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- 7604
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:55.413Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 7545
- text
- his whole aspect and all his gestures were so malevolently and
uselessly sinister and secret, that he seemed rather in act of dropping
poison into wells than potatoes into soil. But among his lesser and
more harmless marvels was an idea he ever had, that his visitors came
equally as well led by longings to behold the mighty hermit Oberlus in
his royal state of solitude, as simply, to obtain potatoes, or find
whatever company might be upon a barren isle. It seems incredible that
such a being should possess such vanity; a misanthrope be conceited;
but he really had his notion; and upon the strength of it, often gave
himself amusing airs to captains. But after all, this is somewhat of a
piece with the well-known eccentricity of some convicts, proud of that
very hatefulness which makes them notorious. At other times, another
unaccountable whim would seize him, and he would long dodge advancing
strangers round the clinkered corners of his hut; sometimes like a
stealthy bear, he would slink through the withered thickets up the
mountains, and refuse to see the human face.
Except his occasional visitors from the sea, for a long period, the
only companions of Oberlus were the crawling tortoises; and he seemed
more than degraded to their level, having no desires for a time beyond
theirs, unless it were for the stupor brought on by drunkenness. But
sufficiently debased as he appeared, there yet lurked in him, only
awaiting occasion for discovery, a still further proneness. Indeed, the
sole superiority of Oberlus over the tortoises was his possession of a
larger capacity of degradation; and along with that, something like an
intelligent will to it. Moreover, what is about to be revealed, perhaps
will show, that selfish ambition, or the love of rule for its own sake,
far from being the peculiar infirmity of noble minds, is shared by
beings which have no mind at all. No creatures are so selfishly
tyrannical as some brutes; as any one who has observed the tenants of
the pasture must occasionally have observed.
“This island’s mine by Sycorax my mother,” said Oberlus to himself,
glaring round upon his haggard solitude. By some means, barter or
theft—for in those days ships at intervals still kept touching at his
Landing—he obtained an old musket, with a few charges of powder and
ball. Possessed of arms, he was stimulated to enterprise, as a tiger
that first feels the coming of its claws. The long habit of sole
dominion over every object round him, his almost unbroken solitude, his
never encountering humanity except on terms of misanthropic
independence, or mercantile craftiness, and even such encounters being
comparatively but rare; all this must have gradually nourished in him a
vast idea of his own importance, together with a pure animal sort of
scorn for all the rest of the universe.
The unfortunate Creole, who enjoyed his brief term of royalty at
Charles’s Isle was perhaps in some degree influenced by not unworthy
motives; such as prompt other adventurous spirits to lead colonists
into distant regions and assume political preeminence over them. His
summary execution of many of his Peruvians is quite pardonable,
considering the desperate characters he had to deal with; while his
offering canine battle to the banded rebels seems under the
circumstances altogether just. But for this King Oberlus and what
shortly follows, no shade of palliation can be given. He acted out of
mere delight in tyranny and cruelty, by virtue of a quality in him
inherited from Sycorax his mother. Armed now with that shocking
blunderbuss, strong in the thought of being master of that horrid isle,
he panted for a chance to prove his potency upon the first specimen of
humanity which should fall unbefriended into his hands.
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