So I comforted him as well as I could, and said: God had peradventure sent us this as a warning, that we might in time to come be better aware of the devil’s snares and temptations and live in the constant fear of God: that he had of a surety cause enough to pray God heartily for forgiveness for his evil intent, yet even greater cause to thank Him for His goodness and mercy, seeing that He had in such fatherly wise plucked him forth from wicked Satan’s traps and snares and so saved him from destruction now and eternally: and that we must perforce here walk more circumspectly than if we dwelt in the midst of the world among other men; for should one or the other or both fall into temptation, there would be none at hand to help us but God Himself, whom we must therefore the more diligently keep before our eyes and without ceasing pray for His help and assistance.
By talk of such things he was, ’tis true, somewhat cheered, yet would not be altogether content, but humbly besought me to lay upon him a penance for his sin. So to raise up his prostrate spirit as far as might be, I said that he being a carpenter, and having yet his axe by him, should in the same place where we, as well as our hellish cookmaid, had come to land, set up a cross on the shore; whereby he would not only perform a penance well pleasing to God, but also bring it to pass that in time to come the evil spirit, who doth ever fear the sign of Holy Cross, would not again so easily attack our island. He answered, “Not only a cross on the shore but two also on the mountain will I make ready and set up, if only, my father, I may again possess thy grace and favour and be assured of God’s forgiveness.” In which fervour he went away straightway and ceased not to toil till he had made ready three crosses, whereof we set up one on the seashore and the other two apart on the highest top of the hill, with the inscription that followeth:
“To the honour of God Almighty and in despite of the enemy of mankind, Simon Meron, of Lisbon in Portugal, with counsel and help of his faithful friend Simplicius Simplicissimus, a High German, did fashion and here set up this token of our Saviour’s sufferings, for Jesus Christ His sake.”
Thenceforward we began to live somewhat more religiously than before; and in order to our reverencing and keeping of the Sabbath, I every day, in place of an almanac, cut a notch in a post and on Sundays a cross; and then would we sit together and talk of holy and godly things; and this fashion must I use because I had not yet invented anything to serve me in the stead of ink and paper, by means of which I might set down somewhat in writing to keep count of our life.
And now to end this chapter I must make mention of a strange adventure that did greatly terrify and distress us on the evening after our cook her vanishing; for the first night we perceived it not, because sleep overpowered us at once by reason of fatigue and great weariness. And this was it. We having still before our eyes the thousand snares by which the accursed devil would have wrought our ruin in the form of the Abyssinian, could not sleep, but passed the time in watching, and indeed for the most part in prayer; and so soon as it became a little dark we saw floating around us in the air an innumerable quantity of lights, which gave forth such a bright glow that we could discern the fruit on the trees from the leaves: this we deemed to be another invention of the enemy to torment us, and therefore kept still and quiet, but in the end found ’twas but a kind of firefly or glowworm, as we call them in Germany, which are generated by a particular kind of rotten wood that is found in this island, and shine so bright that one can well use them in place of a lighted candle; for I have written this book for the most part thus: and if they were as common in Europe, Asia, and Africa as they be here, the candle-sellers would do a poor trade.
XXII
Further Sequel of the Above Story, and How Simon Meron Left the Island and This Life, and How Simplicissimus Remained the Sole Lord of the Island
And now seeing we must perforce remain where we were, we began to order our housekeeping accordingly. So my comrade made out of a black wood that is almost like to iron mattocks and shovels for us both, with the help of which we first dug holes for the three crosses before mentioned, and secondly drew the seawater into trenches, where, as I had seen at Alexandria in Egypt, it turned into salt; and thirdly we began to make us a cheerful garden; for we deemed that idleness would be for us the beginning of destruction; fourthly, we dug another channel for the brook, into which we could at pleasure turn it off, and so leave the old riverbed dry, and take out as many fish and crayfish as we would with hands and feet dry: fifthly, we found near the said brook a
