The Life and Adventures of Robinson CrusoeAlderstilpasset version

I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York. My father was a German from Bremen who had settled in Hull, made a good living, moved to York, and married my mother, whose maiden name was Robinson. My real name was Robinson Kreutznaer, but the English made it shorter and called me Crusoe.

I had two older brothers: one fell in battle near Dunkerque, the other I never knew anything about. I was the third son, learned no trade, and my head was early filled with restless thoughts of going out into the world.

My father wanted me to study law and become safe and comfortable at home. But I did not listen.

One morning he called me into his room. He lay in bed with gout, his face so serious that it hurt me to look at him.

He spoke a long time about the "middle station" in life — not the very poor, not the rich and proud, but the safe middle that kings envy and wise men praise. In that station, he said, there are the fewest misfortunes, the fewest temptations, the most peace and health. He begged me not to throw myself into misery by going to sea. Then he told me about my brother, whom he could not keep from the army, and who was killed. "If you go after all this," he said with tears in his eyes, "God will not bless you, and you will have plenty of time to regret it, alone and without help."

When he stopped speaking, I saw the tears running down his face, and my heart grew soft. For a few days I was determined to stay home.

But the days passed, and my decision crumbled. I began to think of running away.

One evening I begged my mother to ask Father for just one trial voyage. I was, I said, already eighteen and too old to be bound as an apprentice. If I did not like the sea, I could come home and make up for lost time.

She grew angry and said she would not speak of it. I later heard that my father nodded heavily and said: "That

boy could have been happy if he stayed. If he goes, he will be the most miserable wretch ever born. I cannot give my consent." Nearly a year later, I happened to be in Hull when a friend was about to sail to London in his father's ship. "Come along for the fun of it," he said. I did not ask anyone's advice, did not ask for God's blessing, but went on board on the first of September, 1651. As soon as we were out of the Humber, the wind blew up. The waves grew huge, and I became so seasick and frightened as I never thought possible. I thought of my father's words and tears, of my stubborn disobedience, and I made a promise inside me that if God spared me, I would go straight home and never set foot in a boat again. The next day the wind died down, the sea lay like a mirror, and the evening was so mild that I felt quite cheerful again. My friend slapped me on the back and laughed: "Well, Bob, scared yesterday when it was just a little puff of wind?" He called it nothing. We drank punch, and in one evening I drowned nearly all my thoughts of regret and promises. Within five or six days, my conscience had no power over me. On the sixth day we lay weather-bound at Yarmouth. The following week the wind rose. We made the ship low and safe, let go of the masts, and sat with two anchors. Even the captain whispered that we would be lost. The sea rose like mountains; several ships near us cut away their masts, one sank, others drifted helplessly. In the middle of the night we sprang a leak. The water stood four feet deep in the hold, and we pumped like madmen. The captain fired a gun for help, and a small boat dared to come out. We all climbed into it, and not a quarter of an hour later we saw our ship sink. We reached land and were well received in Yarmouth. Now I should have gone home. My father had lived long in fear that I had drowned.

But the evil in me pushed me onward. The captain's son, who had lured me, grew serious and advised me to go home. His father said sternly that he would never sail in the same boat with me again, even for a thousand pounds. "Perhaps," he said, "this has come upon us because of you, like when the prophet Jonah was on board the ship to Tarshish."

I was ashamed to go home and be laughed at. So I went to London.

There I became acquainted with an honest captain who sailed to the coast of Guinea. He took me along without charge and taught me seamanship. I had a little trade with me, and I came home with gold dust that sold for nearly three hundred pounds.

That made me proud and eager for more. The captain died soon after, but I went again, this time with his mate, who now had command. It became my worst voyage.

One morning we were chased and captured by a pirate from Sallee. After a short fight, with three dead and many wounded, we were taken as prisoners to Morocco. The captain took me as his slave. For two years I lived in his house, did all the hard work, and thought of escape day and night.

He loved to go fishing, often with me and a young boy named Xury. He had a little cabin built on the boat, and we went out often. He even sent me, a relative of his, and the boy out alone to fish for him.

One morning he did not come. "Take the man and the boy and catch fish for my dinner," he said.

That day I suddenly found courage. I sent the man, Ismael, to fetch biscuits, water, a little powder and shot for the guns, and while he was on land, I hid in the boat an axe, a saw, a hammer, wax, and rope — things I knew we might need. Out at sea, I threw him suddenly overboard. He swam like a cork and begged for mercy. I aimed the gun at him and shouted that I would not hurt him if he kept away; he

could reach land. He turned around. I said to the boy: "Xury, if you are faithful to me, you will become a great man, but if you betray me, I will have to throw you into the sea too." He smiled and swore loyalty. I first steered toward the strait so that people in the town would think we were going that way, but when it grew dark, I set course southward along the coast.

For five days I did not dare go ashore, so afraid was I of Moors. When the wind turned south, we anchored at the mouth of a little river. At night we heard such terrible howling from animals that the boy begged me to wait until daylight. Then I shot a large creature that came swimming toward us. The shot echoed all along the shore; we had to be on guard.

We had no water, and Xury begged to go ashore alone: "If wild men come, they eat me; you go away." He was so willing to sacrifice himself that I loved him forever. We found good water and a hare-like creature that we ate.

Later I shot a great lion. First I hit its leg, then its head. Xury swam to shore and gave it the final shot.

We took the skin and dried it on the cabin roof. Another day two huge leopards came chasing each other. I shot one in the head; the people on the shore cheered at the weapon. They laid meat and corn on the beach for us and stayed away until we had taken it.

After eleven days we saw a sail. It was a Portuguese ship. We signaled, were taken on board, and they also took in all the little I owned.

The captain was good; he would not take payment, gave orders that no one should touch my things, and even sold my boat for eight pieces of eight. He bought Xury from me on condition that the boy should be freed after ten years if he became a Christian. Xury said yes. My heart was heavy, but I finally said yes too.

We came to Brazil, and the captain sold skins and

other things for me. I received about two hundred and twenty pieces of eight. He put me in touch with a plantation owner, and soon I had my own little piece of land. I learned everything about sugar and tobacco.

A kind widow in London, who held some money for me, sent tools, ironware, and implements with a known merchant; they proved very useful. My plantation grew. But my head was again filled with plans that lay beyond my reach.

I often spoke with neighbors about how easy it was to trade small goods on the Guinea coast and get ivory and, especially, slaves in return. Three plantation owners came to me in secret: They wanted to fit out a ship for Guinea and offered me the position of supercargo — I would have an equal share in the slaves without putting in any capital. I was to go; they would look after my plantation. I could not say no.

We sailed on the first of September, 1659. The weather was good at first, then a hurricane raged over us for twelve days and drove us far off course. The ship leaked, one man died of sickness, one man and a boy were washed overboard. On the twelfth day the captain thought we were north of Brazil, near Guiana, past the Amazon. The ship was damaged.

We decided to steer for Barbados, but a new storm took us westward, away from all shipping routes. One morning a man shouted "Land!" But at that same moment we struck a sandbank, the sea broke over us, one boat was smashed, and we managed to get another one out.

Eleven men climbed into it; the waves rose like mountains, and I knew the little boat would soon be dashed to pieces. A giant sea overturned us. I sank deep, was thrown against a rock so that my breath was knocked out of me, but a new wave carried me toward land. Twice I was covered and swallowed, but I swam blindly forward, felt the bottom under my feet, stumbled, got up, and ran. At last I came to higher ground, climbed up a steep cliff, and lay there, exhausted and...

alive. The joy of being saved was too great for words. I lifted my hands and thanked God. I looked around: not one of my comrades had made it. But trouble soon came. I was soaking wet, had no dry clothes, no food, no drink, no weapons — only a knife, a pipe, and a little tobacco in my pocket. When it grew dark, I climbed into a thick, thorny tree and fell asleep from exhaustion. The next morning I saw to my amazement that the ship had lifted off the sandbank during the night and now stood upright, about a mile from shore. I longed with all my heart to get on board. I found a boat from the ship driven ashore two miles away, but a creek blocked the way. When the tide went out, I swam out to it. A rope hung from the foremast; I hauled myself up. The ship was broken in the front, but the storeroom was dry. I stuffed my pockets with ship's biscuits, found a bottle of rum, and felt warmth and courage return. Then I built a raft of spars and a topmast, laid planks over them, tied everything together, and loaded it. The most important thing I found that day was the carpenter's chest with tools. Gold and silver — I laughed at that. But the axe, the saw, the adze — they were like treasures. I found two muskets, two pistols, powder horns, shot, and two barrels of good powder. The raft drifted into the mouth of a little river. I steered as best I could, but it stuck on a shallow, and the load nearly slid off. I held onto the chests for half an hour before the sea lifted the raft again. Then I got it into a cove, tied it fast with two broken oars, and waited until the water fell. Everything was saved. Soon I found a better place for a home. A little flat land at the foot of a steep cliff, with fresh water nearby and a view of the sea. In the rock face there was a shallow indentation like a cave mouth. I marked out a half-circle

in front and drove in two rows of strong, sharpened stakes. Between them I stuffed pieces of rope from the ship. The fence was over five feet high and so strong that nothing could break through it.

The entrance was a short ladder that I pulled up after me. Inside I set up a double tent, a small one under a large one, and spread sailcloth over it against the rain. Behind the tents I began to dig into the rock. The earth I dug out I used to fill up the ground inside the fence, so that I gradually got a cellar cave behind the house.

Then came a thunderstorm so terrible that I suddenly thought: If lightning strikes my powder, I am finished. I did not even think of my life first, but of how all my food and protection depended on the powder. When the rain stopped, I took out all the powder, spent two weeks packing and dividing it into a hundred small portions, and hid them separately in small holes and cracks in the rock and earth.

I divided my days between work and hunting. The goats on the island were as shy as the wind. I learned that if I was above them, they did not see me. The first goat I shot was a nanny with a kid.

The kid followed me all the way home to my enclosure. I carried it into the yard and tried to tame it, but it would not eat. I finally had to kill it. The meat from mother and kid lasted me a long time.

I knew too often how my spirits rose and fell. Sometimes I spoke harshly to Providence — why should a man be destroyed like this? But then reason woke in me: Where were the other ten men from the boat? Why was I saved and not them?

I made a kind of account book with two columns: Evil and Good. Evil: I was cast alone on a desolate island, without hope. Good: I was alive — all the others had drowned. Evil: I was separated from society. Good: The island bore fruit, water was plentiful, and the ship

lay close enough to supply me with everything I needed for a long life. I saw that hardly any condition is so miserable that there is nothing on the credit side. I cut a great cross out of a post and set it up at the place where I first came ashore, and carved: "I came ashore here on the 30th of September, 1659." Every day I made a notch, every seventh day a longer one, and every first day of the month a longer one still. That way I kept track of the days. In the ship's storeroom I had found ink and pens, paper, charts and instruments, and three good Bibles. A dog had jumped into the sea after me and was now a faithful companion. Two cats were also with me. I used the ink sparingly, for I could make no more. I began a journal and wrote about the days in October when I went back and forth to the wreck with the raft and brought ashore bread, meal, rum, sugar, rope, canvas, nails, spikes, and a thousand things. One day my raft tipped over in the cove, but it was shallow, and I dived up most of it again. After five or six trips I found a great barrel of bread, three small barrels of rum, a case of sugar, and a barrel of fine meal. I cut the anchor cables into suitable lengths, but when I pushed off, the raft tipped and much iron sank. I got some up by diving. On the twelfth trip I found in the captain's cabin razors, scissors, knives, forks — and a great deal of coin of various kinds. I laughed out loud: money! What good was it to me here? I wrapped it up anyway. That night the wind rose, and when I came out the next morning, the ship was gone. I had already brought ashore nearly everything that could be of use to me. After a time I built a table and chairs from planks from the ship. To make a single plank without a saw, only with an axe and adze, took me forty-two days: fell the tree, lop off

the branches, cut a log, chop it flat on one side, turn it over, chop it flat on the other. But I managed to put up shelves in the cave, and I drove small wooden pegs into the wall and hung my guns there. Seeing everything in order gave me great pleasure.

One time in April, after I had finally got my climbing ladder ready and could pull it up after me, an earthquake came. I was inside the cave when the ceiling sprinkled dirt, the supports creaked, and the whole rock face seemed to sway. I rushed out over the fence, and the ground shook three times in eight minutes. A great cliff beyond burst with a roar, and the sea was boiling.

Then came a storm that lasted three hours, with rain. I sat there, wet and miserable, and had no pious thoughts, only a trembling "Lord, have mercy on me!" When the rain threatened to beat down the tent, I cut a trench through my fortification so the water would run out. I took a little sip of rum to get my courage back.

For several days I thought only of how I could live more safely. In June I fell sick. An unknown fever with shivering and headache took me so hard that I lay in bed a whole day without strength to get up for water. At night I dreamed that a man descended from a black cloud in flames, the ground shook, and he cried out: "Because all this has not led you to repentance, you shall now die."

He lifted a spear over me. I woke in terror and felt that in all my years at sea, I had never once truly thought of God. In the morning I whispered my first real cry in many years: "Lord, help me, for I am in great distress."

I remembered that people in Brazil used tobacco against many ailments. I found a roll of tobacco, chewed some, soaked some in rum and let it steep, and burned some on coals and held my nose over the smoke. While I was doing this, I opened one of the Bibles and read: "Call upon

me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me." The words settled warmly in me. That night I fell on my knees and begged God to fulfill the promise.

I drank the tobacco-soaked rum, slept heavily until the next afternoon, and woke refreshed. In a few days the attacks stopped.

From now on I read in the New Testament morning and evening. One verse made my heart very calm: "Him hath God exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and forgiveness of sins." I cried out in joy: "Jesus, you exalted Prince and Saviour! Give me repentance!" I began to understand "salvation" not as being taken off the island, but as being lifted up from sin and given a new mind.

When my health improved, I ventured inland. I found flat meadows like a garden, melons on the ground, grapes on the trees; I picked piles of grapes and hung them on branches in the sun so they became raisins before the rain came. In a valley I found trees bearing limes, oranges, and lemons. I built a little summer house there inland, with a double hedge of stakes that later sprouted and grew together into shade. But I decided to live near the sea, for if rescue was possible, it was by the coast.

I learned the seasons: not summer and winter, but two rainy seasons and two dry seasons. The first time I sowed grain after the rains and got nothing, for the drought came. The second time, in February before the spring equinox, I sowed the rest of the few grains I had saved after some seeds had sprouted in the ground where I had thrown chicken feed. Then the rains came in March and April, and the crops shot up nicely — small in quantity, but I had learned when to sow.

I also learned that my hedge stakes sprouted. After three years they stood like living walls with lovely shade. Growing bread from grain myself was work that taught me to be thankful for every mouthful.

I made earthenware pots, ugly at first, and they cracked in the sun. Then I

saw a piece of a pot that had lain in the fire and become hard as brick. I built up a fire around some pots, kept it going for many hours, and the next morning I had three good pots and two pans, hard as stone, one of them even glazed by the sand. Now I could boil soup! I hollowed out a great block of wood with fire and iron to make a mortar, found some muslin cloth from the ship's chests to strain the meal, and baked bread by heating the hearth, sweeping it clean, setting down flat earthenware vessels with dough, covering them with a great earthenware dome, and drawing embers around. It was bread — not pretty, but bread. There came times when I wished to go to the mainland I thought I saw on the horizon. I tried to turn over the ship's old boat that the storm had overturned, but failed. Then I felled a huge cedar tree, nearly six feet in diameter at the root, and hollowed it out into a canoe so large that it could carry twenty-six men. I spent nearly three months just on the hollowing. When it was finished, I found no earthly way to get it into the sea. It stood a hundred yards from the water's edge and a little uphill. I tried to dig a channel, but calculated that it would take ten or twelve years with only my hands to bring the sea up to the canoe. I swallowed the defeat. I had been foolish and begun without counting the cost. Yet as the years passed, I became more content. I managed to sew myself shirts from old clothes and made a coat and breeches from goatskin, a large, shapeless skin cap with a flap at the back, and an umbrella of skins that kept out both sun and rain. I made shoe-like leggings of skin for my calves. I tried to make the umbrella folding; I ruined two or three before I made one that could close. That way I could walk in the fiercest sun safely. I learned to be grateful. I often thought: If the ship had not

been lying nearby, what would I have had? No tools, no weapons, no pot, no clothes — I would have gnawed raw meat like an animal. I put away my little hoard of money in a drawer; it grew moldy, and I would rather have had a good pair of shoes than a hundred pieces of silver where I was. One day I built a smaller canoe and dug a narrow channel so the water could float it out. When I sailed around the island to try it, I was caught in a violent current that carried me like a millrace out to sea. I paddled until my arms burned, looked for any chance, and saw that the water grew clearer in one place — there the current divided at some rocks. A little breeze came, I hoisted a small sail, steered hard toward a back current, and with my heart in my throat, I glided into the eddy that carried me northward and finally back toward land. When I came into the lee, I fell on my knees and thanked God, and promised to give up the thought of escaping by sea. When I returned to my little country house, a familiar voice called from the hedge: "Robin! Robin Crusoe! Where are you, Robin Crusoe?" I started, but it was my parrot, Poll, whom I had taught to speak. It settled on my thumb and chattered away. I carried it home again, happier than I had been in a long time. One day I saw a mark in the sand: the print of a bare foot. Toes, heel, everything. I froze, looked wildly around, but no other prints were to be found. My whole body filled with terror. I ran home to my fortress with the feeling that someone was following me, and did not sleep that night. First I thought the devil had put it there to torment me. But that was unreasonable: would he leave a single print and then let a wave wash it away? I thought it must be wild people from the mainland, cast here by current and wind. Perhaps they had seen my boat? Would they come again? For the

first time in many years I felt how fear tore my faith apart. Several days later I went down and measured the print against my own foot. It was much larger. Now I knew that I was not imagining things: someone had been there.

In my confusion I planned to destroy everything I had: tear down the fences and drive out my goats, dig up the fields and lay everything waste, so that no sign of human habitation would remain. But when I slept a little, I woke more sober and thought calmly: The island is not permanently inhabited. Those who come are driven by the current; they perhaps eat their gruesome meals and go again. I had lived here fifteen years and never seen a human before. I decided instead to hide myself better and make everything stronger.

I built a new, thicker earth wall outside my stake fence. I made seven loopholes in the wall and set seven musket barrels in frames so I could fire them like small cannons. I also stuck down thousands of new stakes outside, which grew into a thick wood so that no one could see my fortress from the outside. I also made a secret cave — a real cave, deep in a rock crevice that I found while cutting wood under a steep cliff. The entrance was narrow, but inside it was dry and roomy and full of glittering veins in the walls when I lit candles I had made from goat tallow.

There I eventually carried most of my powder — I had found an old barrel that was wet on the outside but dry inside, nearly sixty pounds of good powder — and all my bullets. In the opening lay an old he-goat gasping — it was the "glittering eyes" that had frightened me at first. It died the next day, and I buried it in the sand. When I sat inside there, I thought that if five hundred came looking for me, they would not find me here.

Then, in my twenty-third year, in December, I saw a plume of smoke two miles away on my side of the island. I crept into the

wood, climbed the hill, and saw through my spyglass nine naked savages around a fire. I saw remains on the beach that told me what kind of meal they had had. I felt the sickness rise in me and had to turn away. "God be thanked," I whispered, "that I was not put down there." I kept myself hidden and learned when they came and went with the tide. They disappeared with the ebb, and I ventured out with the flood. After many months a violent storm came. I heard shots at sea — one, then another. I thought a ship was in distress right where the current had taken me. I lit a great fire on the hilltop and kept it burning all night. In the morning I saw a shipwreck on the rocks north of the island. I could not help them, but I wished with all my heart that just one soul might be saved, just one. Several days later the body of a dead boy drifted ashore, with nothing but a little money and a pipe. The pipe was worth ten times the money to me. It grew quiet, and I dared to go out in the canoe when the current ran along the shore. I reached the wreck after two hours and found a dog nearly dead from thirst and hunger. It jumped into the water when it saw me, and I pulled it up and gave it bread and water. Apart from that, no one was alive, but I got out two chests, some cooking pots, a great horn flask of powder, several muskets, and a little rum. When I opened the chests later in the cave, I found bottle after bottle of strong drink, some preserves, shirts and neckcloths — and gold and silver in quantities. I laughed again; I would have given the whole pile for a pair of English shoes. Still, I carried everything into the cave. Now I had everything I could wish for — and more: a dream. One night in the rainy season I lay tossing without sleep. I thought about how safe and quite happy I had been in the years before the footprint,

and how restless I had become after it. I thought about how God often hides the future so that we can live calmly in the present. I thought about the savages: how they could eat their own kind, and why I could not go to them when they came to me. At last I fell asleep and dreamed that two canoes came ashore, and they dragged out a captive to kill him. The captive ran toward my little wood. I showed myself, smiled, and waved. He knelt and begged for help. I led him in and made him my servant, and then I thought: "Now I can venture to the mainland, for he will be my guide." I woke in great joy and equal disappointment — it was only a dream. But it lodged in me like a plan. Long after, after much watching on the heights, five canoes came — about thirty men. They dragged two captives ashore. One was knocked down, and while they were busy with him, the other saw his chance, cut his bonds, and ran as fast as he could along the sand — straight toward my fence. Three men chased him. Between us lay a little creek. The captive threw himself into it and swam across. Two of his pursuers plunged in after him; the third turned back. The captive was slower in the water than I hoped, but I felt it like a call from God: Now, or never. I took two guns, called out to him, and waved. He stopped and was afraid of the noise and the fire, but I raised a gun against the nearest pursuer and struck him down with the butt. The second I shot as he lifted his bow. The captive came closer, knelt every ten steps, kissed the ground, took my foot, and laid it on his head, as if to say: "From now on, I am yours." I lifted him up. He saw that the man I had knocked down was moving, and pointed eagerly. I gave him my sword, and with one blow he cut off the head so surely that no executioner could have done it better. I gave him

the name Friday, for that was the day. He was a handsome, strong young man, about twenty-six, with lively eyes and a well-built body. The very next day I made him clothes: linen breeches, a goatskin vest, and a cap, which he wore clumsily at first.

I set up a little tent of his own between the two fortifications, with a door I could lock from inside, in case he should regret and try to kill me at night. But I soon had no need of that. He showed himself so faithful and devoted that I soon ate and slept more safely than I had done in many years.

I gave him bread and raisins, water and soup, taught him "Yes," "No," and "Master," and we went together to the place where they had held their gruesome meal. He pointed, and with signs he made me understand that there had been four captives, that three had been eaten, and that he was the fourth. I commanded him to gather all the bones and remains, and we burned everything to ashes.

At first he suggested digging some up and eating them. I showed such disgust that he never dared mention it again.

I taught him to use weapons. He trembled like a leaf when I shot a kid goat before him to show what the gun could do; a few days later I shot a parrot so that he could see the difference between aiming and noise. He was so struck with wonder that he almost wanted to worship the gun, and for several days he talked to it and begged it not to kill him.

Soon he ground corn, made bread, and worked in the field with joy. He learned English quickly; we talked together about God's things.

He had learned from his own people that there was a great invisible spirit, Benamuckee, and that the old men went up into the mountains and spoke with him. I said that was deception, that the devil tricks people. He asked: "If God is so strong, why does God not kill the devil?" I stammered a little and answered that God has a right time for everything and

uses even evil to bring about good. "But why not now?" he asked. "So that we sinners may have time to repent," I said. I could not answer all his questions wisely, but I prayed God to help me teach him. After a while Friday often spoke of his country and of "white men with beards" who lived west of them — Spaniards, I understood. He told me that a boat full of "white men" had once been driven ashore among his people, and that they had been spared because they had made peace. He counted on his fingers and came to seventeen. One day when we stood on the hill on the east side, he saw the mainland and began to jump and shout with joy. Then I felt a pang of jealousy: Would he leave me? I asked carefully: "Do you want to go home?" "Yes," he said, "but with you." "Will they not eat me?" I asked. "No, no," he said, "I will tell them that you saved me and killed my enemies. They will love you and learn from you." Finally he said: "If you send me away without you, give me your axe and kill me first." I saw the tears in his eyes. I told him to stay with me, and promised that if we ever went, we would go together. We built a great canoe together. He was so skilled that everything went twice as fast. I found a straight young cedar and made a mast, patched old sails into an ugly, triangular "sheep's shoulder" cloth that nonetheless carried. I fixed a rudder at the back. We learned to sail by wind and stars. We also built a little dock in the creek, a basin where the boat could float at high tide and lie safely at low tide, and we roofed it with branches against sun and rain. Great hopes grew in me that our freedom was drawing near. One morning Friday came running, leaped over the outer wall, and cried out: "O master! O bad! Three canoes!" He was trembling. I took my spyglass and saw a great company — twenty-one savages and three captives — who had

landed near our creek. They were going to hold a victory feast and eat the captives. I loaded four muskets with small and large shot, two fowling pieces with duck shot, loaded the pistols with two bullets each, buckled on my sword belt, gave Friday his axe and a pistol in his belt, and said that we should be silent and shoot when I said.

I went first. But as we drew near and saw the dreadful circle, I remembered the debate I had had with myself: What right had I to be judge and executioner over men who had never done me any harm, and who did not even know that what they did was a crime? Friday was their enemy; for him it was war, for me it was not. I decided to wait for a clear sign.

It came when I saw that one of the captives, tied to a tree, was a European in clothes. Then I knew I could act. We crept behind a thicket, eighty yards away.

At my signal we fired the first volley. Three fell. A second volley with shot spread even more terror.

I ran straight toward the white captive, cut him free, and gave him water and bread. He later told me he was Spanish. He took the sword and pistol I gave him and fought like a lion. At the same time Friday shot two men who were trying to launch a canoe, and we killed seventeen in all.

Four escaped in a canoe, fleeing in terror. In another canoe, which I boarded to follow the fugitives, lay a third captive tied up, nearly dead. Friday saw his face and burst into such joy as I have never seen.

It was his father. He kissed him, cried and laughed at once, rubbed his hands with rum, ran home in a hurry for water in an earthen pot and more bread, and carried him on his back to the creek. I made a stretcher of poles, and together we carried the Spaniard and Friday's father into a little tent camp I set up outside the fortress. I made beds of rush mats and gave them blankets.

I looked around and felt a strange wonder: The island was my kingdom. The inhabitants — now three, with three religions — owed everything to me. Friday was like a Protestant, his father a heathen and cannibal, and the Spaniard a papist.

I granted religious freedom in my country. While Friday buried the remains and washed the beach clean with painstaking work, he boiled a yearling goat in the pot. We ate by his father's bedside.

The Spaniard told me about his fifteen companions — Spaniards and Portuguese — who lived in misery on the mainland, without weapons, pressed by the savages. He offered to go with Friday's father and fetch them if I could give them small arms and food. But he also advised patience: We did not have enough corn and rice to suddenly feed sixteen or seventeen men for months.

Let us sow first, he said, harvest one more time, so that we have provisions. He mentioned the Israelites who murmured in the wilderness when they were hungry. He was wise, and I listened to him.

We cultivated more plots and sowed everything we could. We dried grapes into raisins in heaps so large that we could have filled sixty barrels.

Then the Spaniard and Friday's father departed. I gave them muskets, powder, and food. They swore to bring only those men who would submit to my orders.

Eight days later, while I was taking my afternoon nap, Friday came running again. "They are coming!" he shouted.

I climbed the hill... and saw not a canoe, but an English longboat approaching, and a ship at anchor far out. My joy was great — but then a little shadow came over my thoughts: An English ship would not be here for honest business. I hid and watched.

Eleven men came ashore. Three of them looked like prisoners. I saw a sailor raise a sword to strike one of the three. Poor Friday thought the Englishmen ate captives, just as his people did. I crept closer, and when all the men went to the edge of the wood and lay down to sleep in the heat, except the three captives who sat despairing under a tree,

I approached them and spoke low — first in Spanish, then in English. One of them answered. He was the captain. The crew had mutinied. They had put him, the mate, and a passenger ashore to die.

I said: "While you are on my island, you have no authority. You obey me. If you get your ship back, I and my servant shall have free passage to England." He agreed with tears in his eyes.

I gave them muskets, and we crept up on the mutineers as they slept. Two were killed in the confusion; the rest were bound hand and foot. I ordered the first boat to be staved in, so that no one could escape in it.

We waited. The ship fired a signal and waved a flag. Another boat put out, with ten men, all armed. The captain knew three of them as honest men forced to join. The rest were ruffians, and the boatswain was the worst of them.

"We are not afraid," I said. "Every man who sets foot on shore becomes our prisoner." We bound the first captives in pairs and sent three of them to the cave with Friday as guard, with light, food, and strict orders to lie still, and two we bound extra tight. To the others I gave weapons and promised them their lives if they helped us.

When the ten came ashore, they wandered about calling for their comrades. At last they sat down to consult. I let them go; I wanted to spare bloodshed.

When they were on their way back to the boat, I sent Friday and the mate westward to a little hill. There they were to call and answer each other, and then draw farther away. The plan worked.

The cries of the villains drew them inland. Two stayed by the boat. The captain and I crept forward, and with a blow they were ours — one knocked down with the gun butt, the other surrendered.

After nightfall the company returned. Their boat lay on the sand in the creek, but their men were gone, and they sat down to weep and tear their hair. Then the captain and Friday crept near

them in the shadows. The boatswain came wandering with two others. A double shot from the two laid him dead on the spot, the next fell wounded, the third ran. I stepped forward with my "army" — seven men, but in the dark we looked like fifty. One of our men, whom they knew, called out: "Tom Smith! The captain is here with fifty men! The boatswain is dead. Surrender, or you are lost!" They all cried for mercy. "You shall have your lives," said the captain, "all except Will Atkins, who first laid hands on me." Atkins wept for mercy, and the captain said the condition was to lay down their arms and trust the island's governor. A word I liked. They let themselves be bound. Now the time had come. I sent three of them up to the cave as hostages, and the next morning the captain went with his men aboard the ship at midnight, armed. They knocked down the second mate and the carpenter with gun butts, broke into the cabin where the mutineers' "new captain" lay with several others. They fired; our first mate was wounded in the arm, but at the same moment shot the false captain through the head. The rest surrendered. A little after two o'clock I heard a cannon shot — the signal. The captain came in the boat at daybreak, pointed to the ship now anchored straight offshore. "There is your ship," he said, "and we are yours!" I was so moved that I had to take a dram to recover. Then he brought up to me new clothes from head to foot, bottles of Madeira and other drinks, tobacco, meat, peas, biscuits, sugar, meal, lemons, and lime juice — everything that was useful, and most of all... human company. We discussed the prisoners. Two were hardened villains. I said I could make them beg to be left on the island — and so they did, when they understood that the alternative was chains and the gallows in England. I gave them muskets, powder, seed, some animals, and advice on how to live. The captain hanged the false captain at the yardarm before we left, so

the others would see the seriousness. I wrote a letter and left things for the Spaniards we expected from the mainland, and urged the Englishmen to make peace with them when they came. On the 19th of December, 1686, I sailed from the island I had called the "Island of Despair." I took with me my old goatskin cap, my umbrella, my parrot, and my rusty hoard of money — everything that had been mine through all those years.

On the 11th of June, 1687, I set foot in England again, after five and thirty years away. Everything had changed. My father and mother were dead. Two sisters lived, and two children of a brother. No one had set anything aside for me.

The owners of the ship I had saved from the mutiny gave me two hundred pounds in gratitude. Yet I felt that the curiosity and restlessness were not quite dead in me.

I traveled to Lisbon with Friday to hear news of my plantation in Brazil. There I found my old Portuguese captain, now retired and gray. He was as honest as ever. My partner in Brazil was still alive, but two trustees were dead. The king and a monastery had managed my share, thinking I was dead, using the surplus for the poor.

But the papers could be put in order if I came forward. The old captain gave me a hundred and sixty moidores in gold and would have pawned his own ship for more if I required it.

I took only a hundred, and later gave him back everything and more. He arranged for me to send power of attorney to Brazil, and seven months later a package arrived: accounts, letters, blessings — and wealth. Over five thousand pounds, and a plantation worth over a thousand pounds a year. I was so moved that I grew pale and had to be bled.

I immediately provided for those who had helped me: I sent a hundred pounds to the good widow in London, a hundred pounds to each of my sisters, gave the old captain a life annuity and his son one after him. I thought of going to Brazil, but then

it became unbearable to risk everything at sea again. Two ships I considered were lost, one taken by Algerians, the other wrecked at Torbay. The old captain persuaded me to travel by land. We were six gentlemen with five servants. I took Friday and an English sailor as servants. We traveled north through Spain, came to Madrid, and went on toward Pamplona, where snow blocked the roads. Friday, who had never seen snow, was full of wonder and a little fear. We waited twenty days. Then four Frenchmen came with a guide who said he could take us on a route where the snow lay hard and could bear the horses. "Beware of wolves," he said; in such winters they go mad with hunger. We followed him and came one after another on narrow, winding paths. Suddenly three wolves and a bear sprang from a cave at the edge of the wood. Two wolves threw themselves at the guide, one at his horse, the other at the man himself. Friday, who rode nearest him, shot the one biting the guide with his pistol. The other fled. The guide was bitten in the arm and above the knee, and was about to fall when Friday saved him. Soon after, a huge bear came out of the wood. Friday's face lit up: "O master, let me shake hands with him; you shall laugh!" I told him not to be foolish, but he laughed. He took off his boots, put on flat shoes, gave his horse to another servant, ran forward, and threw a stone at the bear's head. The bear grew angry and followed him. Friday ran — but not toward us. He ran to a great oak tree, laid his gun on the ground five or six paces from the trunk, and climbed up like lightning. The bear climbed after him, like a cat. Friday crawled out onto a long branch; when the bear came near the thinner end, Friday began to bounce so that the branch swayed and the bear had to balance like an acrobat. It looked so comical that we laughed out loud, even in danger. The bear dared go no farther and stood

growling. Then Friday slipped back, let himself fall lightly to the ground, grabbed his gun, waited until the bear, carefully like a cat, backed down, and when the beast was nearly down, he crept up, put the muzzle to its ear, and shot. It fell dead.

"That is how we kill bears in my country," he said. Later, at dusk, we were trapped by wolves in the hundreds. We came to a clearing where logs lay from the summer's cutting. I gathered everyone behind a long log so that we had a breastwork, in a triangle, with the horses in the middle.

The wolves threw themselves furiously onto the logs, especially when they saw the horses. We fired a first volley — four fell. We shouted as loud as we could, fired again, then pistols. Seventeen or eighteen died, twice as many limped away.

But they came again. Then I had my English servant lay a trail of powder along the logs. He scattered it just as the wolves drew near. I snatched an empty pistol and sparked it near the trail; the flame shot along the whole line; wolves that were jumping were singed and fell among us — we killed them. The rest fled in terror from the light in the dark.

We chased some of the lame ones and cut them down with swords. That is how we reached a village, to the horror of the inhabitants — they had had bears and wolves inside their houses the night before. Our guide was too ill to travel further the next day; we got a new one. In Toulouse we learned that all this is "normal" in such winters at the foot of the mountains.

For my part, I never felt such danger at sea. I think I would rather sail a thousand miles than cross those forests again in snow.

At last I came to England. I settled everything: sent powers of attorney, sold my plantation in Brazil through a friend in Lisbon, got the money safely in bills of exchange.

I married, had three children, lost my wife. For seven years my good widow held me back from new voyages with wise words.

I took care of two nephews; one I made a gentleman; the other I placed on board with a captain. After five years he came home successful, and his very eager desire to see more — and my own restlessness — overcame my peace.

In 1694 I sailed with him as a private merchant to the East Indies. On the way we stopped at my island.

The Spaniards had come there with Friday's father and several more. I heard how the first English villains I had left behind had caused trouble, but also how the Spaniards had finally brought peace. Five of them had gone over to the mainland and brought back eleven men and five women, so that I now found many children on the island.

I stayed there twenty days, divided the land, set laws, left everything still belonging to me as "lord," sent more people and animals from Brazil, even some women for marriage, so that they could live and plant. They fought twice against Caribs, were defeated at first, but a storm destroyed the enemy's canoes, and they prevailed.

Thus ended the first part of my life — full of rashness, but also of strange preservations. I began it in disobedience and blind pride, but ended it with more thankfulness than I had thought possible.

And do not think that I was now done with adventures. I had grown used to the wandering life. I had no large family to bind me, and my heart still yearned to see again the places where I had suffered and been preserved.

The rest — how my colony grew, how we fought against three hundred Caribs and against misfortunes and storms again — belongs to the second part of my story. For now, let it be enough to say: What I once complained of as my greatest misfortune became my great good. And every time I looked back at the footprint in the sand, I remembered that the fear which made me silent was turned to rescue when Friday came running with his hands up and his forehead in the dust — and laid my foot on his head, as if to say: "I am yours."