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Updated: June 19, 2025
After the horrors of his earlier experience it seemed for a time that he had little more to ask of life. Dorthe knew nothing of love; but he knew that if no ship came, she would learn, and he would teach her. He had loved no woman, but he felt that in this vast solitude he could love Dorthe and be happy with her.
Out of another set of expletives Father Carillo gathered that Dorthe was the granddaughter of a man who had been washed ashore after a storm, and who had dwelt on the island until he died. He had married a woman of the tribe, and to his daughter had given the name of Dorthe or so the Indians had interpreted it and his hair, which was like the yellow fire. This girl had inherited both.
He remembered his needs, and made a gesture which she understood. She took his hand, and led him from the forest to her cave. She struck fire from flint into a heap of fagots beneath a swinging pot. In a little time she set before him a savoury mess of birds. He ate of it ravenously. Dorthe watched him with deep curiosity. She had never seen hunger before.
Finally, she seized the implements of civilization beside her plate, and made an awkward attempt to use them. The priest tactfully devoted himself to his own dinner. Suddenly he heard a cry of rage, and simultaneously the knife and fork flew in different directions. Dorthe seized a cake in each hand, and stuffed them into her mouth, her eyes flashing defiance.
Then with a flat stick he lifted the cakes from the fry-pan, and placed an equal number on each plate. Dorthe watched these proceedings with expanded eyes, but many gestures of impatience. She was hungry. He took her hand and led her ceremoniously to the head of the table, motioning to her to be seated. She promptly went down on her knees, and dived at the cakes with both hands.
His speech and general appearance struck a long-dormant chord; but in her mind was no recognition of him. He fell asleep suddenly and profoundly. As Dorthe watched, she gradually recalled the appearance of the old who had lain screaming on the ground drawing up their cramped limbs. She also recalled the remedy.
After a time she entered into companionship with the frogs and birds, imitating their speech. Restlessness vanished, and she existed contentedly enough. Two years passed. The moon flooded the valley one midnight. Dorthe lay on the bank of the creek in the fern forest.
As the intense heat sapped his remaining vitality he sank into lethargy. He was aroused by the shock of cold water, and opened his eyes to find himself struggling in the creek, Dorthe holding him down with firm arms. After a moment she carried him back to the plain and laid him in the sun to dry. His rags still clung to him.
"Why could they not have died and rotted before we heard of them?" Dorthe, at the sound of a human voice, sprang to her feet with a cry. The man, too, gave a cry the ecstatic cry of the unwilling hermit who looks again upon the human face. "Dorthe! Thou? I thought thou wast dead drowned in the sea." Dorthe had forgotten the meaning of words, but her name came to her familiarly.
"And this young girl with the hair " The priest looked upward. The sun had gone. He touched the gold of the cross, then his own hair. "Dorthe," grunted the old man, regarding his bare drumstick regretfully. "Who is she? Where did she get such a name? Why has she that hair?"
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