Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe—A Project Gutenberg eBook (2025)

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ROBINSON CRUSOE

Slowly the raft drifted nearer and nearer the shore (page 15)

MY DEAR ALEC,

When Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe,nearly two hundred years ago, boys had more time on theirhands, fewer books and fewer games than they have now, andthey, as well as their fathers, read it and loved it. And whenyour father and I were boys—though that is rather less thantwo hundred years ago—we too used often to read it.

But boys nowadays do not seem to read RobinsonCrusoe as they used to do. It is too long, they think,and there is much in it that they have not time to read.That is why I have written here, in as few words aspossible, the tale of Robinson’s twenty-eight years in hisIsland, and I hope that you, and other boys, will like it.

The sea that lay round Robinson’s island is not like theone you know—the grey North Sea, stormy and cold;but it is blue like a sapphire, and where the rollers break inwhite foam on the coral reefs it seems as if it were edged withpearls. On the shores of the islands, cocoa-nut palms wavetheir feathery fronds in the breeze; butterflies of wondrouscolours hover about; and in and out amongst the thick-leavedtrees dash birds, chattering and screaming, all crimson andblue and yellow and green.

Often there are snakes too, and it was lucky that nosnakes on Robinson’s island troubled him. For on someislands that I have seen there are snakes—black and white,the most poisonous of them—that swim about in the sea andcome up on the beach, and you have to be careful that youdo not sit down on the top of one, for they are not alwaysvery quick at getting out of the way.

When you are a man, perhaps some day you will go to oneof those tropical islands. And if you take a boat and row outto the inside of the reef of coral that lies round the island, andput your face close down, and look through the quiet, crystalclear water, you will know what Fairyland beneath the seais like. You will find there gardens of a beauty never seenon land, only the branches of the trees are of coral, and in andout amongst them, instead of bright-coloured birds, you willsee fishes swimming, some of a vivid yellow and black, othersblue as the sky. That is where the mermaids used to play,when the world was younger than it is now.

Yours affectionately,
JOHN LANG.

CONTENTS

LIST OF PICTURES

Long, long ago, before even your grandfather’sfather was born, there lived in thetown of York a boy whose name wasRobinson Crusoe. Though he never evensaw the sea till he was quite a big boy, hehad always wanted to be a sailor, and to goaway in a ship to visit strange, foreign, far-offlands; and he thought that if he could onlydo that, he would be quite happy.

But his father wanted him to be a lawyer,and he often talked to Robinson, and toldhim of the terrible things that might happento him if he went away, and how people whostopped at home were always the happiest.He told him, too, how Robinson’s brother[Pg 2]had gone away, and had been killed in thewars.

So Robinson promised at last that he wouldgive up wanting to be a sailor. But in a fewdays the longing came back as bad as ever,and he asked his mother to try to coax hisfather to let him go just one voyage. Buthis mother was very angry, and his fathersaid, ‘If he goes abroad he will be the mostmiserable wretch that ever was born. I cangive no consent to it.’

Robinson stopped at home for anotheryear, till he was nineteen years old, all thetime thinking and thinking of the sea. Butone day when he had gone on a visit to Hull,a big town by the sea, to say good-bye to oneof his friends who was going to London, hecould not resist the chance. Without evensending a message to his father and mother,he went on board his friend’s ship, and sailedaway.

But as soon as the wind began to blow andthe waves to rise, poor Robinson was veryfrightened and sea-sick, and he said to himself[Pg 3]that if ever he got on shore he would gostraight home and never again leave it.

He was very solemn till the wind stoppedblowing. His friend and the sailors laughedat him, and called him a fool, and he verysoon forgot, when the weather was fine andthe sun shining, all he had thought aboutgoing back to his father and mother.

But in a few days, when the ship had sailedas far as Yarmouth Roads on her way toLondon, they had to anchor, and wait for afair wind. In those days there were nosteamers, and vessels had only their sails tohelp them along; so if it was calm, or thewind blew the wrong way, they had justto wait where they were till a fair windblew.

Whilst they lay at Yarmouth the weatherbecame very bad, and there was a greatstorm. The sea was so heavy and Robinson’sship was in such danger, that at last theyhad to cut away the masts in order to easeher and to stop her from rolling so terribly.The Captain fired guns to show that his[Pg 4]ship wanted help. So a boat from anothership was lowered, and came with muchdifficulty and took off Robinson and all thecrew, just before their vessel sank; and theygot ashore at last, very wet and miserable,having lost all their clothes except what theyhad on.

But Robinson had some money in hispocket, and he went on to London by land,thinking that if he returned home now, peoplewould laugh at him.

In London he made friends with a ship’scaptain, who had not long before come homefrom a voyage to the Guinea Coast, as thatpart of Africa was then called; and theCaptain was so pleased with the money hehad made there, that he easily persuadedRobinson to go with him on his next voyage.

So Robinson took with him toys, and beads,and other things, to sell to the natives inAfrica, and he got there, in exchange forthese things, so much gold dust that hethought he was soon going in that way tomake his fortune.

[Pg 5]

And therefore he went on a second voyage.

But this time he was not so lucky, forbefore they reached the African Coast, onemorning, very early, they sighted anothership, which they were sure was a Pirate.So fast did this other vessel sail, that beforenight she had come up to Robinson’s ship,which did not carry nearly so many men norso many guns as the Pirate, and which thereforedid not want to fight; and the piratessoon took prisoner Robinson and all thecrew of his ship who were not killed, andmade slaves of them.

The Pirate captain took Robinson as hisown slave, and made him dig in his gardenand work in his house. Sometimes, too, hemade him look after his ship when she was inport, but he never took him away on a voyage.

For two years Robinson lived like this,very unhappy, and always thinking how hemight escape.

At last, when the Captain happened onetime to be at home longer than usual, hebegan to go out fishing in a boat two or three[Pg 6]times a week, taking Robinson, who was avery good fisher, and a black boy namedXury, with him.

One day he gave Robinson orders to putfood and water, and some guns, and powderand shot, on a big boat that the pirates hadtaken out of an English ship, and to beready to go with him and some of his friendson a fishing trip.

But at the last moment the Captain’sfriends could not come, and so Robinson wastold to go out in the boat with one of theCaptain’s servants who was not a slave, andwith Xury, to catch fish for supper.

Then Robinson thought that his chance toescape had come.

He spoke to the servant, who was not veryclever, and persuaded him to put more foodand water on the boat, for, said Robinson,‘we must not take what was meant for ourmaster.’ And then he got the servant tobring some more powder and shot, because,Robinson said, they might as well kill somebirds to eat.

[Pg 7]

When they had gone out about a mile,they hauled down the sail and began to fish.But Robinson pretended that he could notcatch anything there, and he said that theyought to go further out. When they hadgone so far that nobody on shore could seewhat they were doing, Robinson again pretendedto fish. But this time he watchedhis chance, and when the servant was notlooking, came behind him and threw himoverboard, knowing that the man couldswim so well that he could easily reach theland.

Then Robinson sailed away with Xurydown the coast to the south. He did notknow to what country he was steering, butcared only to get away from the pirates, andto be free once more.

Long days and nights they sailed, sometimesrunning in close to the land, but theywere afraid to go ashore very often, becauseof the wild beasts and the natives. Manytimes they saw great lions come roaringdown on to the beach, and once Robinson[Pg 8]shot one that he saw lying asleep, and tookits skin to make a bed for himself on theboat.

At last, after some weeks, when they hadgot south as far as the great cape that iscalled Cape de Verde, they saw a Portuguesevessel, which took them on board. It wasnot easy for Robinson to tell who he was,because he could not talk Portuguese, buteverybody was very kind to him, and theybought his boat and his guns and everythingthat he had. They even bought poor Xury,who, of course, was a black slave, and couldbe sold just like a horse or a dog.

So, when they got to Brazil, where thevessel was bound, Robinson had enoughmoney to buy a plantation; and he grewsugar and tobacco there for four years, andwas very happy and contented for a time,and made money.

Once Robinson shot a lion that he saw lying asleep

But he could never be contented for verylong. So when some of his neighbours askedhim if he would go in a ship to the GuineaCoast to get slaves for them, he went, only[Pg 9]making a bargain that he was to be paidfor his trouble, and to get some of the slavesto work on his plantation when he cameback.

Twelve days after the ship sailed, aterrible storm blew, and they were drivenfar from where they wanted to go. Great,angry, foaming seas broke over the deck,sweeping everything off that could be moved,and a man and a boy were carried overboardand drowned. No one on the ship expectedto be saved.

This storm was followed by another, evenworse. The wind howled and roared throughthe rigging, and the weather was thickwith rain and flying spray.

Then early one morning land was dimlyseen through the driving rain, but almostat once the vessel struck on a sand-bank.In an instant the sails were blown to bits,and flapped with such uproar that no onecould hear the Captain’s orders. Wavespoured over the decks, and the vesselbumped on the sand so terribly that the[Pg 10]masts broke off near the deck, and fell overthe side into the sea.

With great difficulty the only boat left onthe ship was put in the water, and everybodygot into her. They rowed for the shore,hoping to get perhaps into some bay, or tothe mouth of a river, where the sea wouldbe quiet.

But before they could reach the land, ahuge grey wave, big like the side of a house,came foaming and thundering up behindthem, and before any one could even cryout, it upset the boat, and they were all leftstruggling in the water.

Robinson was a very good swimmer, butno man could swim in such a sea, and itwas only good fortune that brought him atlast safely to land. Big wave after big wavewashed him further and further up thebeach, rolling him over and over, once leavinghim helpless, and more than half-drowned,beside a rock.

But before the next wave could come up,perhaps to drag him back with it into the[Pg 11]sea, he was able to jump up and run forhis life.

And so he got safely out of the reach ofthe water, and lay down upon the grass.But of all on board the ship, Robinson wasthe only one who was not drowned.

When he had rested a little, Robinson gotup and began to walk about very sadly,for darkness was coming on; he was wet,and cold, and hungry, and he did not knowwhere to sleep, because he was afraid ofwild beasts coming out of the woods andkilling him during the night.

But he found that he still had hisknife in his pocket, so he cut a big stick toprotect himself with. Then he climbed intoa tree which had very thick leaves, and therehe fixed himself among the branches as wellas he could, and fell sound asleep.

In the morning when he awoke, the stormwas past, and the sea quieter. To his[Pg 13]surprise, he saw that the ship had beencarried in the night, by the great seas,much nearer to the shore than she hadbeen when the boat left her, and was nowlying not far from the rock where Robinsonhad first been washed up.

By midday the sea was quite calm, andthe tide had gone so far out that he couldwalk very near to the ship. So he took offhis clothes and swam the rest of the way toher. But it was not easy to get on board,because the ship was resting on the sand,and lay so high out of the water thatRobinson could not reach anything by whichhe could pull himself up.

At last, after swimming twice round thevessel, he saw a rope hanging over, nearthe bow, and by its help he climbed onboard.

Everything in the stern of the ship wasdry, and in pretty good order, and the waterhad not hurt the provisions much. So hetook some biscuits, and ate them as he lookedabout, and drank some rum, and then he felt[Pg 14]better, and stronger, and more fit to beginwork.

First of all, he took a few large spars ofwood, and a spare topmast or two, that wereon the deck. These he pushed overboard,tying each with a rope to keep it from driftingaway. Then he went over the side ofthe ship, and tied all the spars together soas to make a raft, and on top he put piecesof plank across. But it was long before hecould make the raft fit to carry the things hewanted to take on shore.

At last, after much hard work, he got on toit three of the seamen’s chests, which he hadbroken open and emptied, and he filled thesewith bread, and rice, and cheese, and whateverhe could find to eat, and with all sortsof things that he thought he might need.He found, too, the carpenter’s tool chest,and put it on the raft; and nothing on thewhole ship was of more use to him thanthat.

Then he set about looking for clothes, forwhile he had been on the ship, the tide had[Pg 15]risen and had washed away his coat andwaistcoat and shirt, which he had left lyingon the sand.

Guns and pistols also, and powder and shot,he took, and two old rusty cutlasses.

Now the trouble was to reach land, for theraft had no mast nor sail nor rudder, and wastoo heavy and clumsy to be pulled by Robinsonwith the broken oars that he had found.But the tide was rising, and slowly she driftednearer and nearer, and at last was carriedup the mouth of a little river which Robinsonhad not seen when he was on shore.

There was a strong tide running up, whichonce carried the raft against a point of land,where she stuck for a time, and very nearlyupset all the things into deep water. But asthe tide rose higher, Robinson was able topush her into a little bay where the waterwas shallow and the ground beneath flat,and when the tide went out there she wasleft high and dry, and he got everythingsafely ashore.

The next thing that Robinson did was to[Pg 16]climb a hill, that he might see what sort ofcountry he was in, and find out if there wereany other people in it. But when he got tothe top, he saw to his sorrow that he was onan island, with no other land in sight exceptsome rocks, and two smaller islands far overthe sea. There were no signs of any people,and he saw nothing living except greatnumbers of birds, one of which he shot.But it was not fit to eat, being some kindof hawk.

After this, with the chests and boards thathe had brought on shore, he made a kind ofhut to sleep in that night, and he lay there onthe sand very comfortably.

Day by day now for some time Robinsonswam out to the ship, and made fresh rafts,loading them with many stores, powder andshot, and lead for bullets, seven muskets,a great barrel of bread, three casks of rum, aquantity of flour, some grain, a box of sugar,sails and ropes and twine, bags of nails, andmany hatchets. With one of the sails hemade himself a good tent, in which he put[Pg 17]everything that could be spoiled by rain orsun. Around it he piled all the casks andother heavy things, so that no wild beastcould very easily get at him.

In about a fortnight the weather changed;it blew very hard one night, and in the morningthe ship had broken up, and was no moreto be seen. But that did not so much matter,for Robinson had got out of her nearly everythingthat he could use.

Now, Robinson thought it time to find somebetter place for his tent. The land where itthen stood was low and near the sea, and theonly water he could get to drink tasted rathersalt. Looking about, he found a little plain,about a hundred yards across, on the side ofa hill, and at the end of the plain was a greatrock partly hollowed out, but not so as quiteto make a cave. Here he pitched his tent,close to the hollow place in the rock. Roundin front of the tent he drove two rows ofstrong stakes, about eighteen inches apart,sharpened at top; and he made this fence sostrong that when it was finished he was sure[Pg 18]that nothing could get at him, for he left nodoor, but climbed in and out by a ladder,which he always hauled up after him.

Before closing up the end, Robinsonhauled inside this fence all his stores, hisfood and his guns, his powder and shot, andhe rigged inside a double tent, so better tokeep off the hot sun and the rain.

Then he began to dig into the rock, whichwas not very hard, and soon behind his tenthe had a cave in which he thought it wise tostow his gunpowder, about one hundred andforty pounds in all, packed in small parcels;for, he thought, if a big thunderstorm were tocome, a flash of lightning might explode it all,and blow him to bits, if he kept the whole ofit in his tent.

Robinson was now very comfortable, andas he had saved from the wreck two cats anda dog, he did not feel quite so lonely. He hadgot, also, ink and pens and paper, so that hecould keep a diary; and he set up a largewooden cross, on which he cut with his knifethe date of his landing on the island—30th[Pg 19]September 1659; and every day he cut anotch on the post, with a longer one eachSunday, so that he might always know howthe months and years passed.

As for food, he found that there were manygoats on the island, and numbers of pigeons,and he had no difficulty in shooting as manyas he needed.

But now he saw that his tent and cavewere too small for all the things he hadstowed in them, so he began to makethe cave bigger, bringing out all the rock andsoil that he cut down, and making with it akind of terrace round the inside of hisstockade. And as he was sure that therewere no wild beasts on the island to harmhim, he went on tunnelling to the right handtill he broke through the rock outside hisfence.

Then he began to hang things up againstthe side of the cave, and he even madeshelves, and a door for the outside entrance.This was a very difficult job, and took hima long time; for, to make a board, he was[Pg 20]forced to cut down a whole tree, and chopaway with his axe till one side was flat, andthen cut at the other side till the board wasthin enough, when he smoothed it with hisadze. But in this way, out of each tree hewould only get one plank. He made forhimself also a table and a chair, and finallygot his castle, as he called it, in very goodorder.

With all his care, however, there was onething that he forgot, and that was, whenhe had made the cave so much bigger, toprop it, so as to keep the roof from fallingin. And so one day he got a terrible fright,and was nearly killed, by a huge bit of thesoft rock which fell and buried many ofhis things. It took weeks of hard workafterwards to clear away the fallen rubbish,and to cut beams strong enough to propthe roof.

Every day, all this time, he used to climbup the hill and look around over the lonelywaters, hoping, always hoping, that somemorning he might see the sails of a ship[Pg 21]that would take him home. But none evercame, and sometimes the tears ran downhis cheeks because of the sorrow he feltat being so utterly alone. At times even, hethought in his misery that if only he hadany kind of a boat, it would be better tosail away, and chance reaching other land,rather than to stop where he was. By andby, however, he grew less unhappy, for hehad plenty of work to do.

Now about this time, when Robinson hadbeen some months on the island, heavy andconstant rain began to fall, and sometimesweeks would pass without a single dry day.He found that instead of there being Spring,Summer, Autumn, and Winter, as inEngland, the seasons in his island weredivided into the wet and the dry. Therewas no cold weather, no winter. It chancedthat just before this first rain began,Robinson had emptied out some refuse frombags which had once held rice, and othergrain, and he had forgotten all about havingemptied them. So he was very muchastonished to find, some time afterwards,both barley and rice growing near his tent,[Pg 23]in the shade of the rock. The ears, whenripe, he kept to sow again, and from thisvery small beginning, in the course of afew seasons, he had a great quantity ofgrain, both for food and for sowing. Butthis meant every year much hard work, forhe had no plough nor harrow, and all theground had to be dug with a clumsy spade,made from a very hard, heavy wood thatgrew on the island.

At first Robinson could not grind thegrain that he grew, nor make bread from it.If he could have found a large stone, slightlyhollow on top, he might, by pounding thegrain on it with another round stone, havemade very good meal. But all the stoneshe could find were too soft, and in the endhe had to make a sort of mill of hard wood,in which he burnt a hollow place, and onthat he pounded the grain into meal witha heavy stick.

Baking he did by building a big fire, thenraking away the ashes, and putting the doughon the hot place, covered with a kind of[Pg 24]basin made of clay, over which he heapedthe red ashes. In this way very good breadcan be made.

Before the rainy season was over, andjust after he had finished the fence roundhis tent, one day when Robinson was atwork in the cave, all of a sudden the earthbegan to fall from the roof, and the strongprops he had put in cracked in a way whichfrightened him terribly. At the same timethere was a curious moaning, rumbling noise,that he could not understand. He rushedout, and so afraid was he that the roof wasfalling in, and that he should be buried, thathe got over the fence and began to run.

But he was even more frightened whenhe found that all the ground was shaking.Then he knew that this was an earthquake.

Three times there came violent shocks;a huge rock about half a mile away fell witha great noise like thunder, and the sea waschurned up as if by a whirlwind. Robinsonwas sick with the movement of the ground,and trembling with the dread of being[Pg 25]swallowed by the earth as it cracked andgaped; and after the noise and shaking wereover, he was too frightened to go back tohis tent, but sat where he was, all the timeexpecting another shock.

Suddenly a furious wind began to blow,tearing up trees by the roots, and lashingthe water till nothing could be seen butfoam and flying spray. The air was full ofbranches and leaves torn off by the hurricane,and birds in hundreds were swept helplessout to sea. In about three hours, assuddenly as it had begun, the wind fell,and there was a dead calm, followed by rainsuch as Robinson had never before seen,which soaked him to the skin, and forcedhim to return to the cave, where he sat ingreat fear.

For long after this he was very uneasy,and made up his mind to shift his quartersas soon as he could find a better place forhis tent. But the earthquake had one goodresult, for what remained of the wreck wasagain thrown up by the sea, and Robinson[Pg 26]got more things out of it which were usefulto him, and for days he worked hard at that.One day, too, when he was on his way tothe remains of the ship, he came on a largeturtle, which he killed, and this gave himplenty of good food, for besides the flesh,there were, inside the animal, many eggs,which she had come to the shore to lay in thesand, as is the habit of turtles, and whichRobinson thought were even better thanhen’s eggs.

One day he came on a large turtle

Now a few days after he had got so wetin the heavy rain, though the weather washot, Robinson felt very cold and shivery,and had pains all over his body, and at nighthe dreamed terrible dreams. The followingday, and many days, he lay very ill withfever and ague, and hardly knew what hewas doing. So weak was he, that he believedhe was dying, and there was no one to givehim water to quench his thirst, nor to helphim in any way. His only medicine wasrum, in which he had soaked tobacco. Itwas very nasty, and made him sick, but it[Pg 27]also made him sleep for more than a wholeday and a night, and he woke much better,and able to walk about a little, though fora fortnight he was too weak to work. Fromthis illness he learned not to go out morethan he could help during the rainy season.

When he was again quite strong, Robinsonstarted to explore the island better than hehad yet done, and he found many thingsgrowing, of which he made great use afterwards,tobacco, sugar-cane, and all mannerof fruits, amongst them grapes, which heused to dry to raisins in the sun in greatquantities.

Near the spot where the most fruit grew,he built a hut, and round it, for safety, he puta double fence made of stakes cut from someof the trees near at hand. During the nextrainy season these stakes took root, andgrew so fast that soon nothing of the hutcould be seen from outside the hedge, and itmade so good a hiding-place, that Robinsoncut more stakes of the same kind, and plantedthem outside the fence around his first dwelling;[Pg 28]and in a year or two that also was quitehidden from view. The twigs of this tree,too, were good for making baskets, of whichhe had been in great need.

When he had finished all this work, hestarted again to go over the rest of the island,and on his way across, from a hill, the daybeing very clear, he saw high land a greatway off over the water, but whether it wasanother island, or the coast of America, hecould not be sure.

When he reached the other side of hisisland Robinson found the beach coveredwith turtles in astonishing numbers, and hethought how much better off he would havebeen if he had been cast ashore here, for notonly would the turtles have supplied himwith plenty of food, but there were far morebirds than on the part of the island where hehad been living, and far more goats.

During the journey back to his castle hecaught a young parrot, which, after a longtime, he taught to speak and to call him byhis name. It was so long since he had heard[Pg 29]any voice, that it was a comfort to listen evento a parrot talking.

Now, the sight which Robinson had had ofthe far distant land raised in him again thegreat longing to get away from this islandwhere he had been so long alone, and hewished greatly for a boat. He went over tothe remains of the boat in which he and theothers had tried to come ashore when theirship struck on the sand-bank, and which hadbeen flung far up on the beach by the sea,and he worked for weeks trying to repair herand to get her into the water. But it was allof no use; he could not move her.

Then, he thought, ‘I’ll cut down a tree,and make a new boat.’ This he fancied wouldbe easy, for he had heard how the Indiansmake canoes by felling a tree and burningout the inside. ‘If they can do it, then surelyI can do it even better,’ he thought. So helooked about, and chose a huge tree whichstood about a hundred yards from the water,and with great labour in about three weekshe had cut it down.

[Pg 30]

Four months Robinson worked at thisboat, thinking all the time of what he woulddo when he reached the far distant land, andmuch pleased with himself for the beautifulboat he was making. Day after day hetrimmed and shaped it, and very proud hewas when it was finished and lay there onthe ground, big enough to carry twenty men.

Then he started to get her into the water.But that was quite another thing. By nomeans in his power could he move her aninch, try as he might. She was far too big.Then he began to dig a canal from the seato the boat; but before he had got much ofthat work done, he saw clearly that there wasso much earth to dig away, that, withoutsome one to help him, it must take years andyears before he could get the water to theboat. So he gave it up, and left her to lieand rot in the sun and the rain,—a great griefto him.

By the time that Robinson had been fouryears on the island, all his clothes had becomevery ragged, and he had hardly anythingthat could be called a hat. Clothes he musthave, for he could not go naked withoutgetting his skin blistered by the hot sun, andhe was afraid of getting a sunstroke if hewent about without a hat.

Now he had kept all the skins of the goats,and other animals, such as hares and foxes,that he had shot; and from these, after manyfailures, at last he made a hat and coat ofgoatskin, and a pair of short trousers, allwith the hair outside, so as to shoot off thewet when it rained. The hat was very tall,[Pg 32]and came to a sharp peak on top, and it hada flap which hung down the back of his neck.Robinson also, with much trouble, made ofthe skins an umbrella which he could openand shut; and if his clothes and his umbrella,and especially his hat, were not very good tolook at, they were useful, and he could nowgo about in any weather.

During the next five years nothing out ofthe common happened, and Robinson’s timewas mostly taken up with the getting offood, the yearly sowing and reaping of hiscrops, and the curing of his raisins. Buttowards the end of that time he made anotherattempt to build a boat, and this time hemade one much smaller than the first, andthough it took him nearly two years to finish,in the end he got her into the sea. She wasnot big enough for him to try to sail in tothe far-off land that he had seen, and heused her only for cruising about the shoresof his own island, and for fishing. In herhe fixed a little mast, on which he rigged asmall sail, made from a bit of one of the old[Pg 33]ship’s sails, and, using a paddle to steerwith, he found that she sailed very well.Over the stern he fixed his big umbrella, toshade him from the sun, like an awning.

Eager to go all round the island, one dayRobinson put a lot of food on board, and,taking his gun, started on a voyage. Allwent well till he came to the east end of theisland, where he found that a ledge of rocks,and beyond that a sand-bank, stretched out tosea for eight or nine miles. Robinson did notlike the idea of venturing so far in a boat sosmall, and he therefore ran the boat ashore,and climbed a hill, to get a good view of therocks and shoals before going near them.From the hill, he saw that a strong currentwas sweeping past the sand-bank, whichshowed just clear of the water, and on whichthe sea was breaking; but he thought therewas an eddy which would swing him safelyround the point, without bringing him near thebreakers. However, that day and the next,there was a good deal of wind blowing in thedirection contrary to the current, which, of[Pg 34]course, raised a sea too big for a small boat,so Robinson stopped on shore where he was.

On the third day it was calm, and he setoff. But no sooner had he come abreast ofthe sand-bank than he found himself in verydeep water, with a current running like amill-race, which carried the boat further andfurther away from the land, in spite of all thathe could do with his paddle. There was nowind, and the sail was useless.

Now he gave himself up for lost, for theharder he worked, only the further awayseemed the boat to be swept. The islandwas soon so far off that Robinson couldhardly see it, and he was quite exhaustedwith the hard struggle to paddle the boatagainst the current. He was in despair, andgiving up paddling, left the boat to driftwhere she would. Just then a faint puff ofwind touched his cheek, and Robinsonhurriedly hoisted his sail. Soon a goodbreeze blew, which carried him past adangerous reef of rocks. Here the currentseemed to divide, the part in which he now[Pg 35]was began to swing round towards the island,and he plucked up heart again, and with hispaddle did all he could to help the sail.Robinson felt like a man who is set free afterhe has been told that he must die; he couldalmost have wept for joy. Miles and mileshe sailed, steadily getting nearer to the land,and late in the evening at last he got ashore,but on the other side of the point that he hadtried to round in the morning. He drew uphis boat on the shore of a little cove that hefound, and when he had made her fast, so thatthe tide could not carry her away, thereamongst the trees he lay down, and sleptsound, quite worn out.

In the morning he again got on board, andcoasted along close inshore, till he came to abay with a little river running into it, whichmade a very good harbour for the boat.Here he left her, and went on foot.

Soon he found that he was not far from aspot that he had once before visited, and byafternoon he arrived at the hut which hecalled his country-house. Robinson got over[Pg 36]the fence by the ladder, as usual, pulling it upafter him, and then he lay down to rest in theshade, for he was still very weary from thehard work of the day before. Soon he fellasleep. But what was his surprise in a littletime to be awakened by a voice calling,‘Robin! Robin Crusoe! where are you?’

At first he thought he was dreaming.But still the voice went on calling:

‘Where are you, Robin?’

Up he jumped, trembling with fright andwonder, for it was so long since he had heardany voice but his own that he fancied it mustbe something more than human that he nowlistened to. But no sooner had he risen thanhe saw, sitting on a tree near to him, hisparrot, which must have flown all the wayfrom Robinson’s other house, where he hadbeen left. It was talking away at a greatrate, very excited at again seeing its master,and Robinson hardly knew whether to bemore relieved or disappointed that it was onlythe bird that had called him.

For about a year after this Robinson kept[Pg 37]to his own side of the island, and employedhis time chiefly in working on his land, andin making dishes and pots of clay. Thesehe had now learned to burn properly. Pipes,too, he made, and they were a great comfortto him, for he managed to cure very goodtobacco from the wild plants that grewaround. And as he feared lest his powdermight begin to run short, he thought muchover ways whereby he could trap goats forfood, instead of shooting them. After manytrials, the best plan, he decided, was to digholes, which he covered with thin branchesand leaves, on which he sprinkled earth,so that when anything heavy passed over,it must fall into the pit. By this meanshe caught many, and the kids he kept andtamed, so that in no great time he had quitea large herd of goats. These he kept invarious small fields, round which from timeto time he had put fences.

All this time Robinson had never gone nearhis canoe, but now the longing came on himto go over to where he had left her, thoughhe felt that he should be afraid again to putto sea in her. This time, however, when hegot to the hill from which he had watchedthe set of the current the day that he hadbeen carried out to sea, he noticed that therewas no current to be seen, from which heconcluded that it must depend on the ebband flow of the tide. Still, he was afraid toventure far in the canoe, though he stoppedsome time at his country-house, and wentout sailing very often.

One day when Robinson was walking alongthe sand towards his boat, suddenly, close to[Pg 39]the water, he stopped as if he had been shot,and, with thumping heart, stood staring inwonder and fear at something that he saw.The mark of a naked foot on the sand! Itcould not be his own, he knew, for the shapewas quite different. Whose could it be?

He listened, he looked about, but nothingcould he hear or see. To the top of a risingground he ran, and looked all around. Therewas nothing to be seen. And though hesearched everywhere on the beach for morefootmarks, he found none.

Whose footprint could it be? That ofsome man, perhaps, he thought, who mightcome stealing on him out from the trees, ormurder him whilst he slept.

Back to his house he hurried, all the wayin a state of terror, starting every now andagain and facing round, thinking he wasbeing followed, and fancying often that astump or a bush was a man, waiting tospring on him. That night he slept not atall, and so shaken was his nerve that everycry of a night bird, even every sound made[Pg 40]by an insect or a frog, caused him to startwith fear, so that the perspiration ran downhis brow.

As day followed day, however, and nothinghappened, Robinson began to be less uneasyin his mind, and went about his usualwork again. But he strengthened the fenceround his castle, and cut in it seven smallloop-holes, in which, fixed on frames, heplaced loaded muskets, all ready to fire if heshould be attacked. And some distancefrom the outside of the fence he planted athick belt of small stakes, so that in a fewyears’ time a perfect thicket of trees andbushes hid all trace of his dwelling.

Years passed quietly, and nothing furtherhappened to disturb Robinson, or to makehim think more of the footprint that hadfrightened him so much. But he kept morethan formerly to the interior of the island,and lost no chance of looking for good placesto hide in, if he should ever need them. Andhe always carried a cutlass now, as well ashis gun and a couple of pistols.

He saw the mark of a naked foot on the sand

[Pg 41]

One day it chanced, however, that he hadgone further to the west of the island thanhe had ever done before, and, looking overthe sea, he fancied that he saw, at a greatdistance, something like a boat or a longcanoe, but it was so far off that he could notbe sure what it was. This made himdetermine that always in future he wouldbring with him to his lookout-place thetelescope which he had saved from thewreck.

The sight of this supposed boat broughtback his uneasiness to some extent, but hewent on down to the beach, and there hesaw a sight which filled him with horror.All about the shore were scattered men’sskulls and bones, and bits of burnt flesh, andin one place were the remains of a big fire.Robinson stood aghast, feeling deadly sick.It was easy for him to know the meaningof the terrible sight. It meant that cannibalshad been there, killing and eating theirprisoners; for when the natives of someparts of the world go to war, and catch any[Pg 42]of their enemies, it is their habit to builda fire, then to kill the prisoners and feast ontheir roasted bodies, eating till they caneat no more. Sometimes, if the man theyare going to eat is too thin, they keep him,and feed him up, till they think he is fatenough.

Now Robinson knew all this, though hehad never yet met any cannibals. Andwhen he looked around he saw many boneslying about. They were so old that it seemedcertain to him that all those years he hadbeen living on an island which was a regularplace for the natives to come to for suchfeasts. Then he saw what a mercy it wasthat he had been wrecked on the other sideof the island, to which, he supposed, thecannibals never came, because the beach wasnot so good for them to land on.

Full of horror, Robinson hurried backto his house, and for almost two years henever again came near that part of theisland where the bones lay, nor ever visitedhis boat. But all the time he kept thinking[Pg 43]how he might some day kill those cannibalswhilst they were at their feast, and perhapssave some of the poor men whom they hadnot yet killed. Sometimes he thought ofputting powder below the place where theywere likely to light their fire, and thus blowthem up. But that did not seem a very goodplan, because he did not want to waste hispowder, and may be they might not lightthe fire on that spot, or they might notbe near when it exploded. So he lookedfor a place where he could hide, near wherethe bones lay, and at last he found agood spot, from which he could watch themland. Near this spot were trees, throughwhich he could creep up quite close to them,unseen, and so shoot without danger ofmissing. And it was his plan, that if heshould happen to see the savages next timethey came over for one of their horriblefeasts, he would lie hidden till a goodchance came, then shoot as many as hecould with his gun and pistols, and afterwardswith his cutlass rush upon those that[Pg 44]were left. In this way he counted on beingable to kill them all, even if there were asmany as twenty, for they would be takenby surprise, and in the confusion might notbe able to get at their spears and clubs.

When he had made this plan, Robinsonwas so pleased with it that for a time hecould think of little else, and every day hewould walk three miles to his lookout-hill,and watch through his telescope for signsof canoes coming over the sea towardsthe island. But after two or three monthswithout result, he grew tired of it. Nevera speck was to be seen on the water in anydirection, and he began to go less and lessoften to the lookout-hill, and then gave upgoing altogether. Perhaps too, he thought,it was no business of his; the savages didnot know any better, and were only doingwhat their fathers had taught them to do.It was the custom in these savage lands,and Robinson came to think, finally, thathe had no right to interfere, unless theyfirst attacked him. He argued also that if[Pg 45]he did attack, and it chanced that he did notkill them all, that even only one got away,for certain that man would tell his tribe assoon as he got home, and they would comeover in hundreds to murder Robinson inrevenge for the death of those he had killed.And no doubt they would eat him, thethought of which was very dreadful.

On the whole, therefore, it seemed to himwisest to keep away altogether from thatpart of the beach, and to hide as well as hecould all traces of any one living on theisland. So, except to take away and concealhis boat, for more than another yearhe never went back to that spot. The boat,with her mast and sail and paddle, and asort of little anchor he had made for her,he took to the farthest east end of the island.He was sure the savages would nevercome there in their canoes, because of thestrong current that usually swept past therocks; and he left her safely moored in alittle bay, under the shelter of some highrocks.

[Pg 46]

More than ever now, Robinson kept to histwo houses, and seldom left them, exceptto go to a deep valley he had found, throughwhich ran a little stream of water as clearas crystal, and in which he now kept mostof his goats, secured by a fence built allround the valley. He almost gave up firinghis gun, lest it should bring the savages tofind out the cause of the noise; and for thesame reason he feared even to chop woodor to drive a nail. He was particularlycareful, too, never to make a fire duringthe day, for nothing is so easily seen from adistance as smoke, and it would certainlybring the savages on him, if they were onthe island, or anywhere near it.

So, when he needed a big fire, as he didoften when burning the clay dishes andpots which he made, he would generallylight it during the night. But sometimesin the day-time he would light it in thevalley, where the smoke would not show soplainly against the sky or the dark trees,owing to the hollow being deep, and in thevery middle of the island.

[Pg 47]

Presently, he began to make charcoal, byburning wood under earth and turf, and thischarcoal he often took home to his house touse for cooking his food, because charcoalmakes no smoke.

Now one day when Robinson was down inthe bottom of the valley, cutting thickbranches to burn for charcoal, he clearedaway some undergrowth at the foot of a greatrock, in which, near the ground, there was asort of hole, or opening. Into this holeRobinson squeezed, not very easily, andfound himself in a cave of good size, highenough, at least, to stand up in. It wasquite dark, of course, to him coming in fromthe sunlight, and he turned his back to theentrance to feel his way further in, whensuddenly, from the back of the cave he sawtwo great fiery eyes glaring at him. Hisvery hair bristled with fright, for he could[Pg 49]only think that it must be the Devil at leastthat he saw; and through the mouth of thecave he fled with a yell.

But when he got into the bright sunshinehe began to feel ashamed of his panic,and to reason with himself that what he hadseen must be only his own fancy. So, takingup a big burning branch from his fire, in hewent again.

Before Robinson had taken three steps hestopped, in almost as great a fright as atfirst. Close to him he heard a great sigh, asif of some one in pain, then a sound like amuttering, as of words that he could notunderstand; again another deep sigh. Coldsweat broke out all over him, and he steppedback trembling, yet determined this timenot to run away.

Holding his torch well over his head, helooked around, and there on the floor of thecave lay a huge old he-goat, gasping forbreath, dying, seemingly of mere old age.

He stirred him with his toe to see if hecould get him out of the cave, but the poor[Pg 50]beast could not rise, and Robinson left himto die where he was.

Now that he had got over his fright,Robinson looked carefully about him. Thecave was small, not more than twelve feetacross at its widest, but he noticed at the farend another opening. This was so low down,however, that he had to creep on his handsand knees to get in, and without a better lightthan the burning torch, he could not see howfar it went. So he made up his mind tocome again.

Robinson had long before this made a goodsupply of very fair candles from the tallow ofthe goats he had killed, and next day hereturned to the cave with six of these, andhis tinder-box to light them with. In thosedays there were no matches, and men usedto strike a light with a flint and steel, andtinder, which was a stuff that caught firevery easily from a spark.

Entering the cave, Robinson found, onlighting a candle, that the goat was now dead.Moving it aside, to be buried later, he went[Pg 51]down on his hands and knees, and crawledabout ten yards through the small passage,till at last he found himself in a greatchamber, the roof of which was quite twentyfeet high. On every side the walls reflectedthe light of his candle, and glittered like gold,or almost like diamonds, he thought. Thefloor was perfectly dry and level, even on thewalls there was no damp, and Robinson wasdelighted with his discovery. Its only drawbackwas the low entrance; but, as he decidedto use the cave chiefly as a place to retreatto if he should ever be attacked, that wasin reality an advantage, because one man,if he had firearms, could easily defend itagainst hundreds.

At once Robinson set about storing in it allhis powder, except three or four pounds, allhis lead for making bullets, and his spareguns and muskets. When moving thepowder, he thought he might as well open abarrel which had drifted ashore out of thewreck after the earthquake, and thoughwater had got into it, there was not a great[Pg 52]deal of damage done, for the powder hadcrusted on the outside only, and in the insidethere was about sixty pounds weight, quitedry and good. This, with what remained ofthe first lot, gave him a very large supply,enough to last all his life.

For more than two-and-twenty yearsRobinson had now been in the island, and hehad grown quite used to it, and to his mannerof living. If he could only have been surethat no savages would come near him, hefelt almost that he would be content to spendall the rest of his days there, to die at last, asthe goat he found in the cave had died, ofold age.

It was near the end of the month ofDecember, his harvest time, and Robinsonused then to be much out in his fields evenbefore daylight. One morning, being anxiousto finish cutting the crop, he had left hishouse even earlier than usual, long beforethe stars had ceased to shine or the firstflush of dawn had showed in the sky, andas he crossed the higher lying ground[Pg 53]between his castle and the cornfield, itchanced that he glanced in the direction ofthe sea.

There, on the shore, to his great horror onhis own side of the island, he saw a fire burning,and he knew that this could only havebeen lit by the cannibals, who had oncemore landed.

Straight back to his castle he ran, andclimbed hurriedly over the fence, pulling theladder up after him. Quickly he loaded allhis muskets and pistols, ready to defendhimself to the last gasp, for he was surethat, if these savage men should happen tosee his crops growing in the fields, theywould know that some one was living onthe island, and would never rest till they foundhim.

But when Robinson had waited sometime without anything happening, he couldbear the suspense no longer. Taking thetelescope, he put his ladder against the rockwhere there was a flat ledge, and climbingup to this, pulled the ladder after him, and[Pg 54]again resting it there, so climbed to the topof the rock, where he lay down and lookedeagerly through the glass.

There were no less than nine savages, hesaw, all sitting round the fire, cooking something,but what it was that they cooked hecould not tell, though it was not difficult toguess.

After a time they began a kind of danceround the fire, all of them stark naked, andRobinson watched them at this for nearlytwo hours.

The cannibals had two canoes, which werehauled up on the shore, and as it was thenlow water he fancied they must be waitingfor the tide to rise again. And so it turnedout, for when the tide had been flowing for atime, they shoved off, jumped on board, andpaddled away.

As soon as Robinson was sure that theywere really gone, he went with all his speedto the hill from where, first of all, longago, he had seen signs of savages, andlooking through his glass, he saw three more[Pg 55]canoes at sea, all paddling away from theisland. On going down to the shore, there hesaw a dreadful sight. Skulls, bits of flesh,and bones, lay about, and fresh blood waseverywhere, hardly yet soaked into the sand.

This awful sight so horrified and rousedRobinson that once more he determined,whenever the next chance came, to attackthe cannibals, however many there might be,and kill all that he could. But always, forlong after, he lived in great uneasiness, neversure that at any moment he might not betaken by surprise. Often he wished thetime had come when he could run at them;for suspense is always harder to bear thanany action, however dangerous.

But many months went by, and nosavages were seen, and nothing disturbedRobinson except dreadful dreams, fromwhich in the night he often started out of hissleep, crying out and struggling, thinkingthat the savages were trying to kill him.

About the middle of the following May, oneday there came a very great storm, with[Pg 56]much thunder and lightning and rain, andduring the night the wind blew a perfecthurricane. Robinson was sitting listeningto the roaring of the wind, and sometimesreading the Bible which he had found in oneof the seamen’s chests, for he could not sleep.

Suddenly he was startled by a kind of dullthud that seemed to shake the very air, sucha thud as you might hear if something veryheavy, but soft, fell on the floor of a roomupstairs. And this noise was followed in abouta minute by another thud. This time he couldhear plainer, and he knew that the soundswere those of big guns fired at sea, and thatthey must come from some ship in danger,and signalling for help, perhaps to someother vessel.

Robinson ran out, and climbing up hisladder, got to the top of the rock in time tosee the flash of another gun, away towardsthe reef of rocks at the end of the island.

If he was not able to help the people onboard the vessel, they might yet, if they weresaved, help him, so he collected all the dry[Pg 57]wood he could get, and making a great pile,set fire to it, as a signal to the ship that therewas some one on the island. And he wassure that the signal was seen, for as soon asit blazed up another gun was fired; then gunafter gun, for some time.

Robinson kept his fire blazing all night,and when daylight came, and the stormcleared off, he thought he could see, away tothe east, something which looked like a ship.He fancied she was at anchor, for she nevermoved. But the distance was too great, andthe weather too thick for him to be sure ifit was a ship at all that he saw.

Later in the day, when the weather hadcleared, on going up the hill from which, longago, he had watched the current sweepingpast the rocks, he could see plainly that therewas a vessel, but, to his sorrow, that she wasa wreck, fast on the reef where, the day hewas carried out to sea, he had found thecurrent divide.

Without doubt the crew must haveperished. And it filled Robinson with sadness[Pg 58]and great grief to think how near hehad been perhaps to fellow countrymen, andhow not even one had been spared tocome ashore. His whole soul yearned forthe sight of a white man, some one to whomhe could speak. But all that ever he saw ofthe crew, except what he afterwards foundon the ship itself, was the body of a boy,which drifted on shore at the end of theisland nearest the wreck; and he could nottell from the few clothes that were on thebody to what nation the boy had belonged.In his pockets were two gold coins, and atobacco pipe, and the last at least was of useto Robinson.

When the weather had again become calmand settled, Robinson was greatly temptedto venture out in his boat to the wreck, inspite of the narrow escape he had had beforeat that place; but there might still, he thought,be some one alive on board, and he made uphis mind to risk it. This time he put acompass in the boat, and great store of foodand water, as much as she could well carry,and he pushed off, paddling along the shoretill he came near to the end of the sand-bankwhere the current ran so strong. And therehis heart failed him. If he once got into thatcurrent, how was he to get out of it again?And if he were swept out to sea, and a gale[Pg 60]of wind sprang up, what chance was therethat his small boat would live through it?He was so cast down by these thoughts thathe ran the boat ashore and got out.

Going on to a high rock he sat for hourswatching the water, trying to make up hismind whether to venture to the wreck or not,when he noticed that the current was nowrunning in the direction contrary to that inwhich it had been flowing the first time hesaw it. This, it occurred to him, must becaused by the tides, and it seemed likely thatif he chose his time, the current going oneway would carry him close to the wreck, andthat caused by the next tide would help himback again.

This seemed so simple and easy that hedetermined to risk it next day. Sleepingthat night in the canoe, early in the morninghe started, and in little more than two hourssafely reached the wreck, without anytrouble.

She was a pitiful sight,—Spanish, hejudged, from her build. She was lying on[Pg 61]the reef, jammed fast between two rocks, theafter part of her all stove in by the sea. Hermain and foremasts had gone over the sidewhen she struck, and hung about the wreckin a tangle of rigging and spars. Her bulwarks,and rails, and the poop ladders, wereall gone, and part of one boat still hung onthe davits, torn away by the furious seabefore the crew could attempt to lower it.On board, there was no living thing excepta dog, which yelped when it saw Robinsoncoming, and jumped into the sea, and swameagerly to him when he spoke to it. Poorbeast! It was almost dead from thirst.Robinson gave it water, and food, and itdrank till he was almost afraid it mightburst itself.

After this, Robinson boarded the wreck,and the first thing he saw was two menlying in the cook’s galley, dead, held fast ineach other’s arms. Beyond this, there wasno trace of any human being, and the cargo,whatever it might have been, had mostly beenwashed out of the wreck by the sea. There[Pg 62]were still a few casks of brandy, or wine, lowdown in the bold, but they were too heavyfor Robinson to move.

Some chests there were in the forecastle,which most likely had belonged to some ofthe crew. Two of these Robinson got intohis boat, along with a small cask of liquor,and other things; a powder-horn full ofpowder, a fire-shovel and tongs (which hehad always much needed), two little brasskettles, a copper pot, and a gridiron.These, and the dog, were all that he gotfrom the wreck. The dog was a greatcomfort to him, for the animal he hadbrought ashore from his own ship had nowbeen dead many years.

Except what he found in the seamen’schests, there was nothing of value in thecargo he brought ashore. In the chestswere many things that he prized, linenshirts, handkerchiefs, and coloured neckcloths,pots of sweetmeats, a case of bottlesof cordial waters, very handsomely mountedwith silver, and, what then was of less value[Pg 63]to him, three great bags of gold pieces,besides gold doubloons, and bars of gold.But all this gold he would gladly have giventhen for a few pairs of English shoes andstockings, for it was of no use at all to himon the island. However, he stowed all themoney and the gold in his cave, along withthe other things, and then returned andworked his boat along shore to the harbourwhere he had kept her so long.

But the sight of the wrecked ship andthe drowned men had filled him again withthe longing to go away, and if he had hadas good a boat as that in which he escapedfrom the pirates, he thought that he wouldhave waited no longer on the island, butwould have put to sea in her, and taken hischance of reaching some land where whitemen dwelt. With the frail craft that hehad, however, such a plan was not possible,and he had no choice but to go on livingas he had already so long lived, all the timein daily fear of a raid by the savages.

And yet, at times, when his spirits were[Pg 64]more than usually low, when the burden ofthe lonely years pressed most heavily uponhim, Robinson used to think that surely ifthe savages could come to his land, he couldgo to theirs. How far did they come?Where was their country? What kindof boats had they? And so eager to gowas he sometimes, that he forgot to thinkof what he would do when he got there, orwhat would become of him if he fell into thehands of the savages. His mind was utterlytaken up with the one thought of gettingto the mainland, and even his dreams wereof little else.

The harbour where he had kept his boat so long

One night, when he had put himself almostinto a fever with the trouble of his mind,he had lain long awake, tossing and moaning,but at last he had fallen asleep. Andhe dreamed, not as he had usually done oflate, that he was sailing to the mainland,but that as he was leaving his castle in themorning he saw on the shore two canoesand eleven savages landing, and that theyhad with them another man, whom they[Pg 65]were just about to kill and eat, whensuddenly the prisoner jumped up and ranfor his life. And in his dream Robinsonfancied that the man came running to hidein the thicket round the castle, and thatthereupon he went out to help him. Thenin the dream, the savage kneeled down, asif begging for mercy, and Robinson tookhim over the ladder into the castle, sayingto himself, ‘Now that I’ve got this fellow,I can certainly go to the mainland, for hewill show me what course to steer, and whereto go when we land.’ And he woke, withthe joyful feeling that now at last all waswell. But when he was wide awake, andknew that it was only a dream after all,poor Robinson was more cast down thanever, and more unhappy than he hadbeen during all the years he had lived onthe island.

The dream had, however, this result; thathe saw his only plan to get away was, ifpossible, to rescue some day one of theprisoners whom the cannibals were about[Pg 66]to kill, and in time get the man to help himto navigate his canoe across the sea.

With this idea, he set himself to watch,more closely than ever he had done before,for the savages to land, and during morethan a year and a half he went nearly everyday to his lookout-place, and swept the seawith his telescope, in the hope of seeingcanoes coming. But none came, and Robinsonwas getting terribly tired of the constantwatch. Still he did not give up, for he knewthat sooner or later the savages would landagain.

Yet many months passed, and still theydid not come, till one morning, very early,almost to his surprise, he saw no fewer thanfive canoes hauled up on the shore on hisown side of the island. The savages whohad come in them were nowhere to be seen.Now, he knew that always from four to sixmen came in each canoe, which meant thatat least twenty, and perhaps as many asthirty men had landed.

This was a greater number than he cared[Pg 67]to face, so he kept inside his castle, in greatdoubt what to do, but ready to fight, in casethey should attack him.

When he had waited a long time andstill could hear nothing of the savages, heclimbed up his ladder and got to the topof the rock, taking great care not to showhimself against the sky-line. Lookingthrough his glass, he saw that there wereat least thirty savages, dancing wildly rounda fire.

As he looked, some of the men left theothers, and going over to the canoes draggedfrom them two prisoners. One of thesealmost at once fell forward on his face,knocked down from behind, as it seemedto Robinson, with a wooden club, and twoor three of the cannibals at once cut himopen to be ready for cooking, whilst fora moment or two they left the other prisonerstanding by himself.

Seeing a chance of escape, the manmade a dash for his life, running withtremendous speed along the sands straight[Pg 68]for that part of the beach near Robinson’scastle.

Now this alarmed Robinson very much,for it seemed to him that the whole of thesavages started after the prisoner. Hecould not help thinking it likely that, asin his dream, this man would take shelter inthe thicket round the castle, in which caseRobinson was likely soon to have morefighting than he would relish, for the wholebody of the cannibals would be on him atonce.

As he watched the poor man racing forlife, however, he was relieved to see thathe ran much faster than his pursuers, ofwhom only three continued to run after him.If he could hold out for another mile or twothere was little doubt that he would escape.Between the castle and the runners was thecreek up which Robinson used to run hisrafts from the wreck, and when the escapedprisoner came to that, he plunged in, andthough the tide was full, with less thanthirty powerful strokes he reached the other[Pg 69]side, and with long easy strides continuedhis run. Of the men in pursuit, two alsoplunged in and swam through, but lessquickly than the man escaping, being moreblown with running, because of what theyhad eaten before starting. The third manstopped altogether, and went back theway he came.

Seeing the turn things were taking, itseemed to Robinson that now had come hischance to get a servant, and he resolved totry to save the life of the man who wasfleeing from the cannibals. At once hehurried down the ladder, snatched up histwo guns, and running as fast as he could,got between the man and his pursuers,calling out to him at the same time to stop.The man looked back, and the sight ofRobinson seemed to frighten him at firstas much as did the men who were tryingto catch him. But Robinson again spoke,and signed to him with his hand to comeback, and in the meantime went slowlytowards the other men, who were now[Pg 70]coming near. Then, rushing at the foremost,he knocked him senseless with the butt ofhis gun, for it seemed to him safer not tofire, lest the noise should bring the othercannibals around.

The second man, seeing his comrade fall,hesitated, and stopped, but Robinson sawwhen nearer to him that the savage had inhis hands a bow and arrow with which hewas just about to shoot. There was then nochoice but to fire first, which Robinson did,killing the man on the spot.

Thereupon the man who had been chasedby the others was so terrified by the flashand noise of the gun, and at seeing his enemyfall dead, that he stood stock still, trembling,and it was with great difficulty that Robinsoncoaxed him to come near. This at last hedid, stopping every few paces and kneelingdown. At length, coming close to Robinson,he again knelt, kissed the ground, and takinghold of Robinson’s foot, set it on his head asit rested on the sand.

The man knelt and kissed the ground

Whilst this was going on, Robinson noticed[Pg 71]that the savage whom he had knocked downhad begun to move, and to come to his senses.To this he drew the attention of the manwhom he had rescued, who said some wordsthat Robinson could not understand, butwhich sounded pleasant to an ear that hadheard no voice but his own for more thantwenty-five years. Next he made a motionwith his hand, as if asking for the cutlassthat hung at Robinson’s belt, and when theweapon was given to him he ran at his enemy,and with one clean blow cut off his head.Then, laughing, he brought the head, andlaid it with the cutlass at Robinson’s feet.

But what caused most wonder to the manwas how the savage whom Robinson shothad been killed at so great a distance, andhe went to look at the body, turning it overand over, and looking long at the wound inthe breast that the bullet had made, evidentlymuch puzzled.

Robinson then turned to go away, beckoningto the savage to follow, but the manmade signs that he would bury the two[Pg 72]bodies in the sand, so that the others mightnot find them if they followed. With hishands he soon scraped holes deep enough tocover the bodies, and in less than a quarterof an hour there was hardly a trace left ofwhat had happened.

Calling him away, Robinson now took him,not to his castle, but to the cave, where hegave him food and water; and then he madesigns for him to lie down and rest, pointingto a bundle of rice straw.

Soon the man was sound asleep. He was,Robinson thought, a handsome and well-mademan; the muscles of his arms and backand legs showed great strength, and all hislimbs were beautifully formed. As near asRobinson could guess, he was about twenty-sixyears of age, with a good and manly face,and long black hair. His nose and lips werelike those of a European, and his teeth werewhite and even. In colour he was not black,but of a sort of rich chocolate brown, theskin shining with health, and pleasant to lookupon.

Whilst the man slept, Robinson went outto milk his goats, at which work the savage,having waked in about half an hour, foundhim, and running up, threw himself on theground near Robinson’s feet, one of which heagain raised as before, and placed on hishead. At the same time he made every kindof sign of gratitude and submission.

In a little while Robinson began to speakto him, and to try to teach him things. First,he made him understand that his name was tobe ‘Friday,’ (that being the day of the weekwhen Robinson had saved him from a horribledeath). Then he taught him the meaning of‘Yes,’ and ‘No,’ and to call Robinson,‘Master.’

Friday showed great quickness in learning.[Pg 74]He seemed to be happy and contented, andfree from trouble, except that the clotheswhich Robinson made him wear gave him atfirst great discomfort, for in those warmparts of the world the natives are not usedto clothes, but always go about naked. Andperhaps they are healthier so, for when raincomes, they can cover their skin with cocoa-nutoil, and the wet then runs off their bodieswithout chilling them, and they do not catchcold by wearing damp clothes. Sometimesthey make drooping girdles of the broadleaves of the banana, which are two or threefeet long, and wear these round their waists;and sometimes, for ornament, they stick crimsonflowers behind their ears, or hang themround their necks. But other clothes theyhave none to wear.

And indeed such things would only be inthe way, for the natives who live on thecoasts often pass nearly whole days swimmingin the warm sea. They are never afraidof sharks, for they swim so well and so fastthat often they are able to kill the sharks,[Pg 75]diving under them, and stabbing them in thebelly with a knife.

Even the very little children swim almostbefore they can walk, and whole families goout for a day in the sea, as children and theirparents in England might go for a picnic.One of their games, when a heavy swell isrolling in, toppling over in cataracts of foamas the waves reach the shallower water nearthe shore, is to swim out, diving through thebroken water, and taking with them a lightplank. On this, when they have got beyondwhere the seas break, they mount, and comerushing in on the crest of the great waves,shrieking with laughter when any one isupset. It is glorious fun, they think.

The day following that on which Robinsonhad saved Friday, they went out together tosee if there were any signs of the cannibalsstill being on the island, but it was evidentthat they had gone away without troublingabout the two men whom Robinson had killed.Round the place where their fire had been,were horrible remains of bodies, pieces of[Pg 76]flesh half eaten, or charred by the fire, skulls,hands, and bones of legs and feet. Fridaymade Robinson understand that these werethe remains of three prisoners who had beenbrought over along with him, to be feastedon.

Robinson’s blood ran cold as he looked,and the horror of the sight made him sickand faint. He ordered Friday to collect allthe bodies and other remains, and to build afire to burn them, which Friday very cheerfullydid. To him it was no great matter,for, of course, all his life he himself had beena cannibal, and he was quite used to suchscenes. Indeed, when they passed the spotwhere the two men had been buried in thesand, Friday pointed it out to Robinson, andgave him to understand that he meant to comeback, and dig up and eat the bodies. Thisfilled Robinson with disgust and rage, and helet Friday know that he would be severelypunished, perhaps killed, if ever such a thingwas done by him.

For some time Robinson did not trust[Pg 77]Friday, and did not allow him to sleep in thesame part of his castle with himself, butkept him at night in a little tent outside thefence. Every night he drew up the ladder,so that if Friday ever should attempt to getover, he would be sure to make noise enoughto wake Robinson. Other precautions alsohe took, but soon he found that they werenot needed. Friday was quite faithful. Andhe was never sulky nor lazy, but alwaysmerry, and ready to do anything that Robinsontold him. And as time went on, Robinsondid not doubt that if there should ever beneed for it, Friday would risk his life to savehis master.

At first when they went out in the woodstogether, Friday was terrified each time thatRobinson’s gun was fired. He had neverseen anything put into it, and it was morethan he could understand how things could bekilled merely by the noise and the flash offire. It seemed to him that the gun wassome sort of evil spirit that might do himharm, and it was long before he could be[Pg 78]brought to touch one of them, though whenhe was alone Robinson often heard him talkingto them. Afterwards, when he couldspeak English better, and knew more aboutguns, he told Robinson that he used to askthem not to kill him.

One thing that Robinson could never teachFriday was to eat salt with his food. Salt isa thing that the cannibals do not use, andsome of them, to this day, go so far as to saythat they do not care to eat a white man,because he is too salt. A native of their ownrace, they think, is much sweeter, though ofcourse they eat only men of a different tribewhom they may capture during one of theirwars. But the only form in which they takesalt is as sea water, and that they use asmedicine, drinking it in large quantities till itmakes them sick.

Robinson asked Friday if his tribe evercame to this island, and Friday said that theydid, and that he himself had often come over;and he told Robinson that on one visit heand his friends had eaten more than twenty[Pg 79]men. His tribe, he said, was very strong,and fought well. Thus they took moreprisoners, and used the island oftener thanthe other tribes, and it seemed that the farside of the island, where Robinson had seenso many remains of feasts, was the part thatFriday’s tribe held as their own. Sometimesother tribes used another island for theirfeasts.

It troubled Robinson’s mind greatly to hearwhat Friday had to say about this custom,but by little and little, as the weeks wentpast, he got him to see how horrible a thingit was to eat human flesh. From this beginning,Friday gradually came to be in hishabits more like a white man, and teachinghim was a great joy to Robinson, who foundthe years after Friday’s arrival the happiestof all that he had lived on the island. Notonly had he now help in his work, but he hadsome one to talk to, for want of which, duringthe weary years when he was alone, he hadalmost forgotten his own tongue.

When they began easily to understand each[Pg 80]other, Robinson asked Friday how far it wasfrom the island to his country, and if thecanoes were not often lost whilst crossing.Friday said there was no danger, and that nocanoes were ever wrecked; that always inthe morning the wind and the current set oneway, and the other in the afternoon. ThisRobinson thought must have something todo with the tides, but afterwards he learnedthat the change of wind was only the differencebetween the sea breeze and the landbreeze, which blow time about, morning andevening, in those parts. The change in thecurrent was due to the in-draft and out-draftof a great river, off whose mouth the island lay.

Friday told Robinson much about hiscountry, and about his people, who he saidwere Caribs. And a great way ‘beyondthe moon,’ by which he meant to the west,he said that white men lived who had beardssuch as Robinson wore. These white men,he said, had killed very many natives, fromwhich Robinson fancied that they must beSpaniards, who about that time were very[Pg 81]cruel to the people whose countries they hadtaken.

Robinson asked if Friday could tell himhow he might get over to where the whitemen lived, and Friday said it would be veryeasy, if they had a big canoe. And againRobinson began to make plans and to hopeto escape from the island. He showedFriday the boat in which he and the crewhad tried to land from the wreck, the remainsof which still lay high up on the shore, out ofreach of the waves of any but a very hightide, or of a storm worse than common.Friday looked long at it without speaking,till Robinson asked what he was thinking of.

Then he said that he had once before seensuch a boat, but for some time he could notmake Robinson understand where, or when,he had seen it. Robinson thought he meantthat a ship had been driven ashore on thecoast, and that the boat, perhaps, had comefrom her. But presently Friday spoke of themen who had been in the boat, and whom heand his people had pulled out of the sea.[Pg 82]He counted on his fingers to make Robinsonunderstand that there had been seventeen ofthem.

‘Where are they now?’ Robinson asked;and Friday said they still lived with histribe.

This put new ideas into Robinson’s head,for he thought that probably these menmight have belonged to the ship whose gunshe had heard, and to which he had afterwardsgone out in his boat as she lay on thereef.

Friday said that his people had given themen food, and had not hurt them.

‘Why did they not kill and eat them?’asked Robinson; and again Friday assuredhim that they ate men only whom they tookin war.

It was some time after this that Robinsonand Friday chanced to be on the high hill atthe east end of the island. The day wascloudless and very clear, with a light breezerippling the water, just such a day as that onwhich, years ago, Robinson had seen land,[Pg 83]far over the sea. Friday gazed long in thatdirection, and then began to jump and dance,pointing to the dim blue coast. ‘There mycountry! See! There my people live!’ hesaid, his eyes sparkling with joy, and aneager light on his face.

After this, for a time Robinson was not easyin his mind about Friday. He had littledoubt that if he could get back to his tribe,he would soon forget all he had been taught,all that Robinson had done for him, mighteven return, perhaps, with a hundred or twoof his friends, and kill and eat his master.But in this Robinson was very unjust toFriday, who had no such thoughts in hismind as those of which he was suspected.

And this Robinson soon found out. Oneday, as they walked up the same hill, he askedif Friday would not be glad to be once more inhis own land.

‘Yes,’ said Friday; ‘very glad.’

‘Would you eat men’s flesh again?’

‘No, never,’ said Friday, shaking his headvery much.

[Pg 84]

Then Robinson asked why he did not goback. It was too far to swim, said Friday.Robinson said he would give him a boat, andFriday said, very well, he would go if Robinsoncame too.

‘But your people will eat me,’ saidRobinson.

‘No, no,’ Friday answered; ‘you good tome. They good to you.’

Robinson had then more than half a mindto go, for if he could join the other white men,he thought there would be a better chanceto build a boat big enough to sail in toEngland.

So he took Friday to the place where hekept the small canoe he had made, andquickly he found that he was a very muchbetter boatman than Robinson himself, andcould make her go through the water nearlytwice as fast as Robinson was able to do.

But when Robinson asked if they mighttry to go over in that boat, Friday’s face fell.She was too small, he said. Robinson thenshowed him the first boat he had built, and[Pg 85]which had been lying on the sand now for morethan twenty-two years. That, Friday said,was big enough. But the heat of the sunby this time had so warped and crackedher that, even if they could have got her intothe sea, she would not have floated.

Then Robinson told Friday that he wouldbuild him a bigger boat, and send him homein it, but that he himself would remain onthe island alone, as he had been before.

The poor lad’s feelings were hurt at this,and he asked, ‘Why you angry mad withFriday? Suppose master go, Friday go!Suppose master no go, Friday no go!’ Andhe brought a hatchet, and said, ‘You killFriday; not send him away.’ Robinson wasmuch touched by this devotion, and afterwardsalways had perfect faith in him.

But still the wish to leave the island wasas strong as ever, and together he andFriday went to work to fell a tree fromwhich to build a boat good enough for theirvoyage to the mainland. Friday soonshowed that he knew far better thanRobinson the kind of tree best suited forboat-making, though he knew less abouthollowing it out; for he had never seentools suitable for such work. Friday proposedto burn out the inside, but Robinsonshowed him how to use the tools, and soonhe was very handy with them.

It took the two of them little more than a[Pg 87]month to finish the boat. And very handsomeshe looked, and very proud of her theywere. But it cost them quite a fortnight ofvery hard work to get her into the water.Below her they had to put large woodenrollers, and then with strong sticks, inch byinch, they levered and pushed her into thesea, where she floated, very trim and ship-shape,big enough to carry a dozen men.

Robinson was astonished at Friday’s skillin paddling so large a canoe. She seemedto fly through the water, and he could turnher with great ease.

‘Will she do to go over in?’ he asked, andFriday, grinning, said, ‘Yes, even if big windblow.’

But Robinson did not mean to depend onlyon paddling. He made Friday cut down astraight young pine-tree for a mast, andamongst the old ship’s sails that he had keptso long he found at last two pieces that werenot rotten. From these he made what iscalled a shoulder-of-mutton sail, and a smallforesail. It took him nearly two months to[Pg 88]cut and fit them, but when they were finishedand hoisted they acted very well, and when aclumsy rudder had been fixed to the boat, hefound that she steered nicely, and was quitesafe and stiff in a fresh breeze.

Friday knew nothing of sailing, and wasastonished to see the boat go so fast, but hequickly learned to handle her quite as well asRobinson could do. The only thing he couldnot learn was how to steer by compass.

Six-and-twenty years had passed sinceRobinson came to the island, and thoughhis hope of getting away was now great, hestill went on digging and sowing and fencingas usual, and picking and curing his raisins,in case by any chance he should still have tostop where he was.

As the rainy season was nearly due, hemade Friday dig near the creek a kind ofdock in the sand for the new boat, just deepenough for her to float in; and when the tidewas low, they made a dam across the end ofthe dock to keep the water out. Then theycovered the boat over very thickly with boughs[Pg 89]of trees; and there she lay, quite dry and snug,till the end of the wet weather, when it wasRobinson’s plan to start for the mainland.

A week or two before the dry season againcame, Robinson meant to open the dockand get the boat afloat once more. And tobe ready in plenty of time he began to lay bya lot of food and other stores for use on thevoyage.

One morning, when he was very busy overhis work, he told Friday to go down to thebeach to see if he could find a turtle. Offwent Friday, but before he had been gonemany minutes, back he came running in agreat hurry, crying out ‘Master! Master! Osorrow! O bad!’

‘What’s the matter, Friday?’ askedRobinson.

‘Over yonder,’ said Friday, pointing to thewest, and very much scared; ‘over yonder,one, two, three canoe.’

Robinson cheered him as well as he could.

‘Well, Friday,’ said he, ‘we must fightthem. Will you fight?’

[Pg 90]

‘Yes, Friday shoot,’ he answered, ‘but toomuch great many come.’

‘No matter,’ said Robinson, ‘our guns willfrighten those we don’t kill.’

Friday promised to stand by him to theend, and to do just as he was bid.

Then Robinson loaded two guns with largeswan shot, and gave them to Friday, andhimself took four muskets, which he loadedcarefully with five small bullets and twoslugs each, and in each of his pistols he puttwo bullets. Then he hung his cutlass byhis side, and gave Friday a hatchet.

When all was ready, he went up the hillwith his telescope, and saw that there werein all twenty-one savages, with three prisoners.They had landed not far beyond thecreek, near a spot where thick bushes grewalmost down to the sea.

Giving Friday one of the pistols to stick inhis belt, and one of the muskets to carry,they set off, each of them now armed with apistol and three guns, besides Robinson’scutlass and Friday’s hatchet. Robinson put[Pg 91]in his pocket a small bottle of rum, and gaveFriday a bag with more powder and bulletsto carry, and told him to keep very quiet, andto be sure not to fire till Robinson gave theword.

To get at the savages without being seen,they had to go nearly a mile out of their way,and being heavily laden, they could not govery fast. During this walk, Robinsonbegan to argue with himself again, and tothink that perhaps after all it was no businessof his to go killing savages who hadnever done him any harm, and who wereonly doing what they and their people haddone for hundreds of years. They knew nobetter, he said to himself, and why should hekill them? His mind was so filled withdoubts, that he did not know what to do.Finally, he decided that he would only gonear enough to see plainly what the savageswere doing, but that, unless there should besome special cause for it, he would not attackthem.

When he and Friday got near the place[Pg 92]where the savages had lit their fire, Robinsonsent Friday forward, to see whatwas going on, and to come back and tellhim.

Friday crept on, and returned very quickly,saying that the cannibals had already killedone of their prisoners, and were eating him,and that very soon they would kill thesecond prisoner, who was lying near tothem. The second prisoner, Friday said,was a white man.

This news at once changed Robinson’splans, and he had no longer any doubt whatto do.

Creeping forward, he saw plainly throughhis glass the white man lying bound handand foot on the sand. There was anothertree, Robinson noticed, with a clump ofbushes round it, some distance nearer to thesavages, and within very easy shot of them.To that he and Friday now crawled.

There was no time to lose, for when theyreached the tree, two of the savages hadgone to the white man, and were untying his[Pg 93]ankles. The other cannibals were all sittingclose together.

Turning to Friday, Robinson said in a lowvoice, ‘Now do exactly as I tell you.’ Theyboth took aim at the crowd of savages.

‘Are you ready, Friday?’ whisperedRobinson.

‘Ready,’ said Friday.

‘Then fire!’

Robinson’s first shot killed one andwounded two, but Friday’s dropped twodead, and three wounded. Snatching upfresh guns, both fired again before thesavages who were not hurt could get ontheir feet, for they were so taken by surpriseand frightened by the noise, that the poorwretches hardly knew what was happening.This time only two dropped, but many morewere wounded by the swan shot, and ranabout yelling till they fell from loss ofblood.

‘Now, Friday,’ said Robinson, taking upone of the remaining loaded muskets, ‘followme.’ And he rushed out of the wood, with[Pg 94]Friday close behind, and charged down onthe cannibals as fast as he could run.

The two men who had gone to kill thewhite prisoner no sooner saw this than theyfled to the canoes, and three of the othersfollowed, and jumped into the same canoe.

Robinson bade Friday shoot at them, andFriday, running forward, fired. All the menin the canoe fell, two of them dead and onewounded. The others seemed to fall fromfear, for they soon jumped up and paddledaway with all their might.

Robinson ran to the white prisoner and cut his bonds

Whilst Friday kept on firing, Robinsonran to the white prisoner and cut his bonds,helping him on to his feet, and giving himsome rum from the bottle he had brought.The man, on being asked what countrymanhe was, answered that he was a Spaniard,and he began to thank Robinson for what hehad done. But Robinson, who could speaka little Spanish, stopped him, saying, ‘Señor,we will talk afterwards. At present we mustfight.’ And he gave the Spaniard the cutlassfrom his belt and a pistol, telling him, if he[Pg 95]had strength left, to go and do what he couldagainst the savages.

As soon as the man got the weapons in hishands, he ran with fury at the cannibals andcut two down, then turned, and with equalfury attacked the rest.

Robinson now sent Friday for the musketswhich had been left under the tree, andbegan quickly to reload them, giving Fridaythe musket which he himself had been carrying,but which he had not fired.

Meantime the Spaniard had attacked avery big, powerful savage who was armedwith a club, and though with his cutlass hehad twice wounded the cannibal in the head,yet from being bound so long the white manwas weak, and now looked like getting theworst of it. For the savage, making a rush,closed with him and threw him, and in thestruggle had nearly wrenched the cutlassout of his hand, when the Spaniard suddenlyquitting his hold, drew his pistol and shot theman through the body, killing him on the spot.

The other natives were now scattered in[Pg 96]every direction, and Friday, running afterthem with his hatchet, killed all of themexcept one who had been wounded by theSpaniard, and who, in spite of his wounds,jumped into the sea and swam out to thecanoe in which were the two others who hadgot away.

Friday advised Robinson to take anotherof the canoes and go after them; andRobinson agreed, for he thought that if anyescaped they would be certain to come back,bringing hundreds of others to avenge thedeath of their friends. So the two ran tothe beach and began to shove off a canoe.But to their surprise, on the bottom of thecanoe lay another prisoner, an old man, tiedso hard, neck and heels, that even when hisbonds were cut he could not move. Hegroaned and lay still, perhaps thinking thathe was only being untied to be killed.

Robinson handed the rum to Friday andtold him to pour some down the poor man’sthroat, which seemed to revive him, for hesat up.

[Pg 97]

No sooner did Friday look at him andhear him speak, than he began to danceand shout and laugh, and then kneelingdown, rubbed noses with the savage (whichis what these folks do instead of kissingeach other), and he was so excited that forsome time he could not explain what wasthe matter. As soon as he could speak, hetold Robinson that the man whom they hadfound was his father. The poor creature’swrists and ankles were chafed and stiff frombeing so long bound, and he was parchedwith thirst.

Friday ran and fetched water for him, andthen with rum rubbed his father’s wrists andankles. Those of the Spaniard also wereso dreadfully cut and swollen, and he wasso worn out with fighting, that Friday hadto carry him on his back to the canoe. Thenhe paddled the two men along to the creek,whilst Robinson walked. But both menhad to be carried up to the castle, andRobinson was forced to rig up a tent forthem outside, because it was not possible[Pg 98]for him and Friday to lift them over thefence.

The next day Robinson sent Friday tobury the bodies of the savages who hadbeen killed, and to bring in the muskets.

When that was done, he made Friday askhis father if he thought the savages werelikely to come back. The man said thathe thought they were so frightened by theway they had been attacked, and by thenoise of the guns and the fire and smokecoming from them, that they would probablynever return. He said he had heard themcall out that two evil spirits were attackingthem. And it turned out that the old manwas right, for no cannibals were ever againknown to visit this island.

Soon after this Robinson had a long talkwith the Spaniard, who told him how heand his comrades had been wrecked fouryears since, on that part of the coast whereFriday’s tribe lived. He said that they werewell treated by the natives, but that theywere put to very great straits now for wantof clothes, that their powder was finished,and that they had lost all hope of ever gettingback to their own country. He himself, hesaid, had been captured in one of the manysmall wars that are always taking placeamong the various tribes.

It struck Robinson that it might bepossible for him to get these men over to[Pg 100]his island, provided that he could be sureof their good faith, and that when theycame, they did not take the island from himby treachery. It was a risk, he thought,but then, if he got so many men, it wouldnot be difficult to build a small ship thatcould carry them all to England.

So he asked the Spaniard if he wouldpromise, and if he thought he could gethis comrades to take an oath that, if Robinsonhelped them, they would look on himas their captain, and would swear to obeyhim in all things. The Spaniard readilypromised for himself, and said that he wassure his comrades would keep faith.

It was arranged, therefore, that in aboutsix months, when the next harvest wasreaped, and there would be plenty of foodfor so many extra men, the Spaniard andFriday’s father should go over to the mainlandin one of the canoes which had beentaken from the savages.

Meantime, all hands set about the curingof very large quantities of raisins, and much[Pg 101]other work was done to be in readiness forthe coming of these men.

When the harvest was reaped, Robinsongave the Spaniard and Friday’s father eacha musket and a supply of powder andbullets, and loaded the canoe with food,enough to last them and the others abouta fortnight, and the two men set off for themainland in fine weather, and with a fairwind.

It was about eight days after this, andwhen Robinson had begun to look out fortheir return, that one morning very early,when Robinson was asleep, Friday camerunning in, shouting, ‘Master! master!They come.’ Up jumped Robinson, andhurrying on his clothes, ran out.

Looking towards the sea, he soon madeout a sailing-boat making for the shore,coming from the south end of the island,but still some miles away. This was notthe direction from which the Spaniard andhis comrades would come, nor were theylikely to be in a sailing-boat. So Robinson[Pg 102]took his telescope, and went to the top ofthe hill to see if he could make out whowere on board, before they landed.

Hardly had he got on to the hill when henoticed a ship at anchor some distance fromthe shore. She looked like an Englishvessel, he thought, and the boat like anEnglish long-boat.

This was a wonderful sight to Robinson,but yet he was not easy in his mind. It wasnot a part of the world where an Englishship was likely to come, because in thosedays they were nearly all Spanish vesselsthat traded in these seas, and the Englishand Spaniards were bitter enemies. Whatcould an English ship be doing here? Therehad been no storm to drive her out of hercourse.

Robinson feared that if she was Englishthere must be something wrong about her.Perhaps, he thought, she was a Pirate. Sohe was careful not to show himself orFriday.

What could an English ship be doing here?

Presently, as he watched, he saw the men[Pg 103]in the boat run her ashore and draw herup on the beach, about half a mile from hiscastle. When they had landed, he couldeasily see through his glass that they wereEnglishmen.

There were eleven men, but three of themhad their hands tied behind their backs, andwere evidently prisoners. When the firstfour or five men had jumped ashore, theybrought out these three, all the while ill-treatingthem, and behaving as if theymeant to kill their prisoners. Friday wassure that they meant to eat them.

Soon, without further harming the threemen, the others scattered about amongstthe trees near the shore, leaving the threesitting on the ground, very sad-looking, butwith their hands now untied.

At the time the boat was run aground, itwas just high-water, and the two sailorswho had been left in charge of her, and whohad evidently been drinking too much rum,went to sleep, and never noticed that thetide was going out. When they woke, the[Pg 104]boat was high and dry, and with all thestrength of the whole crew they could notmove her, because the sand at that part ofthe beach was very soft. This did not seemto trouble any of them very much, forRobinson heard one of the sailors shout,‘Let her alone, Jack, can’t ye? She’ll floatnext tide.’

All forenoon Robinson watched, and whenthe hottest time of the day had come, henoticed the sailors throw themselves downunder the trees, and go to sleep, somedistance away from the three prisoners.

Then Robinson and Friday, taking theirmuskets and pistols, stole down cautiouslybehind the three men, to try to speak tothem without the others knowing.

Robinson had put on his goat-skin coatand the great hairy hat that he had made forhimself; and with his cutlass and pistols inhis belt, and a gun over each shoulder, helooked very fierce.

The men did not see him till he spoke,and they were so startled by his wild look,[Pg 105]and by the sight of two men armed to theteeth, that they nearly ran away. ButRobinson told them not to be alarmed; hewas an Englishman, and a friend, and wouldhelp them if they would show him how itcould be done.

Then they explained to him what hadhappened. One of the three was Captain ofthe ship that lay at anchor off the island. Ofthe others, one was mate of the ship, and thethird man was a passenger. The crew hadmutinied, the Captain told Robinson, andhad put him and the other two in irons, andthe ring-leaders in the mutiny had proposedto kill them. Now they meant to leave themon the island to perish.

The Captain was so astonished at findinganybody there who proposed to help him,that he said in his wonder: ‘Am I talking toa man, or to an angel from heaven?’

‘If the Lord had sent an angel, sir,’ saidRobinson, ‘he would probably have comebetter clothed.’

Then he asked if the boat’s crew had any[Pg 106]firearms, and was told that they had onlytwo muskets, one of which was left in theboat. ‘The rest should be easy, then,’Robinson said; ‘we can either kill themall, or take them prisoners, as we please.’

The Captain was unwilling to see the menkilled, for he said if two of the worst of themwere got rid of, he believed the rest wouldreturn to their duty.

Robinson made a bargain that if he savedthe Captain from the mutineers, and recoveredthe ship, he and Friday were tobe taken home to England in her, free ofcost; and to this the Captain and the othersagreed.

Then Robinson gave each of them a musket,with powder and ball, after which the Captainand the mate and the passenger marchedtowards the spot where the mutinous sailorslay asleep. One of the men heard themadvance, and turning round, saw them, andcried out to his companions. But it was toolate, the mate and the passenger fired, andone of the ring-leaders fell dead. A second[Pg 107]man also fell, but jumped up immediatelyand called to the others to help him. Butthe Captain knocked him down with the buttof his musket, and the rest of the men, seeingRobinson and Friday coming, and knowingthat they had no chance against five armedmen, begged for mercy. Three others whohad been straying about among the treescame back on hearing the shots, and werealso taken, and thus the whole crew of theboat was captured.

The Captain and Robinson now began tothink how they might recover the ship.There were on board, the Captain said,several men on whom he thought he coulddepend, and who had been forced by theothers into the mutiny against their wills.But it would be no easy thing to retake theship, for there were still twenty-six men onboard, and as they were guilty of mutiny, allof them, if taken back to England, wouldmost likely be hanged. Thus they werecertain to make a fight for it.

The first thing that Robinson and the[Pg 108]others now did was to take everything out ofthe boat,—oars, and mast, and sail, and rudder;then they knocked a hole in her bottom, sothat she could not float. Whilst they weredoing this, and drawing her still further upon the beach, they heard first one gun andthen another fired by the ship as signals tothe boat to return.

As she of course did not move, Robinsonsaw through his glass another boat withten men on board, armed with muskets,leave the ship, coming to bring the othersback.

This was serious enough, for now Robinsonand his party had to make plans wherebythey might capture also this fresh boat’s crew.

Accordingly, they tied the hands of all themen they had first taken, and sent the worstof them to the cave under the charge ofFriday and of one of the men that the Captainsaid was to be trusted, with orders to shootany who tried to give an alarm or to escape.Then Robinson took his party and the rest ofthe prisoners into the castle, where, from the[Pg 109]rock, they watched for the landing of thesecond boat.

The Captain and mate were very nervous,and despaired of taking this fresh body ofmen, but Robinson was quite confident ofsuccess, and put heart into them by hischeerfulness.

Of the prisoners in his castle, there weretwo whom the Captain believed to be honestmen, and on their promising solemnly tokeep faith, and to fight for him, Robinsonreleased them.

The crew of the second boat, when theylanded, were terribly surprised to find thefirst boat empty and stove in, and they wereseen anxiously consulting what to do. Thenthey hallooed and fired volleys. Getting noreply, they were evidently alarmed, for theyall jumped into their boat and began to pulloff to the ship. In a few minutes, however,they seemed to change their minds, for againthey landed, this time leaving three men incharge of the boat, and keeping her inthe water.

[Pg 110]

The other seven came ashore, and startedin a body across the island to look for theirlost comrades. But they did not care to gofar, and soon stopped, again firing volleysand hallooing. Getting again no reply, theybegan to march back to the sea. WhereuponRobinson ordered Friday and the mateto go over the creek to the west and hallooloudly, and wait till the sailors answered.Then Friday and the mate were to go furtheraway and again halloo, thus gradually gettingthe men to follow them away from theshore.

This plan succeeded very well, for whenthe sailors, thinking they heard their missingfriends hail, ran to find them, their way wasstopped by the creek, over which they had toget the boat to carry them. They took withthem, then, one of the three men whom theyhad left in the boat, and ordered the others tomoor the boat to a tree, and remain there.

This was just what Robinson wanted. And,moreover, one of the men played still furtherinto his hands, for he left the boat and lay[Pg 111]down under a tree to sleep. On him theCaptain rushed, and knocked him down as hetried to rise to his feet, whereupon the sailorleft in the boat yielded, the more readily thathe had joined the mutineers very unwillingly,and was now glad of the chance to rejoin hisCaptain.

Meantime Friday and the mate, by hallooingand answering, drew the rest of theboat’s crew from hill to hill through thewoods, till at last they had got them so farastray that it was not possible for them tofind their way back before dark. When theydid get back to where the boat had been left,and found the men whom they had left in hergone, they were in a terrible fright.

It was not difficult for Robinson and hismen to surround them, and it chanced thatthe boatswain of the ship, who was the greatestvillain of the lot, and the chief cause ofall the trouble, walked in the darkness closeto the Captain, who jumped up and shot himdead. The others then surrendered, believingwhat they were told, that they were[Pg 112]surrounded by fifty armed men. All beggedhard for their lives, and a few whom theCaptain said he could trust were set at libertyon promising to help to retake the ship. Theothers were bound and put in the cave.

Robinson and Friday remained on shore tolook after the prisoners, whilst the Captainand the mate and the passenger, with thoseof the crew who were trustworthy, havingpatched up the damaged boat, pulled off inher and in the other to the ship, which theyreached about midnight. When they werea short distance off, the Captain made oneof the crew hail the ship and say that theyhad brought off the boat and the men theyhad gone in search of. Then both boats ranalongside at once, one on each side of thevessel, and before the mutineers knew whatwas happening they were overpowered, oneor two of them being killed. Only one of theCaptain’s party was hurt, the mate, whosearm was broken by a musket-ball.

As soon as the ship was secured, thecaptain ordered seven guns to be fired, that[Pg 113]being the signal he had agreed to make tolet Robinson know if he succeeded in takingthe ship.

Robinson’s stay in the island had now cometo an end, after more than twenty-eight years,for in a few days he and Friday sailed forEngland in the ship. Some of the mutineerswere left on the island, and were afterwardsjoined by the Spaniard and his comrades,for whom Robinson left a letter.

Robinson did not forget, when he left, totake with him the money and gold bars hehad got from the wreck of the Spanish ship,and he took also, as a memento, the goat-skincoat and the great hairy hat. But theCaptain was able before the ship sailed togive him proper clothing, the wearing ofwhich at first put him to dreadful discomfort.

The voyage was a long one, but theysighted the English coast at last.

It was thirty-five years since Robinson hadset foot in England. And that morning,when at last, after the weary years ofexile, he again saw his native land, he laid[Pg 114]his head down on his arms and cried likea child.

And, may be, you too some day may knowthe joy of coming home, out of the land ofbondage.

Edinburgh: Printed by T. and A. Constable.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 67907 ***