"I saw something last night."
The Marooned didn't stir at these words. He remained crouched on the shore, hairy feet burrowing under the same sand as the crab he was hunting. The Englishman continued.
"First, I thought it was a dream spliced between restlessness. I had visions of a similar strangeness during my nights in the United Colonies, the very reason I hastened my departure home. Journalism and sleeplessness is akin to a wedding and nakedness."
The Marooned grunted, maybe to the Englishman, maybe to the elusive crab.
"I counted your tallies. Don't think your etches in the fallen palm evaded my notice, nor the cross-wood grave at its right. Are the tallies for the buried, or for each day you've spent here?"
Again, the Marooned grunted, this time with the assertiveness of an affirmation.
"You're aware, then, that you've been marooned here just over five months?"
No acknowledgement from the Marooned. The Englishman faced the shore instead of the crab hole, watching the distant sun sink into the glowing sea. Nightfall was nearing; the sky's pink-purple fade sprinkling the cloudless expanse with tropical starshine. It was a gorgeous reminder of his nightmarish distance from home.
"Two days here and I already fear my madness. I can't make it like... you have."
The Englishman examined the Marooned. His thickset frame was crouched, almost animalistic, in the coarse sand. His shirt and trousers were tattered and stained, and his curly beard was whipped with dust. Licking his lips, the Marooned adjusted the still-pristine captain's hat on his frizzy head. The Englishman wondered how often the poor captain had once pridefully done so before losing his mind on this wilderness.
"Have you attempted escape?"
No response.
"I doubt we're close enough to any mainland. That's why... last night, it was so odd. It wasn't there when I closed my eyes, but when the moon was high, it was two meters away. I swear I saw a raft beached in the wet sand. Do you–"
"Raft!"
Instantly, the Marooned's gaze was as hard-fixed on the Englishman as his grip was on his shoulders. The crab scuttled away.
"Y-yes!" The Englishman choked. "There was a raft, or so I dreamed."
"No dream! You must take her from me!"
"Take her?"
The Marooned released the Englishman's shoulders and marched away. The Englishman followed.
"How can I take the raft if it's disappeared?"
"She appears with the moon, vanishes in the sun!" The Marooned responded, approaching his campsite. "Take her from me tonight."
"A mysterious, disappearing raft?" The Englishman swallowed. "Isn't that... awfully foreboding?"
"For boating? It's a raft, what else would it be for? Take her from me!"
The Marooned and the Englishman arrived at the campsite, and the Marooned sat on a log, grabbed his fishing spear, and inspected its rod. The Englishman stood next to him, the sand sinking the heels of his boots centimeters closer to eye-level with the spear's point.
"When did the raft first appear?"
The Marooned checked his wrist for the time, which was absurd, since he was measuring days. More absurd, he wasn't wearing a watch.
"Near three months."
The Englishman strained through the darkening evening to see the white tallies on the fallen palm protruding from the tree line. Five months of tallies, three months of raft. Something happened two months into the Marooned's island life. The Englishman's eyes drifted from the palm to the cross-wood grave.
Abruptly, the Marooned shuffled off again through the sand, towards a rocky tidepool. This time, the Englishman didn't follow, instead replacing him on the log. He studied the horizon; the full moon soothing the waves that reflected its milky glow. No raft yet.
By the time the Marooned marched up the beach with fish speared through, the Englishman had started a campfire. While the fish were gutted and roasted, the Englishman stared into the fire that cooked them, sympathizing with the finality of their entrapment.
"What did you do before this island?"
"Was a savior then, am a savior now."
"Ah. I suppose I haven't thanked you for pulling me from the water, have I?"
"Not you, I saved my crew. That's what got me here. God entrusted men to rule the Earth, and this island had no ruler ‘til I arrived. Thought we were cursed– cast away from the rest of the crew's salvation. No, I'm the last survivin' man of this land. Maybe you are too."
"By ‘we,' you mean you and him?"
The Englishman nodded towards the grave up the slope of the beach.
"Him, aye, but he was with angels a couple months in from sun-sickness. No, I mean the girl. She made it ashore with us, and the poor man's passin' put her off. Couldn't stay another night. Spent the whole day n' night workin' on that raft, makin' a damn good one. She would've lived longer here, but nay, rushed off to ‘er doom."
The Englishman glanced down the beach, saying, "She made a raft? Was it anything like–"
There, the raft was settled in the wet sand. The Englishman shot to his feet.
"Salvation!"
"You mustn't!"
The Englishman hadn't registered his own steps towards the raft until he stopped at the Marooned's words.
"Pardon?"
"You mustn't leave!"
"Weren't you the one so insistent I take it a mere hour ago?"
The Marooned gripped his scalp, fingers tangled in sandy knots.
"Not you too! You're saved here! Saved with me!"
The Englishman grabbed his coat, his net of supplies, and his pouch of fruit as he shuffled off again towards the raft.
"No!" The Marooned howled, yanking the Englishman's arm.
Island-plums tumbled from the Englishman's pouch, rolling down the sloping shore and into the shallows. The Englishman shoved the Marooned away.
"For God's sake, let me–"
"You'll die out there, just like she did!"
"How can you know what became of her?"
The Englishman dropped to his knees, scrambling to secure the island-plums back into his pouch. The Marooned kicked one out of the Englishman's reach.
"Stones! All rations for stones! She couldn't've survived out there, no point in her takin' the rest of our goods to die on the waves. She'll take you as payment for what I did!"
"You... sabotaged her?"
"I saved her! The sea was going to take ‘er, just like it was going to take my crew! I saved them all before it could, I did! They'll thank me in the afterlife."
The Englishman stood, staring at the Marooned. The captain had gone mad long before he was marooned.
"I'm going."
The Marooned made a lunge to seize him, but the Englishman had already taken off down the shore, nearly tumbling onto the raft with his supplies. The Marooned picked up the chase, but as soon as the Englishman was on the raft, the Marooned's outstretched arms suddenly recoiled.
For a moment, the two stared at each other with equal frustration. Then, the Marooned's face contorted, his lips trembling, eyes bulging as he beheld the Englishman with horror.
Though unsure of what caused the distraction, the Englishman seized it. He pushed his feet once against the bank, then twice.
"I'm going!" With a third push, he sent the raft into the water. "Damn this island, and damn its savior!"
The Englishman seized an oar that laid across the strewn palm trunks of the raft. An oar of flat wood, fastened by the determined hands of a woman doomed. If she was willing to go all in to escape this madman's island, then so was he. He cut the oar through the waves, praying his fate would redeem hers.
Not once did the Englishman turn back to face the island.
From the shore, the Marooned clutched his captain's hat to his chest, watching both of them drift away in the raft.