e to my assistance. He seemed demented, and he had acquired
such strength during his exile that it was as much as four men could do
to hold him down. But, notwithstanding his unprovoked attack upon me, I
felt I could not abandon him again to his solitude. I therefore ordered
him to be taken on board our vessel, where Hartog would be the judge of
his ultimate fate.

Hartog's surprise at seeing his old officer in such a deplorable
condition was equal to my own, but the terrible change which years of
solitude had wrought in Van Luck appealed to the humane side of the
captain's nature so forcibly that he determined to give the castaway a
chance of redemption.

After some days, during which Van Luck was cared for, he began to
regain some semblance to his former self. He also, by degrees,
remembered his native tongue, but he spoke in a halting manner like a
child. While we remained at this island we visited the cave in which
Van Luck had lived during the time he had been marooned. It contained
nothing belonging to the boat in which he had been set adrift, from
which we inferred the boat had been lost at the time when he was washed
ashore. He seemed to have subsisted chiefly upon turtles, of which
there were numbers basking upon the beach, and also upon a small
species of squirrel, of the skins of which, roughly sewn together, his
robe was made, but we could find no sign of a fire, so we concluded he
had devoured his food raw. There were streams and springs on the
islands from which to quench his thirst, but his sufferings must have
been very severe during his enforced solitude, nor was it a matter for
wonder that his mind had become deranged.

But although Hartog took pity upon Van Luck to the extent of taking him
off the island, he would not admit him to his old place in the cabin at
the officers' mess, so he lived with the seamen in the forecastle,
where his jealousy wanted to send me on our first voyage. This,
however, did not seem to trouble him. He seldom spoke, but went about
such work as was given him without complaint. Sometimes he would stand
for hours watching the sea, with his hand shading his eyes, in the same
attitude as we had found him.

I could see that Hartog was troubled by this man's appearance, as
indeed was I also. It seemed a reproach to us to have been the means of
bringing a fellow-creature into such a condition. Yet we had acted as
necessity demanded and in no spirit of malice or revenge. Still,