I found out after I grew up that he was only a pilot in Queenstown harbor, which is very different from being a pirate. When I went to sea I was fourteen years old, and I made seven voyages between New York and ports in England, France, and Germany. I liked the Atlantic well enough, but I wanted to make a voyage in a deep-water ship, so I shipped on board the H. G. Thompson, a big American ship that was bound from New York to San Francisco, and then to China. I was sixteen years old then, and though I shipped as ordinary seaman, I expected that after the ship got back to New York I would be able to ship as A. B. There were twenty-two of us in the forecastle—ten A. B.’s, ten ordinary seamen, and two boys. The captain and the second mate were very decent, but the mate was a hard man, and as I was in his watch, I didn’t have a very good time. He was a Nova Scotia chap, and he was a mean, bullying fellow. He was no sailor-man either, and I don’t see how he ever got to be mate of a ship. We had one passenger. He was a man about thirty years old, and he was making the voyage for his health because he wasn’t very well. He was thin and tall, with the brightest eyes you ever saw, and he had a servant with him to take care of him who was the laziest and most worthless chap I ever saw aboard a ship. None of us knew exactly what was the matter with the passenger, except that he didn’t seem to be very strong. At least we all thought he wasn’t, until one day when the mate happened to be laying into me with a rope’s end—which he had a way of doing—the passenger jumped up and snatched the rope away, and told the mate that if he touched me again he’d heave him overboard. The mate was twice the passenger’s weight, but instead of killing him on the spot, as I expected of course he would do, he was actually frightened, and walked away without saying a word. That was the beginning of my acquaintance with the queer passenger. After that he often used to talk to me when we happened to be on deck together, and was as kind to me as he could be. He told me his name was James Robinson Crusoe, and that his grandfather was a very celebrated man, who lived for twenty-eight years on an island all by himself, having been cast away. The passenger was forever talking about his grandfather, whose name was Robinson Crusoe, without the James; but I never could see that the old man amounted to very much, though I never read the book of travels that he wrote, and perhaps the passenger did not always tell the truth about him. I got to like Mr. Crusoe very much, though he afterwards gave me more trouble than any sailor-man ever before got into through being kind to a passenger, and being willing to talk to him. However, he meant to do right, and I shall never forget how he stood up for me when the mate was arguing with me, though of course, being a passenger, he had no right to be interfering between the officers and the men. We sailed from New York on the first day of November, and we had very decent weather all the way to the Horn, and around it, for that matter. We all thought we were going to make about a ninety-day passage to San Francisco, when our luck turned, and we got a strong northerly wind that lasted till the captain got out of patience, and put the ship to the westward in hopes of meeting a fair wind. We must have run a long ways out of our course, but the wind still hung in the north, until one day a tremendous hurricane struck us all of a sudden from the eastward. It was about noon, and all hands were at dinner, and the captain and mate had gone below to work up their observations, when the second mate sung out for all hands to shorten sail. We were on the starboard tack, carrying all three top-gallant sails. We got the top-gallant sails rolled up, the main-sail, the outer jib, spanker, and maintop-gallant stay-sail stowed, and were furling the fore and mizzen upper top-sails, when the gale struck us. The captain was on deck long before this time, and as it was blowing too hard to bring the ship up to the wind with the sail she had on her, he squared the yards and put her right before it. We had the worst job I ever saw to get the sail off her. By the time we had the upper top-sails furled and the fore and aft sails stowed we had to reef the fore-sail, the fore and main lower top-sails, and to furl the mizzen-top sail. All hands were on the foreyard for at least an hour before we could get the sail reefed, and half a dozen times I thought we should have to give it up. However, we got it reefed and set at last, and when we were just through with it the sail split and blew away. By this time it was blowing harder than I ever saw it blow before, and the ship was taking in green seas on each side over the rail every time she rolled. The captain knew we had no time to lose, for the ship was continually burying herself nearly up to the foremast, she still had so much sail on her; so he ordered the fore and mizzen lower top-sails to be brailed up, and let them blow away, while we close-reefed the lower maintop-sail, which we did without very much difficulty, and then knocked off to get our suppers. The forecastle was all afloat with the water that had come down the hatchway before any one had thought to close it, so we had our supper on the quarter-deck, where all the people except the cook and Mr. Crusoe were gathered. Mr. Crusoe had got a fall, so I heard his servant say, and his left leg was a little sprung, so that he didn’t care to come on deck, but stayed below in his berth. The wind kept on freshening and the sea kept on getting up, and by the time we were through with our supper we had to take the top-sail off her, and bring her down to bare poles. Even then she travelled faster than she had ever done before in her life, and she must have been making a good fifteen knots an hour. Nobody could go forward, for the waist of her was mostly full of water, so all hands stayed on the quarter-deck, and waited for the hurricane to blow itself out. It didn’t show the least sign of blowing itself out, and if it had known how to blow harder it would have done it. It blew for three days and nights, gradually backing to the northward and westward, until on the last night the ship was heading nearly south-east. Of course we sailors liked it, all except the fact that it was impossible to do any cooking. All we had to do was to take our tricks at the wheel, and then to sit around the mizzen-mast and wonder if it meant to blow forever. We didn’t keep any lookout, for nobody could get forward, and the air was so black with flying spoondrift that you couldn’t see much more than the length of the ship. Of course the mate growled at us a good deal, but even he couldn’t think of any work that we could do, so we didn’t mind him. It was about the middle of the last night of the hurricane that the ship struck. Without giving us the least warning she struck a reef, and the fore and main-mast and the mizzen-top mast went overboard together. At the same moment a sea boarded us over the stern, and swept the captain, the second mate, and five or six of the men away with it. The rest of us took to the mizzen rigging, and expected every moment that the ship would go to pieces. She held together, however, though she pounded heavily and the seas broke over her constantly. There was only one boat left that had not been stove to pieces or swept away, and that was on the top of the deck-house. The mate and the rest of us watched our chances, and got safely where the boat was and launched her. We were just going to cast off when I remembered the passenger, and climbed on board the wreck again to look for him. The men shouted to me to come back, but the mate sang out that there was no room for passengers, and shoved the boat off. I saw a big sea lift her and carry her on out of sight, and then I went below to find Mr. Crusoe. I found him crawling up the companion-way, and nearly drowned by the water which every minute or two rushed down on him. I got him on deck, and made a rope fast around his waist, and then around mine, and after a while I got him into the rigging, where we were out of the reach of the sea. We had hardly got into the rigging when the ship slid over the reef into smoother water, and drifted away before the wind. The sea did not break over us any more, but we stayed in the rigging, for I expected that we would sink in a few minutes, and there was a chance that she might sink where the water would be shallow. She swung around and drifted stern foremost, and I could see by the way she rolled that there was a great deal of water in her, although her deck was still a good six feet above the water. Before she had drifted very long her stern grounded quite gently, and remained high and dry, although the forward part of her, as far as the stump of the foremast, was under water. Of course we...