The Project Gutenberg eBook of Robinson Crusoe, Told to the Children by John Lang
    
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Title: Robinson Crusoe, Told to the Children by John Lang

Author: Daniel Defoe

Adapter: John Lang

Editor: Louey Chisholm

Illustrator: Will Bennett Robinson

Release date: April 23, 2022 [eBook #67907]
                Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: T. C. & E. C. Jack

Credits: D A Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROBINSON CRUSOE, TOLD TO THE CHILDREN BY JOHN LANG ***

  TOLD TO THE CHILDREN SERIES

  EDITED BY LOUEY CHISHOLM

  ROBINSON CRUSOE




[Illustration: Slowly the raft drifted nearer and nearer the shore (page
15)]




  Daniel Defoe

  ROBINSON CRUSOE

  TOLD TO THE CHILDREN BY

  JOHN LANG

  WITH PICTURES BY

  W. B. ROBINSON

  LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
  NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.




  TO

  ALEC CORSE SCOTT




MY DEAR ALEC,


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

But boys nowadays do not seem to read Robinson Crusoe 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 as
possible, the tale of Robinson’s twenty-eight years in his Island, and
I hope that you, and other boys, will like it.

The sea that lay round Robinson’s island is not like the one you
know--the grey North Sea, stormy and cold; but it is blue like a
sapphire, and where the rollers break in white foam on the coral
reefs it seems as if it were edged with pearls. On the shores of the
islands, cocoa-nut palms wave their feathery fronds in the breeze;
butterflies of wondrous colours hover about; and in and out amongst the
thick-leaved trees dash birds, chattering and screaming, all crimson
and blue and yellow and green.

Often there are snakes too, and it was lucky that no snakes on
Robinson’s island troubled him. For on some islands that I have seen
there are snakes--black and white, the most poisonous of them--that
swim about in the sea and come up on the beach, and you have to be
careful that you do not sit down on the top of one, for they are not
always very quick at getting out of the way.

When you are a man, perhaps some day you will go to one of those
tropical islands. And if you take a boat and row out to the inside of
the reef of coral that lies round the island, and put your face close
down, and look through the quiet, crystal clear water, you will know
what Fairyland beneath the sea is like. You will find there gardens
of a beauty never seen on land, only the branches of the trees are of
coral, and in and out amongst them, instead of bright-coloured birds,
you will see fishes swimming, some of a vivid yellow and black, others
blue 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

 Chap.                                              Page

  I. How Robinson first went to sea, and how he
  was shipwrecked,                                    1

  II. Robinson works hard at making himself a
  home,                                              12

  III. The earthquake and hurricane; and how
  Robinson built a boat,                             22

  IV. Robinson builds a second boat, in which he
  is swept out to sea,                               31

  V. Robinson sees a footprint on the sand, and
  finds traces of cannibal feasts,                   38

  VI. Robinson finds a cave; hears guns fired by
  a ship in distress,                                48

  VII. Robinson visits the wrecked Spanish ship;
  rescues a prisoner from the cannibals,             59

  VIII. How Robinson trained Friday,                 73

  IX. Robinson and Friday build a large boat;
  they rescue two prisoners from the
  cannibals,                                         86

  X. Arrival of an English ship; Robinson sails
  for home,                                          99




LIST OF PICTURES

  Slowly the raft drifted nearer and nearer the shore, _Frontispiece_

                                                          At page

  Once Robinson shot a lion that he saw lying asleep,          8

  One day he came on a large turtle,                          26

  He saw the mark of a naked foot on the sand,                40

  The harbour where he had kept his boat so long,             64

  The man knelt and kissed the ground,                        70

  Robinson ran to the white prisoner and cut his bonds,       94

  What could an English ship be doing here?                  102




CHAPTER I

                    HOW ROBINSON FIRST WENT TO SEA;
                      AND HOW HE WAS SHIPWRECKED


Long, long ago, before even your grandfather’s father was born, there
lived in the town of York a boy whose name was Robinson Crusoe. Though
he never even saw the sea till he was quite a big boy, he had always
wanted to be a sailor, and to go away in a ship to visit strange,
foreign, far-off lands; and he thought that if he could only do that,
he would be quite happy.

But his father wanted him to be a lawyer, and he often talked to
Robinson, and told him of the terrible things that might happen to him
if he went away, and how people who stopped at home were always the
happiest. He told him, too, how Robinson’s brother had gone away, and
had been killed in the wars.

So Robinson promised at last that he would give up wanting to be a
sailor. But in a few days the longing came back as bad as ever, and
he asked his mother to try to coax his father to let him go just one
voyage. But his mother was very angry, and his father said, ‘If he goes
abroad he will be the most miserable wretch that ever was born. I can
give no consent to it.’

Robinson stopped at home for another year, till he was nineteen years
old, all the time thinking and thinking of the sea. But one day when
he had gone on a visit to Hull, a big town by the sea, to say good-bye
to one of his friends who was going to London, he could not resist the
chance. Without even sending a message to his father and mother, he
went on board his friend’s ship, and sailed away.

But as soon as the wind began to blow and the waves to rise, poor
Robinson was very frightened and sea-sick, and he said to himself that
if ever he got on shore he would go straight home and never again leave
it.

He was very solemn till the wind stopped blowing. His friend and the
sailors laughed at him, and called him a fool, and he very soon forgot,
when the weather was fine and the sun shining, all he had thought about
going back to his father and mother.

But in a few days, when the ship had sailed as far as Yarmouth Roads
on her way to London, they had to anchor, and wait for a fair wind. In
those days there were no steamers, and vessels had only their sails to
help them along; so if it was calm, or the wind blew the wrong way,
they had just to wait where they were till a fair wind blew.

Whilst they lay at Yarmouth the weather became very bad, and there was
a great storm. The sea was so heavy and Robinson’s ship was in such
danger, that at last they had to cut away the masts in order to ease
her and to stop her from rolling so terribly. The Captain fired guns
to show that his ship wanted help. So a boat from another ship was
lowered, and came with much difficulty and took off Robinson and all
the crew, just before their vessel sank; and they got ashore at last,
very wet and miserable, having lost all their clothes except what they
had on.

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

In London he made friends with a ship’s captain, who had not long
before come home from a voyage to the Guinea Coast, as that part of
Africa was then called; and the Captain was so pleased with the money
he had made there, that he easily persuaded Robinson to go with him on
his next voyage.

So Robinson took with him toys, and beads, and other things, to sell to
the natives in Africa, and he got there, in exchange for these things,
so much gold dust that he thought he was soon going in that way to make
his fortune.

And therefore he went on a second voyage.

But this time he was not so lucky, for before they reached the African
Coast, one morning, very early, they sighted another ship, which they
were sure was a Pirate. So fast did this other vessel sail, that before
night she had come up to Robinson’s ship, which did not carry nearly so
many men nor so many guns as the Pirate, and which therefore did not
want to fight; and the pirates soon took prisoner Robinson and all the
crew of his ship who were not killed, and made slaves of them.

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

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

At last, when the Captain happened one time to be at home longer than
usual, he began to go out fishing in a boat two or three times a week,
taking Robinson, who was a very good fisher, and a black boy named
Xury, with him.

One day he gave Robinson orders to put food and water, and some guns,
and powder and shot, on a big boat that the pirates had taken out of an
English ship, and to be ready to go with him and some of his friends on
a fishing trip.

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

Then Robinson thought that his chance to escape had come.

He spoke to the servant, who was not very clever, and persuaded him to
put more food and water on the boat, for, said Robinson, ‘we must not
take what was meant for our master.’ And then he got the servant to
bring some more powder and shot, because, Robinson said, they might as
well kill some birds to eat.

When they had gone out about a mile, they hauled down the sail and
began to fish. But Robinson pretended that he could not catch anything
there, and he said that they ought to go further out. When they had
gone so far that nobody on shore could see what they were doing,
Robinson again pretended to fish. But this time he watched his chance,
and when the servant was not looking, came behind him and threw him
overboard, knowing that the man could swim so well that he could easily
reach the land.

Then Robinson sailed away with Xury down the coast to the south. He did
not know to what country he was steering, but cared only to get away
from the pirates, and to be free once more.

Long days and nights they sailed, sometimes running in close to the
land, but they were afraid to go ashore very often, because of the wild
beasts and the natives. Many times they saw great lions come roaring
down on to the beach, and once Robinson shot one that he saw lying
asleep, and took its skin to make a bed for himself on the boat.

At last, after some weeks, when they had got south as far as the great
cape that is called Cape de Verde, they saw a Portuguese vessel, which
took them on board. It was not easy for Robinson to tell who he was,
because he could not talk Portuguese, but everybody was very kind to
him, and they bought his boat and his guns and everything that he had.
They even bought poor Xury, who, of course, was a black slave, and
could be sold just like a horse or a dog.

So, when they got to Brazil, where the vessel was bound, Robinson had
enough money to buy a plantation; and he grew sugar and tobacco there
for four years, and was very happy and contented for a time, and made
money.

[Illustration: Once Robinson shot a lion that he saw lying asleep]

But he could never be contented for very long. So when some of his
neighbours asked him if he would go in a ship to the Guinea Coast to
get slaves for them, he went, only making a bargain that he was to
be paid for his trouble, and to get some of the slaves to work on his
plantation when he came back.

Twelve days after the ship sailed, a terrible storm blew, and they were
driven far 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 overboard and drowned. No one on the ship
expected to be saved.

This storm was followed by another, even worse. The wind howled and
roared through the rigging, and the weather was thick with rain and
flying spray.

Then early one morning land was dimly seen through the driving rain,
but almost at once the vessel struck on a sand-bank. In an instant the
sails were blown to bits, and flapped with such uproar that no one
could hear the Captain’s orders. Waves poured over the decks, and the
vessel bumped on the sand so terribly that the masts broke off near
the deck, and fell over the side into the sea.

With great difficulty the only boat left on the ship was put in the
water, and everybody got into her. They rowed for the shore, hoping to
get perhaps into some bay, or to the mouth of a river, where the sea
would be quiet.

But before they could reach the land, a huge grey wave, big like the
side of a house, came foaming and thundering up behind them, and before
any one could even cry out, it upset the boat, and they were all left
struggling in the water.

Robinson was a very good swimmer, but no man could swim in such a sea,
and it was only good fortune that brought him at last safely to land.
Big wave after big wave washed him further and further up the beach,
rolling him over and over, once leaving him 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 sea, he was able to jump up and run for his life.

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




CHAPTER II

                     ROBINSON WORKS HARD AT MAKING
                            HIMSELF A HOME


When he had rested a little, Robinson got up and began to walk about
very sadly, for darkness was coming on; he was wet, and cold, and
hungry, and he did not know where to sleep, because he was afraid of
wild beasts coming out of the woods and killing him during the night.

But he found that he still had his knife in his pocket, so he cut a big
stick to protect himself with. Then he climbed into a tree which had
very thick leaves, and there he fixed himself among the branches as
well as he could, and fell sound asleep.

In the morning when he awoke, the storm was past, and the sea quieter.
To his surprise, he saw that the ship had been carried in the night,
by the great seas, much nearer to the shore than she had been when the
boat left her, and was now lying not far from the rock where Robinson
had first been washed up.

By midday the sea was quite calm, and the tide had gone so far out that
he could walk very near to the ship. So he took off his clothes and
swam the rest of the way to her. 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 that Robinson could not reach anything by which he could pull
himself up.

At last, after swimming twice round the vessel, he saw a rope hanging
over, near the bow, and by its help he climbed on board.

Everything in the stern of the ship was dry, and in pretty good order,
and the water had not hurt the provisions much. So he took some
biscuits, and ate them as he looked about, and drank some rum, and then
he felt better, and stronger, and more fit to begin work.

First of all, he took a few large spars of wood, and a spare topmast or
two, that were on the deck. These he pushed overboard, tying each with
a rope to keep it from drifting away. Then he went over the side of the
ship, and tied all the spars together so as to make a raft, and on top
he put pieces of plank across. But it was long before he could make the
raft fit to carry the things he wanted to take on shore.

At last, after much hard work, he got on to it three of the seamen’s
chests, which he had broken open and emptied, and he filled these with
bread, and rice, and cheese, and whatever he could find to eat, and
with all sorts of things that he thought he might need. He found, too,
the carpenter’s tool chest, and put it on the raft; and nothing on the
whole ship was of more use to him than that.

Then he set about looking for clothes, for while he had been on the
ship, the tide had risen and had washed away his coat and waistcoat
and shirt, which he had left lying on 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 the raft had no mast nor sail
nor rudder, and was too heavy and clumsy to be pulled by Robinson with
the broken oars that he had found. But the tide was rising, and slowly
she drifted nearer and nearer, and at last was carried up the mouth of
a little river which Robinson had not seen when he was on shore.

There was a strong tide running up, which once carried the raft against
a point of land, where she stuck for a time, and very nearly upset all
the things into deep water. But as the tide rose higher, Robinson was
able to push her into a little bay where the water was shallow and the
ground beneath flat, and when the tide went out there she was left high
and dry, and he got everything safely ashore.

The next thing that Robinson did was to climb a hill, that he might
see what sort of country he was in, and find out if there were any
other people in it. But when he got to the top, he saw to his sorrow
that he was on an island, with no other land in sight except some
rocks, and two smaller islands far over the sea. There were no signs of
any people, and he saw nothing living except great numbers of birds,
one of which he shot. But it was not fit to eat, being some kind of
hawk.

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

Day by day now for some time Robinson swam out to the ship, and made
fresh rafts, loading them with many stores, powder and shot, and lead
for bullets, seven muskets, a great barrel of bread, three casks of
rum, a quantity of flour, some grain, a box of sugar, sails and ropes
and twine, bags of nails, and many hatchets. With one of the sails he
made himself a good tent, in which he put everything that could be
spoiled by rain or sun. Around it he piled all the casks and other
heavy things, so that no wild beast could very easily get at him.

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

Now, Robinson thought it time to find some better place for his tent.
The land where it then stood was low and near the sea, and the only
water he could get to drink tasted rather salt. Looking about, he found
a little plain, about a hundred yards across, on the side of a hill,
and at the end of the plain was a great rock partly hollowed out, but
not so as quite to make a cave. Here he pitched his tent, close to the
hollow place in the rock. Round in front of the tent he drove two rows
of strong stakes, about eighteen inches apart, sharpened at top; and he
made this fence so strong that when it was finished he was sure that
nothing could get at him, for he left no door, but climbed in and out
by a ladder, which he always hauled up after him.

Before closing up the end, Robinson hauled inside this fence all his
stores, his food and his guns, his powder and shot, and he rigged
inside a double tent, so better to keep off the hot sun and the rain.

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

Robinson was now very comfortable, and as he had saved from the wreck
two cats and a dog, he did not feel quite so lonely. He had got, also,
ink and pens and paper, so that he could keep a diary; and he set up
a large wooden cross, on which he cut with his knife the date of his
landing on the island--30th September 1659; and every day he cut a
notch on the post, with a longer one each Sunday, so that he might
always know how the months and years passed.

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

But now he saw that his tent and cave were too small for all the things
he had stowed in them, so he began to make the cave bigger, bringing
out all the rock and soil that he cut down, and making with it a
kind of terrace round the inside of his stockade. And as he was sure
that there were no wild beasts on the island to harm him, he went on
tunnelling to the right hand till he broke through the rock outside his
fence.

Then he began to hang things up against the side of the cave, and he
even made shelves, and a door for the outside entrance. This was a very
difficult job, and took him a long time; for, to make a board, he was
forced to cut down a whole tree, and chop away with his axe till one
side was flat, and then cut at the other side till the board was thin
enough, when he smoothed it with his adze. But in this way, out of each
tree he would only get one plank. He made for himself also a table and
a chair, and finally got his castle, as he called it, in very good
order.

With all his care, however, there was one thing that he forgot, and
that was, when he had made the cave so much bigger, to prop it, so as
to keep the roof from falling in. And so one day he got a terrible
fright, and was nearly killed, by a huge bit of the soft rock which
fell and buried many of his things. It took weeks of hard work
afterwards to clear away the fallen rubbish, and to cut beams strong
enough to prop the roof.

Every day, all this time, he used to climb up the hill and look around
over the lonely waters, hoping, always hoping, that some morning he
might see the sails of a ship that would take him home. But none ever
came, and sometimes the tears ran down his cheeks because of the sorrow
he felt at being so utterly alone. At times even, he thought in his
misery that if only he had any kind of a boat, it would be better to
sail away, and chance reaching other land, rather than to stop where
he was. By and by, however, he grew less unhappy, for he had plenty of
work to do.




CHAPTER III

                     THE EARTHQUAKE AND HURRICANE;
                     AND HOW ROBINSON BUILT A BOAT


Now about this time, when Robinson had been some months on the island,
heavy and constant rain began to fall, and sometimes weeks would pass
without a single dry day. He found that instead of there being Spring,
Summer, Autumn, and Winter, as in England, the seasons in his island
were divided into the wet and the dry. There was no cold weather, no
winter. It chanced that just before this first rain began, Robinson
had emptied out some refuse from bags which had once held rice, and
other grain, and he had forgotten all about having emptied them. So he
was very much astonished to find, some time afterwards, both barley
and rice growing near his tent, in the shade of the rock. The ears,
when ripe, he kept to sow again, and from this very small beginning,
in the course of a few seasons, he had a great quantity of grain, both
for food and for sowing. But this meant every year much hard work, for
he had no plough nor harrow, and all the ground had to be dug with a
clumsy spade, made from a very hard, heavy wood that grew on the island.

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

Baking he did by building a big fire, then raking away the ashes, and
putting the dough on the hot place, covered with a kind of basin made
of clay, over which he heaped the red ashes. In this way very good
bread can be made.

Before the rainy season was over, and just after he had finished the
fence round his tent, one day when Robinson was at work in the cave,
all of a sudden the earth began to fall from the roof, and the strong
props he had put in cracked in a way which frightened him terribly.
At the same time there was a curious moaning, rumbling noise, that he
could not understand. He rushed out, and so afraid was he that the roof
was falling in, and that he should be buried, that he got over the
fence and began to run.

But he was even more frightened when he 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 with a great noise like thunder, and the sea was churned
up as if by a whirlwind. Robinson was sick with the movement of the
ground, and trembling with the dread of being swallowed by the earth
as it cracked and gaped; and after the noise and shaking were over, he
was too frightened to go back to his tent, but sat where he was, all
the time expecting another shock.

Suddenly a furious wind began to blow, tearing up trees by the roots,
and lashing the water till nothing could be seen but foam and flying
spray. The air was full of branches and leaves torn off by the
hurricane, and birds in hundreds were swept helpless out to sea. In
about three hours, as suddenly as it had begun, the wind fell, and
there was a dead calm, followed by rain such as Robinson had never
before seen, which soaked him to the skin, and forced him to return to
the cave, where he sat in great fear.

For long after this he was very uneasy, and made up his mind to shift
his quarters as soon as he could find a better place for his tent. But
the earthquake had one good result, for what remained of the wreck
was again thrown up by the sea, and Robinson got more things out of
it which were useful to him, and for days he worked hard at that. One
day, too, when he was on his way to the remains of the ship, he came
on a large turtle, which he killed, and this gave him plenty of good
food, for besides the flesh, there were, inside the animal, many eggs,
which she had come to the shore to lay in the sand, as is the habit of
turtles, and which Robinson thought were even better than hen’s eggs.

[Illustration: One day he came on a large turtle]

Now a few days after he had got so wet in the heavy rain, though the
weather was hot, Robinson felt very cold and shivery, and had pains all
over his body, and at night he dreamed terrible dreams. The following
day, and many days, he lay very ill with fever and ague, and hardly
knew what he was doing. So weak was he, that he believed he was dying,
and there was no one to give him water to quench his thirst, nor to
help him in any way. His only medicine was rum, in which he had soaked
tobacco. It was very nasty, and made him sick, but it also made him
sleep for more than a whole day and a night, and he woke much better,
and able to walk about a little, though for a fortnight he was too weak
to work. From this illness he learned not to go out more than he could
help during the rainy season.

When he was again quite strong, Robinson started to explore the island
better than he had yet done, and he found many things growing, of which
he made great use afterwards, tobacco, sugar-cane, and all manner of
fruits, amongst them grapes, which he used to dry to raisins in the sun
in great quantities.

Near the spot where the most fruit grew, he built a hut, and round it,
for safety, he put a double fence made of stakes cut from some of the
trees near at hand. During the next rainy season these stakes took
root, and grew so fast that soon nothing of the hut could be seen from
outside the hedge, and it made so good a hiding-place, that Robinson
cut more stakes of the same kind, and planted them outside the fence
around his first dwelling; and in a year or two that also was quite
hidden from view. The twigs of this tree, too, were good for making
baskets, of which he had been in great need.

When he had finished all this work, he started again to go over the
rest of the island, and on his way across, from a hill, the day being
very clear, he saw high land a great way off over the water, but
whether it was another island, or the coast of America, he could not be
sure.

When he reached the other side of his island Robinson found the beach
covered with turtles in astonishing numbers, and he thought how much
better off he would have been if he had been cast ashore here, for not
only would the turtles have supplied him with plenty of food, but there
were far more birds than on the part of the island where he had been
living, and far more goats.

During the journey back to his castle he caught a young parrot, which,
after a long time, he taught to speak and to call him by his name. It
was so long since he had heard any voice, that it was a comfort to
listen even to a parrot talking.

Now, the sight which Robinson had had of the far distant land raised in
him again the great longing to get away from this island where he had
been so long alone, and he wished greatly for a boat. He went over to
the remains of the boat in which he and the others had tried to come
ashore when their ship struck on the sand-bank, and which had been
flung far up on the beach by the sea, and he worked for weeks trying to
repair her and to get her into the water. But it was all of no use; he
could not move her.

Then, he thought, ‘I’ll cut down a tree, and make a new boat.’ This he
fancied would be easy, for he had heard how the Indians make canoes by
felling a tree and burning out the inside. ‘If they can do it, then
surely I can do it even better,’ he thought. So he looked about, and
chose a huge tree which stood about a hundred yards from the water, and
with great labour in about three weeks he had cut it down.

Four months Robinson worked at this boat, thinking all the time of what
he would do when he reached the far distant land, and much pleased with
himself for the beautiful boat he was making. Day after day he trimmed
and shaped it, and very proud he was when it was finished and lay there
on the ground, big enough to carry twenty men.

Then he started to get her into the water. But that was quite another
thing. By no means in his power could he move her an inch, try as he
might. She was far too big. Then he began to dig a canal from the sea
to the boat; but before he had got much of that work done, he saw
clearly that there was so much earth to dig away, that, without some
one to help him, it must take years and years before he could get the
water to the boat. So he gave it up, and left her to lie and rot in the
sun and the rain,--a great grief to him.




CHAPTER IV

                    ROBINSON BUILDS A SECOND BOAT,
                    IN WHICH HE IS SWEPT OUT TO SEA


By the time that Robinson had been four years on the island, all his
clothes had become very ragged, and he had hardly anything that could
be called a hat. Clothes he must have, for he could not go naked
without getting his skin blistered by the hot sun, and he was afraid of
getting a sunstroke if he went 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 many failures,
at last he made a hat and coat of goatskin, and a pair of short
trousers, all with the hair outside, so as to shoot off the wet when it
rained. The hat was very tall, and came to a sharp peak on top, and it
had a flap which hung down the back of his neck. Robinson also, with
much trouble, made of the skins an umbrella which he could open and
shut; and if his clothes and his umbrella, and especially his hat, were
not very good to look at, they were useful, and he could now go about
in any weather.

During the next five years nothing out of the common happened, and
Robinson’s time was mostly taken up with the getting of food, the
yearly sowing and reaping of his crops, and the curing of his raisins.
But towards the end of that time he made another attempt to build a
boat, and this time he made one much smaller than the first, and though
it took him nearly two years to finish, in the end he got her into the
sea. She was not big enough for him to try to sail in to the far-off
land that he had seen, and he used her only for cruising about the
shores of his own island, and for fishing. In her he fixed a little
mast, on which he rigged a small sail, made from a bit of one of the
old ship’s sails, and, using a paddle to steer with, he found that she
sailed very well. Over the stern he fixed his big umbrella, to shade
him from the sun, like an awning.

Eager to go all round the island, one day Robinson put a lot of food
on board, and, taking his gun, started on a voyage. All went well till
he came to the east end of the island, where he found that a ledge of
rocks, and beyond that a sand-bank, stretched out to sea for eight
or nine miles. Robinson did not like the idea of venturing so far in
a boat so small, and he therefore ran the boat ashore, and climbed a
hill, to get a good view of the rocks and shoals before going near
them. From the hill, he saw that a strong current was sweeping past
the sand-bank, which showed just clear of the water, and on which the
sea was breaking; but he thought there was an eddy which would swing
him safely round the point, without bringing him near the breakers.
However, that day and the next, there was a good deal of wind blowing
in the direction contrary to the current, which, of 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 set off. But no sooner had he come
abreast of the sand-bank than he found himself in very deep water, with
a current running like a mill-race, which carried the boat further and
further away from the land, in spite of all that he could do with his
paddle. There was no wind, and the sail was useless.

Now he gave himself up for lost, for the harder he worked, only the
further away seemed the boat to be swept. The island was soon so far
off that Robinson could hardly see it, and he was quite exhausted
with the hard struggle to paddle the boat against the current. He was
in despair, and giving up paddling, left the boat to drift where she
would. Just then a faint puff of wind touched his cheek, and Robinson
hurriedly hoisted his sail. Soon a good breeze blew, which carried him
past a dangerous reef of rocks. Here the current seemed to divide, the
part in which he now was began to swing round towards the island, and
he plucked up heart again, and with his paddle did all he could to help
the sail. Robinson felt like a man who is set free after he has been
told that he must die; he could almost have wept for joy. Miles and
miles he 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 had tried to round in the morning. He drew up his boat on the shore
of a little cove that he found, and when he had made her fast, so that
the tide could not carry her away, there amongst the trees he lay down,
and slept sound, quite worn out.

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

Soon he found that he was not far from a spot that he had once before
visited, and by afternoon he arrived at the hut which he called his
country-house. Robinson got over the fence by the ladder, as usual,
pulling it up after him, and then he lay down to rest in the shade, for
he was still very weary from the hard work of the day before. Soon he
fell asleep. But what was his surprise in a little time 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 and wonder, for it was so long
since he had heard any voice but his own that he fancied it must be
something more than human that he now listened to. But no sooner had
he risen than he saw, sitting on a tree near to him, his parrot, which
must have flown all the way from Robinson’s other house, where he had
been left. It was talking away at a great rate, very excited at again
seeing its master, and Robinson hardly knew whether to be more relieved
or disappointed that it was only the bird that had called him.

For about a year after this Robinson kept to his own side of the
island, and employed his time chiefly in working on his land, and
in making dishes and pots of clay. These he had now learned to burn
properly. Pipes, too, he made, and they were a great comfort to him,
for he managed to cure very good tobacco from the wild plants that grew
around. And as he feared lest his powder might begin to run short, he
thought much over ways whereby he could trap goats for food, instead
of shooting them. After many trials, the best plan, he decided, was to
dig holes, which he covered with thin branches and leaves, on which he
sprinkled earth, so that when anything heavy passed over, it must fall
into the pit. By this means he caught many, and the kids he kept and
tamed, so that in no great time he had quite a large herd of goats.
These he kept in various small fields, round which from time to time he
had put fences.




CHAPTER V

                   ROBINSON SEES A FOOTPRINT ON THE
                       SAND, AND FINDS TRACES OF
                            CANNIBAL FEASTS


All this time Robinson had never gone near his canoe, but now the
longing came on him to go over to where he had left her, though he
felt that he should be afraid again to put to sea in her. This time,
however, when he got to the hill from which he had watched the set of
the current the day that he had been carried out to sea, he noticed
that there was no current to be seen, from which he concluded that
it must depend on the ebb and flow of the tide. Still, he was afraid
to venture far in the canoe, though he stopped some time at his
country-house, and went out sailing very often.

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

He listened, he looked about, but nothing could he hear or see. To the
top of a rising ground he ran, and looked all around. There was nothing
to be seen. And though he searched everywhere on the beach for more
footmarks, he found none.

Whose footprint could it be? That of some man, perhaps, he thought, who
might come stealing on him out from the trees, or murder him whilst he
slept.

Back to his house he hurried, all the way in a state of terror,
starting every now and again and facing round, thinking he was being
followed, and fancying often that a stump or a bush was a man, waiting
to spring on him. That night he slept not at all, and so shaken was
his nerve that every cry of a night bird, even every sound made by
an insect or a frog, caused him to start with fear, so that the
perspiration ran down his brow.

As day followed day, however, and nothing happened, Robinson began to
be less uneasy in his mind, and went about his usual work again. But
he strengthened the fence round his castle, and cut in it seven small
loop-holes, in which, fixed on frames, he placed loaded muskets, all
ready to fire if he should be attacked. And some distance from the
outside of the fence he planted a thick belt of small stakes, so that
in a few years’ time a perfect thicket of trees and bushes hid all
trace of his dwelling.

Years passed quietly, and nothing further happened to disturb Robinson,
or to make him think more of the footprint that had frightened him so
much. But he kept more than formerly to the interior of the island, and
lost no chance of looking for good places to hide in, if he should ever
need them. And he always carried a cutlass now, as well as his gun and
a couple of pistols.

[Illustration: He saw the mark of a naked foot on the sand]

One day it chanced, however, that he had gone further to the west of
the island than he had ever done before, and, looking over the sea,
he fancied that he saw, at a great distance, something like a boat or
a long canoe, but it was so far off that he could not be sure what it
was. This made him determine that always in future he would bring with
him to his lookout-place the telescope which he had saved from the
wreck.

The sight of this supposed boat brought back his uneasiness to some
extent, but he went on down to the beach, and there he saw a sight
which filled him with horror. All about the shore were scattered men’s
skulls and bones, and bits of burnt flesh, and in one place were the
remains of a big fire. Robinson stood aghast, feeling deadly sick. It
was easy for him to know the meaning of the terrible sight. It meant
that cannibals had been there, killing and eating their prisoners; for
when the natives of some parts of the world go to war, and catch any
of their enemies, it is their habit to build a fire, then to kill the
prisoners and feast on their roasted bodies, eating till they can eat
no more. Sometimes, if the man they are going to eat is too thin, they
keep him, and feed him up, till they think he is fat enough.

Now Robinson knew all this, though he had never yet met any cannibals.
And when he looked around he saw many bones lying about. They were so
old that it seemed certain to him that all those years he had been
living on an island which was a regular place for the natives to come
to for such feasts. Then he saw what a mercy it was that he had been
wrecked on the other side of the island, to which, he supposed, the
cannibals never came, because the beach was not so good for them to
land on.

Full of horror, Robinson hurried back to his house, and for almost two
years he never again came near that part of the island where the bones
lay, nor ever visited his boat. But all the time he kept thinking how
he might some day kill those cannibals whilst they were at their feast,
and perhaps save some of the poor men whom they had not yet killed.
Sometimes he thought of putting powder below the place where they were
likely to light their fire, and thus blow them up. But that did not
seem a very good plan, because he did not want to waste his powder, and
may be they might not light the fire on that spot, or they might not be
near when it exploded. So he looked for a place where he could hide,
near where the bones lay, and at last he found a good spot, from which
he could watch them land. Near this spot were trees, through which he
could creep up quite close to them, unseen, and so shoot without danger
of missing. And it was his plan, that if he should happen to see the
savages next time they came over for one of their horrible feasts, he
would lie hidden till a good chance came, then shoot as many as he
could with his gun and pistols, and afterwards with his cutlass rush
upon those that were left. In this way he counted on being able to
kill them all, even if there were as many as twenty, for they would be
taken by surprise, and in the confusion might not be able to get at
their spears and clubs.

When he had made this plan, Robinson was so pleased with it that for a
time he could think of little else, and every day he would walk three
miles to his lookout-hill, and watch through his telescope for signs of
canoes coming over the sea towards the island. But after two or three
months without result, he grew tired of it. Never a speck was to be
seen on the water in any direction, and he began to go less and less
often to the lookout-hill, and then gave up going altogether. Perhaps
too, he thought, it was no business of his; the savages did not know
any better, and were only doing what their fathers had taught them
to do. It was the custom in these savage lands, and Robinson came to
think, finally, that he had no right to interfere, unless they first
attacked him. He argued also that if he did attack, and it chanced
that he did not kill them all, that even only one got away, for certain
that man would tell his tribe as soon as he got home, and they would
come over in hundreds to murder Robinson in revenge for the death of
those he had killed. And no doubt they would eat him, the thought of
which was very dreadful.

On the whole, therefore, it seemed to him wisest to keep away
altogether from that part of the beach, and to hide as well as he could
all traces of any one living on the island. So, except to take away and
conceal his boat, for more than another year he never went back to that
spot. The boat, with her mast and sail and paddle, and a sort of little
anchor he had made for her, he took to the farthest east end of the
island. He was sure the savages would never come there in their canoes,
because of the strong current that usually swept past the rocks; and he
left her safely moored in a little bay, under the shelter of some high
rocks.

More than ever now, Robinson kept to his two houses, and seldom left
them, except to go to a deep valley he had found, through which ran a
little stream of water as clear as crystal, and in which he now kept
most of his goats, secured by a fence built all round the valley. He
almost gave up firing his gun, lest it should bring the savages to find
out the cause of the noise; and for the same reason he feared even to
chop wood or to drive a nail. He was particularly careful, too, never
to make a fire during the day, for nothing is so easily seen from a
distance as smoke, and it would certainly bring the savages on him, if
they were on the island, or anywhere near it.

So, when he needed a big fire, as he did often when burning the clay
dishes and pots which he made, he would generally light it during the
night. But sometimes in the day-time he would light it in the valley,
where the smoke would not show so plainly against the sky or the dark
trees, owing to the hollow being deep, and in the very middle of the
island.

Presently, he began to make charcoal, by burning wood under earth and
turf, and this charcoal he often took home to his house to use for
cooking his food, because charcoal makes no smoke.




CHAPTER VI

                   ROBINSON FINDS A CAVE; HEARS GUNS
                      FIRED BY A SHIP IN DISTRESS


Now one day when Robinson was down in the bottom of the valley, cutting
thick branches to burn for charcoal, he cleared away some undergrowth
at the foot of a great rock, in which, near the ground, there was a
sort of hole, or opening. Into this hole Robinson squeezed, not very
easily, and found himself in a cave of good size, high enough, at
least, to stand up in. It was quite dark, of course, to him coming in
from the sunlight, and he turned his back to the entrance to feel his
way further in, when suddenly, from the back of the cave he saw two
great fiery eyes glaring at him. His very hair bristled with fright,
for he could only think that it must be the Devil at least that he
saw; and through the mouth of the cave he fled with a yell.

But when he got into the bright sunshine he began to feel ashamed of
his panic, and to reason with himself that what he had seen must be
only his own fancy. So, taking up a big burning branch from his fire,
in he went again.

Before Robinson had taken three steps he stopped, in almost as great a
fright as at first. Close to him he heard a great sigh, as if of some
one in pain, then a sound like a muttering, as of words that he could
not understand; again another deep sigh. Cold sweat broke out all over
him, and he stepped back trembling, yet determined this time not to run
away.

Holding his torch well over his head, he looked around, and there on
the floor of the cave lay a huge old he-goat, gasping for breath,
dying, seemingly of mere old age.

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

Now that he had got over his fright, Robinson looked carefully about
him. The cave was small, not more than twelve feet across at its
widest, but he noticed at the far end another opening. This was so low
down, however, that he had to creep on his hands and knees to get in,
and without a better light than the burning torch, he could not see how
far it went. So he made up his mind to come again.

Robinson had long before this made a good supply of very fair candles
from the tallow of the goats he had killed, and next day he returned to
the cave with six of these, and his tinder-box to light them with. In
those days there were no matches, and men used to strike a light with
a flint and steel, and tinder, which was a stuff that caught fire very
easily from a spark.

Entering the cave, Robinson found, on lighting a candle, that the goat
was now dead. Moving it aside, to be buried later, he went down on
his hands and knees, and crawled about ten yards through the small
passage, till at last he found himself in a great chamber, the roof of
which was quite twenty feet high. On every side the walls reflected the
light of his candle, and glittered like gold, or almost like diamonds,
he thought. The floor was perfectly dry and level, even on the walls
there was no damp, and Robinson was delighted with his discovery. Its
only drawback was the low entrance; but, as he decided to use the cave
chiefly as a place to retreat to if he should ever be attacked, that
was in reality an advantage, because one man, if he had firearms, could
easily defend it against hundreds.

At once Robinson set about storing in it all his powder, except three
or four pounds, all his lead for making bullets, and his spare guns and
muskets. When moving the powder, he thought he might as well open a
barrel which had drifted ashore out of the wreck after the earthquake,
and though water had got into it, there was not a great deal of damage
done, for the powder had crusted on the outside only, and in the inside
there was about sixty pounds weight, quite dry and good. This, with
what remained of the first lot, gave him a very large supply, enough to
last all his life.

For more than two-and-twenty years Robinson had now been in the island,
and he had grown quite used to it, and to his manner of living. If
he could only have been sure that no savages would come near him, he
felt almost that he would be content to spend all the rest of his days
there, to die at last, as the goat he found in the cave had died, of
old age.

It was near the end of the month of December, his harvest time, and
Robinson used then to be much out in his fields even before daylight.
One morning, being anxious to finish cutting the crop, he had left
his house even earlier than usual, long before the stars had ceased
to shine or the first flush of dawn had showed in the sky, and as he
crossed the higher lying ground between his castle and the cornfield,
it chanced that he glanced in the direction of the sea.

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

Straight back to his castle he ran, and climbed hurriedly over the
fence, pulling the ladder up after him. Quickly he loaded all his
muskets and pistols, ready to defend himself to the last gasp, for
he was sure that, if these savage men should happen to see his crops
growing in the fields, they would know that some one was living on the
island, and would never rest till they found him.

But when Robinson had waited some time without anything happening, he
could bear the suspense no longer. Taking the telescope, he put his
ladder against the rock where there was a flat ledge, and climbing up
to this, pulled the ladder after him, and again resting it there, so
climbed to the top of the rock, where he lay down and looked eagerly
through the glass.

There were no less than nine savages, he saw, all sitting round the
fire, cooking something, but what it was that they cooked he could not
tell, though it was not difficult to guess.

After a time they began a kind of dance round the fire, all of them
stark naked, and Robinson watched them at this for nearly two hours.

The cannibals had two canoes, which were hauled up on the shore, and as
it was then low water he fancied they must be waiting for the tide to
rise again. And so it turned out, for when the tide had been flowing
for a time, they shoved off, jumped on board, and paddled away.

As soon as Robinson was sure that they were really gone, he went with
all his speed to the hill from where, first of all, long ago, he had
seen signs of savages, and looking through his glass, he saw three more
canoes at sea, all paddling away from the island. On going down to the
shore, there he saw a dreadful sight. Skulls, bits of flesh, and bones,
lay about, and fresh blood was everywhere, hardly yet soaked into the
sand.

This awful sight so horrified and roused Robinson that once more he
determined, whenever the next chance came, to attack the cannibals,
however many there might be, and kill all that he could. But always,
for long after, he lived in great uneasiness, never sure that at any
moment he might not be taken by surprise. Often he wished the time had
come when he could run at them; for suspense is always harder to bear
than any action, however dangerous.

But many months went by, and no savages were seen, and nothing
disturbed Robinson except dreadful dreams, from which in the night he
often started out of his sleep, crying out and struggling, thinking
that the savages were trying to kill him.

About the middle of the following May, one day there came a very great
storm, with much thunder and lightning and rain, and during the night
the wind blew a perfect hurricane. Robinson was sitting listening to
the roaring of the wind, and sometimes reading the Bible which he had
found in one of the seamen’s chests, for he could not sleep.

Suddenly he was startled by a kind of dull thud that seemed to shake
the very air, such a thud as you might hear if something very heavy,
but soft, fell on the floor of a room upstairs. And this noise was
followed in about a minute by another thud. This time he could hear
plainer, and he knew that the sounds were those of big guns fired at
sea, and that they must come from some ship in danger, and signalling
for help, perhaps to some other vessel.

Robinson ran out, and climbing up his ladder, got to the top of the
rock in time to see the flash of another gun, away towards the reef of
rocks at the end of the island.

If he was not able to help the people on board the vessel, they might
yet, if they were saved, help him, so he collected all the dry wood
he could get, and making a great pile, set fire to it, as a signal to
the ship that there was some one on the island. And he was sure that
the signal was seen, for as soon as it blazed up another gun was fired;
then gun after gun, for some time.

Robinson kept his fire blazing all night, and when daylight came, and
the storm cleared off, he thought he could see, away to the east,
something which looked like a ship. He fancied she was at anchor, for
she never moved. But the distance was too great, and the weather too
thick for him to be sure if it was a ship at all that he saw.

Later in the day, when the weather had cleared, on going up the hill
from which, long ago, he had watched the current sweeping past the
rocks, he could see plainly that there was a vessel, but, to his
sorrow, that she was a wreck, fast on the reef where, the day he was
carried out to sea, he had found the current divide.

Without doubt the crew must have perished. And it filled Robinson
with sadness and great grief to think how near he had been perhaps
to fellow countrymen, and how not even one had been spared to come
ashore. His whole soul yearned for the sight of a white man, some one
to whom he could speak. But all that ever he saw of the crew, except
what he afterwards found on the ship itself, was the body of a boy,
which drifted on shore at the end of the island nearest the wreck; and
he could not tell from the few clothes that were on the body to what
nation the boy had belonged. In his pockets were two gold coins, and a
tobacco pipe, and the last at least was of use to Robinson.




CHAPTER VII

                  ROBINSON VISITS THE WRECKED SPANISH
                     SHIP; RESCUES A PRISONER FROM
                             THE CANNIBALS


When the weather had again become calm and settled, Robinson was
greatly tempted to venture out in his boat to the wreck, in spite of
the narrow escape he had had before at that place; but there might
still, he thought, be some one alive on board, and he made up his mind
to risk it. This time he put a compass in the boat, and great store of
food and water, as much as she could well carry, and he pushed off,
paddling along the shore till he came near to the end of the sand-bank
where the current ran so strong. And there his heart failed him. If he
once got into that current, how was he to get out of it again? And if
he were swept out to sea, and a gale of wind sprang up, what chance
was there that his small boat would live through it? He was so cast
down by these thoughts that he ran the boat ashore and got out.

Going on to a high rock he sat for hours watching the water, trying
to make up his mind whether to venture to the wreck or not, when he
noticed that the current was now running in the direction contrary to
that in which it had been flowing the first time he saw it. This, it
occurred to him, must be caused by the tides, and it seemed likely that
if he chose his time, the current going one way would carry him close
to the wreck, and that caused by the next tide would help him back
again.

This seemed so simple and easy that he determined to risk it next day.
Sleeping that night in the canoe, early in the morning he started, and
in little more than two hours safely reached the wreck, without any
trouble.

She was a pitiful sight,--Spanish, he judged, from her build. She was
lying on the reef, jammed fast between two rocks, the after part of
her all stove in by the sea. Her main and foremasts had gone over the
side when she struck, and hung about the wreck in a tangle of rigging
and spars. Her bulwarks, and rails, and the poop ladders, were all
gone, and part of one boat still hung on the davits, torn away by the
furious sea before the crew could attempt to lower it. On board, there
was no living thing except a dog, which yelped when it saw Robinson
coming, and jumped into the sea, and swam eagerly to him when he spoke
to it. Poor beast! It was almost dead from thirst. Robinson gave it
water, and food, and it drank till he was almost afraid it might burst
itself.

After this, Robinson boarded the wreck, and the first thing he saw was
two men lying in the cook’s galley, dead, held fast in each other’s
arms. Beyond this, there was no trace of any human being, and the
cargo, whatever it might have been, had mostly been washed out of the
wreck by the sea. There were still a few casks of brandy, or wine, low
down in the bold, but they were too heavy for Robinson to move.

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

Except what he found in the seamen’s chests, there was nothing of value
in the cargo he brought ashore. In the chests were many things that
he prized, linen shirts, handkerchiefs, and coloured neckcloths, pots
of sweetmeats, a case of bottles of cordial waters, very handsomely
mounted with silver, and, what then was of less value to him, three
great bags of gold pieces, besides gold doubloons, and bars of gold.
But all this gold he would gladly have given then for a few pairs of
English shoes and stockings, for it was of no use at all to him on the
island. However, he stowed all the money and the gold in his cave,
along with the other things, and then returned and worked his boat
along shore to the harbour where he had kept her so long.

But the sight of the wrecked ship and the drowned men had filled him
again with the longing to go away, and if he had had as good a boat as
that in which he escaped from the pirates, he thought that he would
have waited no longer on the island, but would have put to sea in her,
and taken his chance of reaching some land where white men dwelt. With
the frail craft that he had, however, such a plan was not possible, and
he had no choice but to go on living as he had already so long lived,
all the time in daily fear of a raid by the savages.

And yet, at times, when his spirits were more than usually low, when
the burden of the lonely years pressed most heavily upon him, Robinson
used to think that surely if the savages could come to his land, he
could go to theirs. How far did they come? Where was their country?
What kind of boats had they? And so eager to go was he sometimes, that
he forgot to think of what he would do when he got there, or what would
become of him if he fell into the hands of the savages. His mind was
utterly taken up with the one thought of getting to the mainland, and
even his dreams were of little else.

[Illustration: The harbour where he had kept his boat so long]

One night, when he had put himself almost into a fever with the trouble
of his mind, he had lain long awake, tossing and moaning, but at last
he had fallen asleep. And he dreamed, not as he had usually done of
late, that he was sailing to the mainland, but that as he was leaving
his castle in the morning he saw on the shore two canoes and eleven
savages landing, and that they had with them another man, whom they
were just about to kill and eat, when suddenly the prisoner jumped
up and ran for his life. And in his dream Robinson fancied that the
man came running to hide in the thicket round the castle, and that
thereupon he went out to help him. Then in the dream, the savage
kneeled down, as if begging for mercy, and Robinson took him over the
ladder into the castle, saying to himself, ‘Now that I’ve got this
fellow, I can certainly go to the mainland, for he will show me what
course to steer, and where to go when we land.’ And he woke, with the
joyful feeling that now at last all was well. But when he was wide
awake, and knew that it was only a dream after all, poor Robinson was
more cast down than ever, and more unhappy than he had been during all
the years he had lived on the island.

The dream had, however, this result; that he saw his only plan to get
away was, if possible, to rescue some day one of the prisoners whom the
cannibals were about to kill, and in time get the man to help him to
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 more than a year and a
half he went nearly every day to his lookout-place, and swept the sea
with his telescope, in the hope of seeing canoes coming. But none came,
and Robinson was getting terribly tired of the constant watch. Still
he did not give up, for he knew that sooner or later the savages would
land again.

Yet many months passed, and still they did not come, till one morning,
very early, almost to his surprise, he saw no fewer than five canoes
hauled up on the shore on his own side of the island. The savages who
had come in them were nowhere to be seen. Now, he knew that always from
four to six men came in each canoe, which meant that at least twenty,
and perhaps as many as thirty men had landed.

This was a greater number than he cared to face, so he kept inside his
castle, in great doubt what to do, but ready to fight, in case they
should attack him.

When he had waited a long time and still could hear nothing of the
savages, he climbed up his ladder and got to the top of the rock,
taking great care not to show himself against the sky-line. Looking
through his glass, he saw that there were at least thirty savages,
dancing wildly round a fire.

As he looked, some of the men left the others, and going over to the
canoes dragged from them two prisoners. One of these almost at once
fell forward on his face, knocked down from behind, as it seemed to
Robinson, with a wooden club, and two or three of the cannibals at once
cut him open to be ready for cooking, whilst for a moment or two they
left the other prisoner standing by himself.

Seeing a chance of escape, the man made a dash for his life, running
with tremendous speed along the sands straight for that part of the
beach near Robinson’s castle.

Now this alarmed Robinson very much, for it seemed to him that the
whole of the savages started after the prisoner. He could not help
thinking it likely that, as in his dream, this man would take shelter
in the thicket round the castle, in which case Robinson was likely soon
to have more fighting than he would relish, for the whole body of the
cannibals would be on him at once.

As he watched the poor man racing for life, however, he was relieved
to see that he ran much faster than his pursuers, of whom only three
continued to run after him. If he could hold out for another mile or
two there was little doubt that he would escape. Between the castle and
the runners was the creek up which Robinson used to run his rafts from
the wreck, and when the escaped prisoner came to that, he plunged in,
and though the tide was full, with less than thirty powerful strokes
he reached the other side, and with long easy strides continued his
run. Of the men in pursuit, two also plunged in and swam through, but
less quickly than the man escaping, being more blown with running,
because of what they had eaten before starting. The third man stopped
altogether, and went back the way he came.

Seeing the turn things were taking, it seemed to Robinson that now had
come his chance to get a servant, and he resolved to try to save the
life of the man who was fleeing from the cannibals. At once he hurried
down the ladder, snatched up his two 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 of Robinson
seemed to frighten him at first as much as did the men who were trying
to catch him. But Robinson again spoke, and signed to him with his hand
to come back, and in the meantime went slowly towards the other men,
who were now coming near. Then, rushing at the foremost, he knocked
him senseless with the butt of his gun, for it seemed to him safer not
to fire, lest the noise should bring the other cannibals around.

The second man, seeing his comrade fall, hesitated, and stopped, but
Robinson saw when nearer to him that the savage had in his hands a bow
and arrow with which he was just about to shoot. There was then no
choice but to fire first, which Robinson did, killing the man on the
spot.

Thereupon the man who had been chased by the others was so terrified by
the flash and noise of the gun, and at seeing his enemy fall dead, that
he stood stock still, trembling, and it was with great difficulty that
Robinson coaxed him to come near. This at last he did, stopping every
few paces and kneeling down. At length, coming close to Robinson, he
again knelt, kissed the ground, and taking hold of Robinson’s foot, set
it on his head as it rested on the sand.

[Illustration: The man knelt and kissed the ground]

Whilst this was going on, Robinson noticed that the savage whom he
had knocked down had begun to move, and to come to his senses. To this
he drew the attention of the man whom he had rescued, who said some
words that Robinson could not understand, but which sounded pleasant to
an ear that had heard no voice but his own for more than twenty-five
years. Next he made a motion with his hand, as if asking for the
cutlass that hung at Robinson’s belt, and when the weapon was given
to him he ran at his enemy, and with one clean blow cut off his head.
Then, laughing, he brought the head, and laid it with the cutlass at
Robinson’s feet.

But what caused most wonder to the man was how the savage whom Robinson
shot had been killed at so great a distance, and he went to look at the
body, turning it over and over, and looking long at the wound in the
breast that the bullet had made, evidently much puzzled.

Robinson then turned to go away, beckoning to the savage to follow, but
the man made signs that he would bury the two bodies in the sand, so
that the others might not find them if they followed. With his hands he
soon scraped holes deep enough to cover the bodies, and in less than a
quarter of an hour there was hardly a trace left of what had happened.

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

Soon the man was sound asleep. He was, Robinson thought, a handsome
and well-made man; the muscles of his arms and back and legs showed
great strength, and all his limbs were beautifully formed. As near as
Robinson could guess, he was about twenty-six years of age, with a good
and manly face, and long black hair. His nose and lips were like those
of a European, and his teeth were white and even. In colour he was not
black, but of a sort of rich chocolate brown, the skin shining with
health, and pleasant to look upon.




CHAPTER VIII

                      HOW ROBINSON TRAINED FRIDAY


Whilst the man slept, Robinson went out to milk his goats, at which
work the savage, having waked in about half an hour, found him, and
running up, threw himself on the ground near Robinson’s feet, one of
which he again raised as before, and placed on his head. At the same
time he made every kind of sign of gratitude and submission.

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

Friday showed great quickness in learning. He seemed to be happy
and contented, and free from trouble, except that the clothes which
Robinson made him wear gave him at first great discomfort, for in those
warm parts of the world the natives are not used to clothes, but always
go about naked. And perhaps they are healthier so, for when rain comes,
they can cover their skin with cocoa-nut oil, and the wet then runs
off their bodies without chilling them, and they do not catch cold by
wearing damp clothes. Sometimes they make drooping girdles of the broad
leaves of the banana, which are two or three feet long, and wear these
round their waists; and sometimes, for ornament, they stick crimson
flowers behind their ears, or hang them round their necks. But other
clothes they have none to wear.

And indeed such things would only be in the way, for the natives who
live on the coasts often pass nearly whole days swimming in the warm
sea. They are never afraid of sharks, for they swim so well and so fast
that often they are able to kill the sharks, diving under them, and
stabbing them in the belly with a knife.

Even the very little children swim almost before they can walk, and
whole families go out for a day in the sea, as children and their
parents in England might go for a picnic. One of their games, when a
heavy swell is rolling in, toppling over in cataracts of foam as the
waves reach the shallower water near the shore, is to swim out, diving
through the broken water, and taking with them a light plank. On this,
when they have got beyond where the seas break, they mount, and come
rushing in on the crest of the great waves, shrieking with laughter
when any one is upset. It is glorious fun, they think.

The day following that on which Robinson had saved Friday, they went
out together to see if there were any signs of the cannibals still
being on the island, but it was evident that they had gone away without
troubling about the two men whom Robinson had killed. Round the place
where their fire had been, were horrible remains of bodies, pieces of
flesh half eaten, or charred by the fire, skulls, hands, and bones
of legs and feet. Friday made Robinson understand that these were the
remains of three prisoners who had been brought over along with him, to
be feasted on.

Robinson’s blood ran cold as he looked, and the horror of the sight
made him sick and faint. He ordered Friday to collect all the bodies
and other remains, and to build a fire to burn them, which Friday very
cheerfully did. To him it was no great matter, for, of course, all his
life he himself had been a cannibal, and he was quite used to such
scenes. Indeed, when they passed the spot where the two men had been
buried in the sand, Friday pointed it out to Robinson, and gave him to
understand that he meant to come back, and dig up and eat the bodies.
This filled Robinson with disgust and rage, and he let Friday know that
he would be severely punished, perhaps killed, if ever such a thing was
done by him.

For some time Robinson did not trust Friday, and did not allow him
to sleep in the same part of his castle with himself, but kept him at
night in a little tent outside the fence. Every night he drew up the
ladder, so that if Friday ever should attempt to get over, he would be
sure to make noise enough to wake Robinson. Other precautions also he
took, but soon he found that they were not needed. Friday was quite
faithful. And he was never sulky nor lazy, but always merry, and ready
to do anything that Robinson told him. And as time went on, Robinson
did not doubt that if there should ever be need for it, Friday would
risk his life to save his master.

At first when they went out in the woods together, Friday was terrified
each time that Robinson’s gun was fired. He had never seen anything put
into it, and it was more than he could understand how things could be
killed merely by the noise and the flash of fire. It seemed to him that
the gun was some sort of evil spirit that might do him harm, and it was
long before he could be brought to touch one of them, though when he
was alone Robinson often heard him talking to them. Afterwards, when he
could speak English better, and knew more about guns, he told Robinson
that he used to ask them not to kill him.

One thing that Robinson could never teach Friday was to eat salt with
his food. Salt is a thing that the cannibals do not use, and some
of them, to this day, go so far as to say that they do not care to
eat a white man, because he is too salt. A native of their own race,
they think, is much sweeter, though of course they eat only men of a
different tribe whom they may capture during one of their wars. But the
only form in which they take salt is as sea water, and that they use as
medicine, drinking it in large quantities till it makes them sick.

Robinson asked Friday if his tribe ever came to this island, and Friday
said that they did, and that he himself had often come over; and he
told Robinson that on one visit he and his friends had eaten more than
twenty men. His tribe, he said, was very strong, and fought well. Thus
they took more prisoners, and used the island oftener than the other
tribes, and it seemed that the far side of the island, where Robinson
had seen so many remains of feasts, was the part that Friday’s tribe
held as their own. Sometimes other tribes used another island for their
feasts.

It troubled Robinson’s mind greatly to hear what Friday had to say
about this custom, but by little and little, as the weeks went past,
he got him to see how horrible a thing it was to eat human flesh. From
this beginning, Friday gradually came to be in his habits more like
a white man, and teaching him was a great joy to Robinson, who found
the years after Friday’s arrival the happiest of all that he had lived
on the island. Not only had he now help in his work, but he had some
one to talk to, for want of which, during the weary years when he was
alone, he had almost forgotten his own tongue.

When they began easily to understand each other, Robinson asked Friday
how far it was from the island to his country, and if the canoes were
not often lost whilst crossing. Friday said there was no danger, and
that no canoes were ever wrecked; that always in the morning the
wind and the current set one way, and the other in the afternoon.
This Robinson thought must have something to do with the tides, but
afterwards he learned that the change of wind was only the difference
between the sea breeze and the land breeze, which blow time about,
morning and evening, in those parts. The change in the current was due
to the in-draft and out-draft of a great river, off whose mouth the
island lay.

Friday told Robinson much about his country, and about his people, who
he said were Caribs. And a great way ‘beyond the moon,’ by which he
meant to the west, he said that white men lived who had beards such as
Robinson wore. These white men, he said, had killed very many natives,
from which Robinson fancied that they must be Spaniards, who about that
time were very cruel to the people whose countries they had taken.

Robinson asked if Friday could tell him how he might get over to where
the white men lived, and Friday said it would be very easy, if they
had a big canoe. And again Robinson began to make plans and to hope to
escape from the island. He showed Friday the boat in which he and the
crew had tried to land from the wreck, the remains of which still lay
high up on the shore, out of reach of the waves of any but a very high
tide, 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 seen such a boat, but for some
time he could not make Robinson understand where, or when, he had seen
it. Robinson thought he meant that a ship had been driven ashore on the
coast, and that the boat, perhaps, had come from her. But presently
Friday spoke of the men who had been in the boat, and whom he and his
people had pulled out of the sea. He counted on his fingers to make
Robinson understand that there had been seventeen of them.

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

This put new ideas into Robinson’s head, for he thought that probably
these men might have belonged to the ship whose guns he had heard, and
to which he had afterwards gone out in his boat as she lay on the reef.

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

‘Why did they not kill and eat them?’ asked Robinson; and again Friday
assured him that they ate men only whom they took in war.

It was some time after this that Robinson and Friday chanced to be on
the high hill at the east end of the island. The day was cloudless and
very clear, with a light breeze rippling the water, just such a day as
that on which, years ago, Robinson had seen land, far over the sea.
Friday gazed long in that direction, and then began to jump and dance,
pointing to the dim blue coast. ‘There my country! See! There my people
live!’ he said, his eyes sparkling with joy, and an eager light on his
face.

After this, for a time Robinson was not easy in his mind about Friday.
He had little doubt 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, might even return, perhaps, with a hundred or two of his friends,
and kill and eat his master. But in this Robinson was very unjust to
Friday, who had no such thoughts in his mind as those of which he was
suspected.

And this Robinson soon found out. One day, as they walked up the same
hill, he asked if Friday would not be glad to be once more in his own
land.

‘Yes,’ said Friday; ‘very glad.’

‘Would you eat men’s flesh again?’

‘No, never,’ said Friday, shaking his head very much.

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

‘But your people will eat me,’ said Robinson.

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

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

So he took Friday to the place where he kept the small canoe he had
made, and quickly he found that he was a very much better boatman than
Robinson himself, and could make her go through the water nearly twice
as fast as Robinson was able to do.

But when Robinson asked if they might try to go over in that boat,
Friday’s face fell. She was too small, he said. Robinson then showed
him the first boat he had built, and which had been lying on the sand
now for more than twenty-two years. That, Friday said, was big enough.
But the heat of the sun by this time had so warped and cracked her
that, even if they could have got her into the sea, she would not have
floated.

Then Robinson told Friday that he would build him a bigger boat, and
send him home in it, but that he himself would remain on the island
alone, as he had been before.

The poor lad’s feelings were hurt at this, and he asked, ‘Why you angry
mad with Friday? Suppose master go, Friday go! Suppose master no go,
Friday no go!’ And he brought a hatchet, and said, ‘You kill Friday;
not send him away.’ Robinson was much touched by this devotion, and
afterwards always had perfect faith in him.




CHAPTER IX

                   ROBINSON AND FRIDAY BUILD A LARGE
                    BOAT; THEY RESCUE TWO PRISONERS
                          FROM THE CANNIBALS


But still the wish to leave the island was as strong as ever, and
together he and Friday went to work to fell a tree from which to build
a boat good enough for their voyage to the mainland. Friday soon showed
that he knew far better than Robinson the kind of tree best suited for
boat-making, though he knew less about hollowing it out; for he had
never seen tools suitable for such work. Friday proposed to burn out
the inside, but Robinson showed him how to use the tools, and soon he
was very handy with them.

It took the two of them little more than a month to finish the boat.
And very handsome she looked, and very proud of her they were. But
it cost them quite a fortnight of very hard work to get her into the
water. Below her they had to put large wooden rollers, and then with
strong sticks, inch by inch, they levered and pushed her into the sea,
where she floated, very trim and ship-shape, big enough to carry a
dozen men.

Robinson was astonished at Friday’s skill in paddling so large a canoe.
She seemed to fly through the water, and he could turn her with great
ease.

‘Will she do to go over in?’ he asked, and Friday, grinning, said,
‘Yes, even if big wind blow.’

But Robinson did not mean to depend only on paddling. He made Friday
cut down a straight young pine-tree for a mast, and amongst the old
ship’s sails that he had kept so long he found at last two pieces that
were not rotten. From these he made what is called a shoulder-of-mutton
sail, and a small foresail. It took him nearly two months to cut and
fit them, but when they were finished and hoisted they acted very well,
and when a clumsy rudder had been fixed to the boat, he found that she
steered nicely, and was quite safe and stiff in a fresh breeze.

Friday knew nothing of sailing, and was astonished to see the boat go
so fast, but he quickly learned to handle her quite as well as Robinson
could do. The only thing he could not learn was how to steer by compass.

Six-and-twenty years had passed since Robinson came to the island, and
though his hope of getting away was now great, he still went on digging
and sowing and fencing as usual, and picking and curing his raisins, in
case by any chance he should still have to stop where he was.

As the rainy season was nearly due, he made Friday dig near the creek
a kind of dock in the sand for the new boat, just deep enough for her
to float in; and when the tide was low, they made a dam across the end
of the dock to keep the water out. Then they covered the boat over very
thickly with boughs of trees; and there she lay, quite dry and snug,
till the end of the wet weather, when it was Robinson’s plan to start
for the mainland.

A week or two before the dry season again came, Robinson meant to open
the dock and get the boat afloat once more. And to be ready in plenty
of time he began to lay by a lot of food and other stores for use on
the voyage.

One morning, when he was very busy over his work, he told Friday to go
down to the beach to see if he could find a turtle. Off went Friday,
but before he had been gone many minutes, back he came running in a
great hurry, crying out ‘Master! Master! O sorrow! O bad!’

‘What’s the matter, Friday?’ asked Robinson.

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

Robinson cheered him as well as he could.

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

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

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

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

Then Robinson loaded two guns with large swan shot, and gave them to
Friday, and himself took four muskets, which he loaded carefully with
five small bullets and two slugs each, and in each of his pistols he
put two bullets. Then he hung his cutlass by his side, and gave Friday
a hatchet.

When all was ready, he went up the hill with his telescope, and saw
that there were in all twenty-one savages, with three prisoners. They
had landed not far beyond the creek, near a spot where thick bushes
grew almost down to the sea.

Giving Friday one of the pistols to stick in his belt, and one of the
muskets to carry, they set off, each of them now armed with a pistol
and three guns, besides Robinson’s cutlass and Friday’s hatchet.
Robinson put in his pocket a small bottle of rum, and gave Friday a
bag with more powder and bullets to carry, and told him to keep very
quiet, and to be sure not to fire till Robinson gave the word.

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 go very fast.
During this walk, Robinson began to argue with himself again, and to
think that perhaps after all it was no business of his to go killing
savages who had never done him any harm, and who were only doing what
they and their people had done for hundreds of years. They knew no
better, he said to himself, and why should he kill them? His mind
was so filled with doubts, that he did not know what to do. Finally,
he decided that he would only go near enough to see plainly what the
savages were doing, but that, unless there should be some special cause
for it, he would not attack them.

When he and Friday got near the place where the savages had lit their
fire, Robinson sent Friday forward, to see what was going on, and to
come back and tell him.

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

This news at once changed Robinson’s plans, and he had no longer any
doubt what to do.

Creeping forward, he saw plainly through his glass the white man lying
bound hand and foot on the sand. There was another tree, Robinson
noticed, with a clump of bushes round it, some distance nearer to the
savages, and within very easy shot of them. To that he and Friday now
crawled.

There was no time to lose, for when they reached the tree, two of the
savages had gone to the white man, and were untying his ankles. The
other cannibals were all sitting close together.

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

‘Are you ready, Friday?’ whispered Robinson.

‘Ready,’ said Friday.

‘Then fire!’

Robinson’s first shot killed one and wounded two, but Friday’s dropped
two dead, and three wounded. Snatching up fresh guns, both fired again
before the savages who were not hurt could get on their feet, for they
were so taken by surprise and frightened by the noise, that the poor
wretches hardly knew what was happening. This time only two dropped,
but many more were wounded by the swan shot, and ran about yelling till
they fell from loss of blood.

‘Now, Friday,’ said Robinson, taking up one of the remaining loaded
muskets, ‘follow me.’ And he rushed out of the wood, with Friday close
behind, and charged down on the cannibals as fast as he could run.

The two men who had gone to kill the white prisoner no sooner saw this
than they fled to the canoes, and three of the others followed, and
jumped into the same canoe.

Robinson bade Friday shoot at them, and Friday, running forward, fired.
All the men in the canoe fell, two of them dead and one wounded. The
others seemed to fall from fear, for they soon jumped up and paddled
away with all their might.

[Illustration: Robinson ran to the white prisoner and cut his bonds]

Whilst Friday kept on firing, Robinson ran to the white prisoner and
cut his bonds, helping him on to his feet, and giving him some rum from
the bottle he had brought. The man, on being asked what countryman he
was, answered that he was a Spaniard, and he began to thank Robinson
for what he had done. But Robinson, who could speak a little Spanish,
stopped him, saying, ‘Señor, we will talk afterwards. At present we
must fight.’ And he gave the Spaniard the cutlass from his belt and a
pistol, telling him, if he had strength left, to go and do what he
could against the savages.

As soon as the man got the weapons in his hands, he ran with fury
at the cannibals and cut two down, then turned, and with equal fury
attacked the rest.

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

Meantime the Spaniard had attacked a very big, powerful savage who was
armed with a club, and though with his cutlass he had twice wounded
the cannibal in the head, yet from being bound so long the white man
was weak, and now looked like getting the worst of it. For the savage,
making a rush, closed with him and threw him, and in the struggle had
nearly wrenched the cutlass out of his hand, when the Spaniard suddenly
quitting his hold, drew his pistol and shot the man through the body,
killing him on the spot.

The other natives were now scattered in every direction, and Friday,
running after them with his hatchet, killed all of them except one who
had been wounded by the Spaniard, and who, in spite of his wounds,
jumped into the sea and swam out to the canoe in which were the two
others who had got away.

Friday advised Robinson to take another of the canoes and go after
them; and Robinson agreed, for he thought that if any escaped they
would be certain to come back, bringing hundreds of others to avenge
the death of their friends. So the two ran to the beach and began to
shove off a canoe. But to their surprise, on the bottom of the canoe
lay another prisoner, an old man, tied so hard, neck and heels, that
even when his bonds were cut he could not move. He groaned and lay
still, perhaps thinking that he was only being untied to be killed.

Robinson handed the rum to Friday and told him to pour some down the
poor man’s throat, which seemed to revive him, for he sat up.

No sooner did Friday look at him and hear him speak, than he began
to dance and shout and laugh, and then kneeling down, rubbed noses
with the savage (which is what these folks do instead of kissing each
other), and he was so excited that for some time he could not explain
what was the matter. As soon as he could speak, he told Robinson that
the man whom they had found was his father. The poor creature’s wrists
and ankles were chafed and stiff from being so long bound, and he was
parched with thirst.

Friday ran and fetched water for him, and then with rum rubbed his
father’s wrists and ankles. Those of the Spaniard also were so
dreadfully cut and swollen, and he was so worn out with fighting, that
Friday had to carry him on his back to the canoe. Then he paddled the
two men along to the creek, whilst Robinson walked. But both men had to
be carried up to the castle, and Robinson was forced to rig up a tent
for them outside, because it was not possible for him and Friday to
lift them over the fence.

The next day Robinson sent Friday to bury the bodies of the savages who
had been killed, and to bring in the muskets.

When that was done, he made Friday ask his father if he thought the
savages were likely to come back. The man said that he thought they
were so frightened by the way they had been attacked, and by the noise
of the guns and the fire and smoke coming from them, that they would
probably never return. He said he had heard them call out that two evil
spirits were attacking them. And it turned out that the old man was
right, for no cannibals were ever again known to visit this island.




CHAPTER X

                      ARRIVAL OF AN ENGLISH SHIP;
                        ROBINSON SAILS FOR HOME


Soon after this Robinson had a long talk with the Spaniard, who told
him how he and his comrades had been wrecked four years since, on that
part of the coast where Friday’s tribe lived. He said that they were
well treated by the natives, but that they were put to very great
straits now for want of clothes, that their powder was finished, and
that they had lost all hope of ever getting back to their own country.
He himself, he said, had been captured in one of the many small wars
that are always taking place among the various tribes.

It struck Robinson that it might be possible for him to get these men
over to his island, provided that he could be sure of their good
faith, and that when they came, they did not take the island from him
by treachery. It was a risk, he thought, but then, if he got so many
men, it would not be difficult to build a small ship that could carry
them all to England.

So he asked the Spaniard if he would promise, and if he thought he
could get his comrades to take an oath that, if Robinson helped them,
they would look on him as their captain, and would swear to obey him in
all things. The Spaniard readily promised for himself, and said that he
was sure his comrades would keep faith.

It was arranged, therefore, that in about six months, when the next
harvest was reaped, and there would be plenty of food for so many extra
men, the Spaniard and Friday’s father should go over to the mainland in
one of the canoes which had been taken from the savages.

Meantime, all hands set about the curing of very large quantities of
raisins, and much other work was done to be in readiness for the
coming of these men.

When the harvest was reaped, Robinson gave the Spaniard and Friday’s
father each a musket and a supply of powder and bullets, and loaded the
canoe with food, enough to last them and the others about a fortnight,
and the two men set off for the mainland in fine weather, and with a
fair wind.

It was about eight days after this, and when Robinson had begun to look
out for their return, that one morning very early, when Robinson was
asleep, Friday came running in, shouting, ‘Master! master! They come.’
Up jumped Robinson, and hurrying on his clothes, ran out.

Looking towards the sea, he soon made out a sailing-boat making for
the shore, coming from the south end of the island, but still some
miles away. This was not the direction from which the Spaniard and his
comrades would come, nor were they likely to be in a sailing-boat. So
Robinson took his telescope, and went to the top of the hill to see if
he could make out who were on board, before they landed.

Hardly had he got on to the hill when he noticed a ship at anchor some
distance from the shore. She looked like an English vessel, he thought,
and the boat like an English long-boat.

This was a wonderful sight to Robinson, but yet he was not easy in his
mind. It was not a part of the world where an English ship was likely
to come, because in those days they were nearly all Spanish vessels
that traded in these seas, and the English and Spaniards were bitter
enemies. What could an English ship be doing here? There had been no
storm to drive her out of her course.

Robinson feared that if she was English there must be something wrong
about her. Perhaps, he thought, she was a Pirate. So he was careful not
to show himself or Friday.

[Illustration: What could an English ship be doing here?]

Presently, as he watched, he saw the men in the boat run her ashore
and draw her up on the beach, about half a mile from his castle. When
they had landed, he could easily see through his glass that they were
Englishmen.

There were eleven men, but three of them had their hands tied behind
their backs, and were evidently prisoners. When the first four or
five men had jumped ashore, they brought out these three, all the
while ill-treating them, and behaving as if they meant to kill their
prisoners. Friday was sure that they meant to eat them.

Soon, without further harming the three men, the others scattered about
amongst the trees near the shore, leaving the three sitting on the
ground, very sad-looking, but with their hands now untied.

At the time the boat was run aground, it was just high-water, and the
two sailors who had been left in charge of her, and who had evidently
been drinking too much rum, went to sleep, and never noticed that
the tide was going out. When they woke, the boat was high and dry,
and with all the strength of the whole crew they could not move her,
because the sand at that part of the beach was very soft. This did not
seem to trouble any of them very much, for Robinson heard one of the
sailors shout, ‘Let her alone, Jack, can’t ye? She’ll float next tide.’

All forenoon Robinson watched, and when the hottest time of the day had
come, he noticed the sailors throw themselves down under the trees, and
go to sleep, some distance away from the three prisoners.

Then Robinson and Friday, taking their muskets and pistols, stole down
cautiously behind the three men, to try to speak to them without the
others knowing.

Robinson had put on his goat-skin coat and the great hairy hat that he
had made for himself; and with his cutlass and pistols in his belt, and
a gun over each shoulder, he looked very fierce.

The men did not see him till he spoke, and they were so startled by his
wild look, and by the sight of two men armed to the teeth, that they
nearly ran away. But Robinson told them not to be alarmed; he was an
Englishman, and a friend, and would help them if they would show him
how it could be done.

Then they explained to him what had happened. One of the three was
Captain of the ship that lay at anchor off the island. Of the others,
one was mate of the ship, and the third man was a passenger. The crew
had mutinied, the Captain told Robinson, and had put him and the other
two in irons, and the ring-leaders in the mutiny had proposed to kill
them. Now they meant to leave them on the island to perish.

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

‘If the Lord had sent an angel, sir,’ said Robinson, ‘he would probably
have come better clothed.’

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

The Captain was unwilling to see the men killed, for he said if two of
the worst of them were got rid of, he believed the rest would return to
their duty.

Robinson made a bargain that if he saved the Captain from the
mutineers, and recovered the ship, he and Friday were to be taken home
to England in her, free of cost; and to this the Captain and the others
agreed.

Then Robinson gave each of them a musket, with powder and ball, after
which the Captain and the mate and the passenger marched towards the
spot where the mutinous sailors lay asleep. One of the men heard them
advance, and turning round, saw them, and cried out to his companions.
But it was too late, the mate and the passenger fired, and one of
the ring-leaders fell dead. A second man also fell, but jumped up
immediately and called to the others to help him. But the Captain
knocked him down with the butt of his musket, and the rest of the men,
seeing Robinson and Friday coming, and knowing that they had no chance
against five armed men, begged for mercy. Three others who had been
straying about among the trees came back on hearing the shots, and were
also taken, and thus the whole crew of the boat was captured.

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

The first thing that Robinson and the others now did was to take
everything out of the boat,--oars, and mast, and sail, and rudder; then
they knocked a hole in her bottom, so that she could not float. Whilst
they were doing this, and drawing her still further up on the beach,
they heard first one gun and then another fired by the ship as signals
to the boat to return.

As she of course did not move, Robinson saw through his glass another
boat with ten men on board, armed with muskets, leave the ship, coming
to bring the others back.

This was serious enough, for now Robinson and his party had to make
plans whereby they might capture also this fresh boat’s crew.

Accordingly, they tied the hands of all the men they had first taken,
and sent the worst of them to the cave under the charge of Friday and
of one of the men that the Captain said was to be trusted, with orders
to shoot any who tried to give an alarm or to escape. Then Robinson
took his party and the rest of the prisoners into the castle, where,
from the rock, they watched for the landing of the second boat.

The Captain and mate were very nervous, and despaired of taking this
fresh body of men, but Robinson was quite confident of success, and put
heart into them by his cheerfulness.

Of the prisoners in his castle, there were two whom the Captain
believed to be honest men, and on their promising solemnly to keep
faith, and to fight for him, Robinson released them.

The crew of the second boat, when they landed, were terribly surprised
to find the first boat empty and stove in, and they were seen anxiously
consulting what to do. Then they hallooed and fired volleys. Getting
no reply, they were evidently alarmed, for they all jumped into their
boat and began to pull off to the ship. In a few minutes, however, they
seemed to change their minds, for again they landed, this time leaving
three men in charge of the boat, and keeping her in the water.

The other seven came ashore, and started in a body across the island to
look for their lost comrades. But they did not care to go far, and soon
stopped, again firing volleys and hallooing. Getting again no reply,
they began to march back to the sea. Whereupon Robinson ordered Friday
and the mate to go over the creek to the west and halloo loudly, and
wait till the sailors answered. Then Friday and the mate were to go
further away and again halloo, thus gradually getting the men to follow
them away from the shore.

This plan succeeded very well, for when the sailors, thinking they
heard their missing friends hail, ran to find them, their way was
stopped by the creek, over which they had to get the boat to carry
them. They took with them, then, one of the three men whom they had
left in the boat, and ordered the others to moor the boat to a tree,
and remain there.

This was just what Robinson wanted. And, moreover, one of the men
played still further into his hands, for he left the boat and lay down
under a tree to sleep. On him the Captain rushed, and knocked him down
as he tried to rise to his feet, whereupon the sailor left in the
boat yielded, the more readily that he had joined the mutineers very
unwillingly, and was now glad of the chance to rejoin his Captain.

Meantime Friday and the mate, by hallooing and answering, drew the rest
of the boat’s crew from hill to hill through the woods, till at last
they had got them so far astray that it was not possible for them to
find their way back before dark. When they did get back to where the
boat had been left, and found the men whom they had left in her gone,
they were in a terrible fright.

It was not difficult for Robinson and his men to surround them, and it
chanced that the boatswain of the ship, who was the greatest villain of
the lot, and the chief cause of all the trouble, walked in the darkness
close to the Captain, who jumped up and shot him dead. The others then
surrendered, believing what they were told, that they were surrounded
by fifty armed men. All begged hard for their lives, and a few whom the
Captain said he could trust were set at liberty on promising to help to
retake the ship. The others were bound and put in the cave.

Robinson and Friday remained on shore to look after the prisoners,
whilst the Captain and the mate and the passenger, with those of the
crew who were trustworthy, having patched up the damaged boat, pulled
off in her and in the other to the ship, which they reached about
midnight. When they were a short distance off, the Captain made one of
the crew hail the ship and say that they had brought off the boat and
the men they had gone in search of. Then both boats ran alongside at
once, one on each side of the vessel, and before the mutineers knew
what was happening they were overpowered, one or two of them being
killed. Only one of the Captain’s party was hurt, the mate, whose arm
was broken by a musket-ball.

As soon as the ship was secured, the captain ordered seven guns to be
fired, that being the signal he had agreed to make to let Robinson
know if he succeeded in taking the ship.

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

Robinson did not forget, when he left, to take with him the money and
gold bars he had got from the wreck of the Spanish ship, and he took
also, as a memento, the goat-skin coat and the great hairy hat. But the
Captain was able before the ship sailed to give him proper clothing,
the wearing of which at first put him to dreadful discomfort.

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

It was thirty-five years since Robinson had set foot in England. And
that morning, when at last, after the weary years of exile, he again
saw his native land, he laid his head down on his arms and cried like
a child.

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

              Edinburgh: Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE.




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

--All hyphenation is as typeset.

--Variant and archaic spellings have been retained.

--Illustrations have been moved up or down, to avoid interrupting the
reader’s flow.



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