Robinson Crusoe

D >> Daniel Defoe >> Robinson Crusoe

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25

From this time, I confess, I had a mind to venture over, and see if
I could possibly join with those bearded men, who I made no doubt
were Spaniards and Portuguese; not doubting but, if I could, we
might find some method to escape from thence, being upon the
continent, and a good company together, better than I could from an
island forty miles off the shore, alone and without help. So,
after some days, I took Friday to work again by way of discourse,
and told him I would give him a boat to go back to his own nation;
and, accordingly, I carried him to my frigate, which lay on the
other side of the island, and having cleared it of water (for I
always kept it sunk in water), I brought it out, showed it him, and
we both went into it. I found he was a most dexterous fellow at
managing it, and would make it go almost as swift again as I could.
So when he was in, I said to him, "Well, now, Friday, shall we go
to your nation?" He looked very dull at my saying so; which it
seems was because he thought the boat was too small to go so far.
I then told him I had a bigger; so the next day I went to the place
where the first boat lay which I had made, but which I could not
get into the water. He said that was big enough; but then, as I
had taken no care of it, and it had lain two or three and twenty
years there, the sun had so split and dried it, that it was rotten.
Friday told me such a boat would do very well, and would carry
"much enough vittle, drink, bread;" this was his way of talking.

CHAPTER XVI - RESCUE OF PRISONERS FROM CANNIBALS

UPON the whole, I was by this time so fixed upon my design of going
over with him to the continent that I told him we would go and make
one as big as that, and he should go home in it. He answered not
one word, but looked very grave and sad. I asked him what was the
matter with him. He asked me again, "Why you angry mad with
Friday? - what me done?" I asked him what he meant. I told him I
was not angry with him at all. "No angry!" says he, repeating the
words several times; "why send Friday home away to my nation?"
"Why," says I, "Friday, did not you say you wished you were there?"
"Yes, yes," says he, "wish we both there; no wish Friday there, no
master there." In a word, he would not think of going there
without me. "I go there, Friday?" says I; "what shall I do there?"
He turned very quick upon me at this. "You do great deal much
good," says he; "you teach wild mans be good, sober, tame mans; you
tell them know God, pray God, and live new life." "Alas, Friday!"
says I, "thou knowest not what thou sayest; I am but an ignorant
man myself." "Yes, yes," says he, "you teachee me good, you
teachee them good." "No, no, Friday," says I, "you shall go
without me; leave me here to live by myself, as I did before." He
looked confused again at that word; and running to one of the
hatchets which he used to wear, he takes it up hastily, and gives
it to me. "What must I do with this?" says I to him. "You take
kill Friday," says he. "What must kill you for?" said I again. He
returns very quick - "What you send Friday away for? Take kill
Friday, no send Friday away." This he spoke so earnestly that I
saw tears stand in his eyes. In a word, I so plainly discovered
the utmost affection in him to me, and a firm resolution in him,
that I told him then and often after, that I would never send him
away from me if he was willing to stay with me.

Upon the whole, as I found by all his discourse a settled affection
to me, and that nothing could part him from me, so I found all the
foundation of his desire to go to his own country was laid in his
ardent affection to the people, and his hopes of my doing them
good; a thing which, as I had no notion of myself, so I had not the
least thought or intention, or desire of undertaking it. But still
I found a strong inclination to attempting my escape, founded on
the supposition gathered from the discourse, that there were
seventeen bearded men there; and therefore, without any more delay,
I went to work with Friday to find out a great tree proper to fell,
and make a large periagua, or canoe, to undertake the voyage.
There were trees enough in the island to have built a little fleet,
not of periaguas or canoes, but even of good, large vessels; but
the main thing I looked at was, to get one so near the water that
we might launch it when it was made, to avoid the mistake I
committed at first. At last Friday pitched upon a tree; for I
found he knew much better than I what kind of wood was fittest for
it; nor can I tell to this day what wood to call the tree we cut
down, except that it was very like the tree we call fustic, or
between that and the Nicaragua wood, for it was much of the same
colour and smell. Friday wished to burn the hollow or cavity of
this tree out, to make it for a boat, but I showed him how to cut
it with tools; which, after I had showed him how to use, he did
very handily; and in about a month's hard labour we finished it and
made it very handsome; especially when, with our axes, which I
showed him how to handle, we cut and hewed the outside into the
true shape of a boat. After this, however, it cost us near a
fortnight's time to get her along, as it were inch by inch, upon
great rollers into the water; but when she was in, she would have
carried twenty men with great ease.

When she was in the water, though she was so big, it amazed me to
see with what dexterity and how swift my man Friday could manage
her, turn her, and paddle her along. So I asked him if he would,
and if we might venture over in her. "Yes," he said, "we venture
over in her very well, though great blow wind." However I had a
further design that he knew nothing of, and that was, to make a
mast and a sail, and to fit her with an anchor and cable. As to a
mast, that was easy enough to get; so I pitched upon a straight
young cedar-tree, which I found near the place, and which there
were great plenty of in the island, and I set Friday to work to cut
it down, and gave him directions how to shape and order it. But as
to the sail, that was my particular care. I knew I had old sails,
or rather pieces of old sails, enough; but as I had had them now
six-and-twenty years by me, and had not been very careful to
preserve them, not imagining that I should ever have this kind of
use for them, I did not doubt but they were all rotten; and,
indeed, most of them were so. However, I found two pieces which
appeared pretty good, and with these I went to work; and with a
great deal of pains, and awkward stitching, you may be sure, for
want of needles, I at length made a three-cornered ugly thing, like
what we call in England a shoulder-of-mutton sail, to go with a
boom at bottom, and a little short sprit at the top, such as
usually our ships' long-boats sail with, and such as I best knew
how to manage, as it was such a one as I had to the boat in which I
made my escape from Barbary, as related in the first part of my
story.

I was near two months performing this last work, viz. rigging and
fitting my masts and sails; for I finished them very complete,
making a small stay, and a sail, or foresail, to it, to assist if
we should turn to windward; and, what was more than all, I fixed a
rudder to the stern of her to steer with. I was but a bungling
shipwright, yet as I knew the usefulness and even necessity of such
a thing, I applied myself with so much pains to do it, that at last
I brought it to pass; though, considering the many dull
contrivances I had for it that failed, I think it cost me almost as
much labour as making the boat.

After all this was done, I had my man Friday to teach as to what
belonged to the navigation of my boat; though he knew very well how
to paddle a canoe, he knew nothing of what belonged to a sail and a
rudder; and was the most amazed when he saw me work the boat to and
again in the sea by the rudder, and how the sail jibed, and filled
this way or that way as the course we sailed changed; I say when he
saw this he stood like one astonished and amazed. However, with a
little use, I made all these things familiar to him, and he became
an expert sailor, except that of the compass I could make him
understand very little. On the other hand, as there was very
little cloudy weather, and seldom or never any fogs in those parts,
there was the less occasion for a compass, seeing the stars were
always to be seen by night, and the shore by day, except in the
rainy seasons, and then nobody cared to stir abroad either by land
or sea.

I was now entered on the seven-and-twentieth year of my captivity
in this place; though the three last years that I had this creature
with me ought rather to be left out of the account, my habitation
being quite of another kind than in all the rest of the time. I
kept the anniversary of my landing here with the same thankfulness
to God for His mercies as at first: and if I had such cause of
acknowledgment at first, I had much more so now, having such
additional testimonies of the care of Providence over me, and the
great hopes I had of being effectually and speedily delivered; for
I had an invincible impression upon my thoughts that my deliverance
was at hand, and that I should not be another year in this place.
I went on, however, with my husbandry; digging, planting, and
fencing as usual. I gathered and cured my grapes, and did every
necessary thing as before.

The rainy season was in the meantime upon me, when I kept more
within doors than at other times. We had stowed our new vessel as
secure as we could, bringing her up into the creek, where, as I
said in the beginning, I landed my rafts from the ship; and hauling
her up to the shore at high-water mark, I made my man Friday dig a
little dock, just big enough to hold her, and just deep enough to
give her water enough to float in; and then, when the tide was out,
we made a strong dam across the end of it, to keep the water out;
and so she lay, dry as to the tide from the sea: and to keep the
rain off we laid a great many boughs of trees, so thick that she
was as well thatched as a house; and thus we waited for the months
of November and December, in which I designed to make my adventure.

When the settled season began to come in, as the thought of my
design returned with the fair weather, I was preparing daily for
the voyage. And the first thing I did was to lay by a certain
quantity of provisions, being the stores for our voyage; and
intended in a week or a fortnight's time to open the dock, and
launch out our boat. I was busy one morning upon something of this
kind, when I called to Friday, and bid him to go to the sea-shore
and see if he could find a turtle or a tortoise, a thing which we
generally got once a week, for the sake of the eggs as well as the
flesh. Friday had not been long gone when he came running back,
and flew over my outer wall or fence, like one that felt not the
ground or the steps he set his foot on; and before I had time to
speak to him he cries out to me, "O master! O master! O sorrow! O
bad!" - "What's the matter, Friday?" says I. "O yonder there,"
says he, "one, two, three canoes; one, two, three!" By this way of
speaking I concluded there were six; but on inquiry I found there
were but three. "Well, Friday," says I, "do not be frightened."
So I heartened him up as well as I could. However, I saw the poor
fellow was most terribly scared, for nothing ran in his head but
that they were come to look for him, and would cut him in pieces
and eat him; and the poor fellow trembled so that I scarcely knew
what to do with him. I comforted him as well as I could, and told
him I was in as much danger as he, and that they would eat me as
well as him. "But," says I, "Friday, we must resolve to fight
them. Can you fight, Friday?" "Me shoot," says he, "but there
come many great number." "No matter for that," said I again; "our
guns will fright them that we do not kill." So I asked him
whether, if I resolved to defend him, he would defend me, and stand
by me, and do just as I bid him. He said, "Me die when you bid
die, master." So I went and fetched a good dram of rum and gave
him; for I had been so good a husband of my rum that I had a great
deal left. When we had drunk it, I made him take the two fowling-
pieces, which we always carried, and loaded them with large swan-
shot, as big as small pistol-bullets. Then I took four muskets,
and loaded them with two slugs and five small bullets each; and my
two pistols I loaded with a brace of bullets each. I hung my great
sword, as usual, naked by my side, and gave Friday his hatchet.
When I had thus prepared myself, I took my perspective glass, and
went up to the side of the hill, to see what I could discover; and
I found quickly by my glass that there were one-and-twenty savages,
three prisoners, and three canoes; and that their whole business
seemed to be the triumphant banquet upon these three human bodies:
a barbarous feast, indeed! but nothing more than, as I had
observed, was usual with them. I observed also that they had
landed, not where they had done when Friday made his escape, but
nearer to my creek, where the shore was low, and where a thick wood
came almost close down to the sea. This, with the abhorrence of
the inhuman errand these wretches came about, filled me with such
indignation that I came down again to Friday, and told him I was
resolved to go down to them and kill them all; and asked him if he
would stand by me. He had now got over his fright, and his spirits
being a little raised with the dram I had given him, he was very
cheerful, and told me, as before, he would die when I bid die.

In this fit of fury I divided the arms which I had charged, as
before, between us; I gave Friday one pistol to stick in his
girdle, and three guns upon his shoulder, and I took one pistol and
the other three guns myself; and in this posture we marched out. I
took a small bottle of rum in my pocket, and gave Friday a large
bag with more powder and bullets; and as to orders, I charged him
to keep close behind me, and not to stir, or shoot, or do anything
till I bid him, and in the meantime not to speak a word. In this
posture I fetched a compass to my right hand of near a mile, as
well to get over the creek as to get into the wood, so that I could
come within shot of them before I should be discovered, which I had
seen by my glass it was easy to do.

While I was making this march, my former thoughts returning, I
began to abate my resolution: I do not mean that I entertained any
fear of their number, for as they were naked, unarmed wretches, it
is certain I was superior to them - nay, though I had been alone.
But it occurred to my thoughts, what call, what occasion, much less
what necessity I was in to go and dip my hands in blood, to attack
people who had neither done or intended me any wrong? who, as to
me, were innocent, and whose barbarous customs were their own
disaster, being in them a token, indeed, of God's having left them,
with the other nations of that part of the world, to such
stupidity, and to such inhuman courses, but did not call me to take
upon me to be a judge of their actions, much less an executioner of
His justice - that whenever He thought fit He would take the cause
into His own hands, and by national vengeance punish them as a
people for national crimes, but that, in the meantime, it was none
of my business - that it was true Friday might justify it, because
he was a declared enemy and in a state of war with those very
particular people, and it was lawful for him to attack them - but I
could not say the same with regard to myself. These things were so
warmly pressed upon my thoughts all the way as I went, that I
resolved I would only go and place myself near them that I might
observe their barbarous feast, and that I would act then as God
should direct; but that unless something offered that was more a
call to me than yet I knew of, I would not meddle with them.

With this resolution I entered the wood, and, with all possible
wariness and silence, Friday following close at my heels, I marched
till I came to the skirts of the wood on the side which was next to
them, only that one corner of the wood lay between me and them.
Here I called softly to Friday, and showing him a great tree which
was just at the corner of the wood, I bade him go to the tree, and
bring me word if he could see there plainly what they were doing.
He did so, and came immediately back to me, and told me they might
be plainly viewed there - that they were all about their fire,
eating the flesh of one of their prisoners, and that another lay
bound upon the sand a little from them, whom he said they would
kill next; and this fired the very soul within me. He told me it
was not one of their nation, but one of the bearded men he had told
me of, that came to their country in the boat. I was filled with
horror at the very naming of the white bearded man; and going to
the tree, I saw plainly by my glass a white man, who lay upon the
beach of the sea with his hands and his feet tied with flags, or
things like rushes, and that he was an European, and had clothes
on.

There was another tree and a little thicket beyond it, about fifty
yards nearer to them than the place where I was, which, by going a
little way about, I saw I might come at undiscovered, and that then
I should be within half a shot of them; so I withheld my passion,
though I was indeed enraged to the highest degree; and going back
about twenty paces, I got behind some bushes, which held all the
way till I came to the other tree, and then came to a little rising
ground, which gave me a full view of them at the distance of about
eighty yards.

I had now not a moment to lose, for nineteen of the dreadful
wretches sat upon the ground, all close huddled together, and had
just sent the other two to butcher the poor Christian, and bring
him perhaps limb by limb to their fire, and they were stooping down
to untie the bands at his feet. I turned to Friday. "Now,
Friday," said I, "do as I bid thee." Friday said he would. "Then,
Friday," says I, "do exactly as you see me do; fail in nothing."
So I set down one of the muskets and the fowling-piece upon the
ground, and Friday did the like by his, and with the other musket I
took my aim at the savages, bidding him to do the like; then asking
him if he was ready, he said, "Yes." "Then fire at them," said I;
and at the same moment I fired also.

Friday took his aim so much better than I, that on the side that he
shot he killed two of them, and wounded three more; and on my side
I killed one, and wounded two. They were, you may be sure, in a
dreadful consternation: and all of them that were not hurt jumped
upon their feet, but did not immediately know which way to run, or
which way to look, for they knew not from whence their destruction
came. Friday kept his eyes close upon me, that, as I had bid him,
he might observe what I did; so, as soon as the first shot was
made, I threw down the piece, and took up the fowling-piece, and
Friday did the like; he saw me cock and present; he did the same
again. "Are you ready, Friday?" said I. "Yes," says he. "Let
fly, then," says I, "in the name of God!" and with that I fired
again among the amazed wretches, and so did Friday; and as our
pieces were now loaded with what I call swan-shot, or small pistol-
bullets, we found only two drop; but so many were wounded that they
ran about yelling and screaming like mad creatures, all bloody, and
most of them miserably wounded; whereof three more fell quickly
after, though not quite dead.

"Now, Friday," says I, laying down the discharged pieces, and
taking up the musket which was yet loaded, "follow me," which he
did with a great deal of courage; upon which I rushed out of the
wood and showed myself, and Friday close at my foot. As soon as I
perceived they saw me, I shouted as loud as I could, and bade
Friday do so too, and running as fast as I could, which, by the
way, was not very fast, being loaded with arms as I was, I made
directly towards the poor victim, who was, as I said, lying upon
the beach or shore, between the place where they sat and the sea.
The two butchers who were just going to work with him had left him
at the surprise of our first fire, and fled in a terrible fright to
the seaside, and had jumped into a canoe, and three more of the
rest made the same way. I turned to Friday, and bade him step
forwards and fire at them; he understood me immediately, and
running about forty yards, to be nearer them, he shot at them; and
I thought he had killed them all, for I saw them all fall of a heap
into the boat, though I saw two of them up again quickly; however,
he killed two of them, and wounded the third, so that he lay down
in the bottom of the boat as if he had been dead.

While my man Friday fired at them, I pulled out my knife and cut
the flags that bound the poor victim; and loosing his hands and
feet, I lifted him up, and asked him in the Portuguese tongue what
he was. He answered in Latin, Christianus; but was so weak and
faint that he could scarce stand or speak. I took my bottle out of
my pocket and gave it him, making signs that he should drink, which
he did; and I gave him a piece of bread, which he ate. Then I
asked him what countryman he was: and he said, Espagniole; and
being a little recovered, let me know, by all the signs he could
possibly make, how much he was in my debt for his deliverance.
"Seignior," said I, with as much Spanish as I could make up, "we
will talk afterwards, but we must fight now: if you have any
strength left, take this pistol and sword, and lay about you." He
took them very thankfully; and no sooner had he the arms in his
hands, but, as if they had put new vigour into him, he flew upon
his murderers like a fury, and had cut two of them in pieces in an
instant; for the truth is, as the whole was a surprise to them, so
the poor creatures were so much frightened with the noise of our
pieces that they fell down for mere amazement and fear, and had no
more power to attempt their own escape than their flesh had to
resist our shot; and that was the case of those five that Friday
shot at in the boat; for as three of them fell with the hurt they
received, so the other two fell with the fright.

I kept my piece in my hand still without firing, being willing to
keep my charge ready, because I had given the Spaniard my pistol
and sword: so I called to Friday, and bade him run up to the tree
from whence we first fired, and fetch the arms which lay there that
had been discharged, which he did with great swiftness; and then
giving him my musket, I sat down myself to load all the rest again,
and bade them come to me when they wanted. While I was loading
these pieces, there happened a fierce engagement between the
Spaniard and one of the savages, who made at him with one of their
great wooden swords, the weapon that was to have killed him before,
if I had not prevented it. The Spaniard, who was as bold and brave
as could be imagined, though weak, had fought the Indian a good
while, and had cut two great wounds on his head; but the savage
being a stout, lusty fellow, closing in with him, had thrown him
down, being faint, and was wringing my sword out of his hand; when
the Spaniard, though undermost, wisely quitting the sword, drew the
pistol from his girdle, shot the savage through the body, and
killed him upon the spot, before I, who was running to help him,
could come near him.

Friday, being now left to his liberty, pursued the flying wretches,
with no weapon in his hand but his hatchet: and with that he
despatched those three who as I said before, were wounded at first,
and fallen, and all the rest he could come up with: and the
Spaniard coming to me for a gun, I gave him one of the fowling-
pieces, with which he pursued two of the savages, and wounded them
both; but as he was not able to run, they both got from him into
the wood, where Friday pursued them, and killed one of them, but
the other was too nimble for him; and though he was wounded, yet
had plunged himself into the sea, and swam with all his might off
to those two who were left in the canoe; which three in the canoe,
with one wounded, that we knew not whether he died or no, were all
that escaped our hands of one-and-twenty. The account of the whole
is as follows: Three killed at our first shot from the tree; two
killed at the next shot; two killed by Friday in the boat; two
killed by Friday of those at first wounded; one killed by Friday in
the wood; three killed by the Spaniard; four killed, being found
dropped here and there, of the wounds, or killed by Friday in his
chase of them; four escaped in the boat, whereof one wounded, if
not dead - twenty-one in all.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25