Then,
one year, something strange and terrible happened. I often walked along the
shore, and one day I saw something in the sand. I went over to look at it more
carefully and stopped in sudden surprise. It was a footprint – the footprint
of a man! Who could this be? Afraid, I looked around me. I listened. I waited.
Nothing. I was more and more afraid. Perhaps this man was one of those wild
people who killed and ate other men! I looked everywhere, but there was nobody,
and no other footprint. I turned and hurried home. ‘There’s something on my
island, ‘I said to myself. ‘Perhaps he knows about me… Perhaps he’s
watching me now from behind a tree… Perhaps he wants to kill me.’ That night
I couldn’t sleep. The next day I got all my guns ready and I put more wood and
young trees around my house. Nobody could see me now. But after fifteen years
alone on the island I was afraid, and I did not leave my cave for three days. In
the end I had to go out to milk my goats. But for two years I was afraid. I
stayed near my home and I never used my guns because I didn’t want to make a
noise. I could not forget the footprint, but I saw and heard nothing more, and
slowly I began to feel happier.
One day, a year later, I was over on the west side of the island. From
there I could see the other island, and I could also see a boat, far out to sea.
‘If you have a boat,’ I thought, ‘it’s easy to sail across to this
island. Perhaps that explains the footprint – it was a visitor from one of the
other islands.’
