The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808)

by Daniel Defoe

standing by himself, till they should be ready for him.In that very moment this poor wretch, seeing himself a little atliberty, nature inspired him with hopes of life, and he started awayfrom them, and ran with incredible swiftness along the sands, directlytowards me, I mean towards that part of the coast where myhabitation was.

  I was dreadfully frighted (that I must acknowledge) when I perceived himto run my way; and especially when, as I thought, I saw him pursued bythe whole body; and now I expected that part of my dream was coming topass, and that he would certainly take shelter in my grove; but I couldnot depend, by any means, upon my dream for the rest of it, viz. thatthe other savages would not pursue him thither, and find him there.However, I kept my station, and my spirits began to recover, when Ifound that there were not above three men that followed him; and stillmore was I encouraged, when I found that he out-stript them exceedinglyin running, and gained ground of them, so that if he could but hold itfor half an hour, I saw easily he would fairly get away from them all.

  There was between them and my castle the creek, which I mentioned oftenat the first part of my story, when I landed my cargoes out of the ship;and this I knew he must necessarily swim over, or the poor wretch wouldbe taken there: but when the savage escaping came thither, he madenothing of it, though the tide was then up; but plunging in, swamthrough in about thirty strokes, or thereabouts, landed, and ran on withexceeding strength and swiftness. When the three pursuers came to thecreek, I found that two of them could swim, but the third could not, andthat he, standing on the other side, looked at the other, but went nofarther; and soon after went softly back again, which, as it happened,was very well for him in the main.

  I observed, that the two who swam were yet more than twice as longswimming over the creek than the fellow was that fled from them. Itcame now very warmly upon my thoughts, and indeed irresistibly, that nowwas my time to get a servant, and perhaps a companion, or assistant, andthat I was called plainly by Providence to save this poor creature'slife. I immediately got down the ladders with all possible expedition,fetched my two guns, for they were both at the foot of the ladder, as Iobserved above; and getting up again with the same haste to the top ofthe hill, I crossed towards the sea; and having a very short cut, andall down hill, clapped myself in the way between the pursuers and thepursued, hallooing aloud to him that fled, who, looking back, was atfirst perhaps as much frighted at me as at them; but I beckoned with myhand to him to come back; and in the meantime I slowly advanced towardsthe two that followed; then rushing at once upon the foremost, I knockedhim down with the stock of my piece; I was loath to fire, because Iwould not have the rest hear, though at that distance it would not havebeen easily heard; and being out of sight of the smoke too, they wouldnot have easily known what to make of it. I having knocked this fellowdown, the other who pursued him stopped, as if he had been frightened,and I advanced apace towards him; but as I came nearer, I perceivedpresently he had a bow and arrow, and was fitting it to shoot at me; soI was then necessitated to shoot at him first; which I did, and killedhim at the first shot. The poor savage who fled, but had stopped, thoughhe saw both his enemies fallen, and killed, (as he thought) yet was sofrighted with the fire and noise of my piece, that he stood stock-still,and neither came forward, nor went backward, though he seemed ratherinclined to fly still, than to come on. I hallooed again to him, andmade signs to come forward, which he easily understood, and came alittle way, then stopped again, and then a little farther, and stoppedagain; and I could then perceive that he stood trembling, as if he hadbeen taken prisoner, and had just been to be killed, as his two enemieswere. I beckoned him again to come to me, and gave him all the signs ofencouragement that I could think of; and he came nearer and nearer,kneeling down every ten or twelve steps, in token of acknowledgment forsaving his life. I smiled at him, and looked pleasantly, and beckoned tohim to come still nearer. At length he came close to me, and then hekneeled down again, kissed the ground, and laid his head upon theground, and taking me by the foot, set my foot upon his head. This, itseems, was in token of swearing to be my slave for ever. I took him up,and made much of him, and encouraged him all I could. But there was morework to do yet; for I perceived the savage, whom I knocked down, was notkilled, but stunned with the blow, and began to come to himself: so Ipointed to him, and showed him the savage, that he was not dead: uponthis he spoke some words to me; and though I could not understand them,yet I thought they were pleasant to hear, for they were the first soundof a man's voice that I had heard, my own excepted, for abovefive-and-twenty years. But there was no time for such reflections now:the savage, who was knocked down, recovered himself so far as to sit upupon the ground; and I perceived that my savage began to be afraid; butwhen I saw that, I presented my other piece at the man, as if I wouldshoot him: upon this my savage, for so I call him now, made a motion tome to lend him my sword, which hung naked in a belt by my side: so Idid: he no sooner had it, but he runs to his enemy, and at one blow cutoff his head so cleverly, no executioner in Germany could have done itsooner or better; which I thought very strange for one, who, I hadreason to believe, never saw a sword in his life before, except theirown wooden swords: however, it seems, as I learnt afterwards, they maketheir wooden swords so sharp, so heavy, and the wood is so hard, thatthey will cut off heads even with them, nay, and arms, and that at oneblow too. When he had done this, he comes laughing to me in sign oftriumph, and brought me the sword again, and, with abundance ofgestures, which I did not understand, laid it down, with the head of thesavage that he had killed, just before me.

  But that which astonished him most was, to know how I had killed theother Indian so far off; so pointing to him, he made signs to me to lethim go to him: so I bade him go, as well as I could. When he came tohim, he stood like one amazed, looking at him; turned him first on oneside, then on t'other; looked at the wound the bullet had made, which itseems was just in his breast, where it had made a hole, and no greatquantity of blood had followed; but he had bled inwardly, for he wasquite dead. Then he took up his bow and arrows, and came back; so Iturned to go away, and beckoned him to follow me, making signs to himthat more might come after them.

  Upon this he signed to me, that he should bury them with sand, that theymight not be seen by the rest, if they followed; and so I made signsagain to him to do so. He fell to work, and in an instant he had scrapeda hole in the sand with his hands, big enough to bury the first in, andthen dragged him into it, and covered him, and did so also by the other;I believe he had buried them both in a quarter of an hour: then callinghim away, I carried him not to my castle, but quite away to my cave, onthe farther part of the island; so I did not let my dream come to passin that part; viz. that he came into my grove for shelter.

  Here I gave him bread and a bunch of raisins to eat, and a draught ofwater, which I found he was indeed in great distress for, by hisrunning; and having refreshed him, I made signs for him to go lie downand sleep, pointing to a place where I had laid a great parcel ofrice-straw, and a blanket upon it, which I used to sleep upon myselfsometimes; so the poor creature lay down, and went to sleep.

  He was a comely handsome fellow, perfectly well made, with straight longlimbs, not too large, tall, and well-shaped, and, as I reckon, abouttwenty-six years of age. He had a very good countenance, not a fierceand surly aspect, but seemed to have something very manly in his face,and yet he had all the sweetness and softness of an European in hiscountenance too, especially when he smiled: his hair was long and black,not curled like wool; his forehead very high and large, and a greatvivacity and sparkling sharpness in his eyes. The colour of his skin wasnot quite black, but very tawny, and yet not of an ugly yellow nauseoustawny, as the Brasilians and Virginians, and other natives of Americaare, but of a bright kind of a dun olive colour, that had in itsomething very agreeable, though not very easy to describe. His face wasround and plump, his nose small, not flat like the Negroe's, a very goodmouth, thin lips, and his teeth fine, well-set, and white as ivory.After he had slumbered, rather than sl
ept, about half an hour, he wakedagain, and comes out of the cave to me, for I had been milking my goats,which I had in the enclosure just by: when he espied me, he came runningto me, laying himself down again upon the ground, with all the possiblesigns of an humble thankful disposition, making many, antic gestures toshew it. At last he lays his head flat upon the ground, close to myfoot, and sets my other foot upon his head, as he had done before; andafter this, made all the signs to me of subjection, servitude, andsubmission imaginable, to let me know how much he would serve me as longas he lived. I understood him in many things, and let him know I wasvery well pleased with him. In a little time I began to speak to him,and teach him to speak to me; and first, I made him know his name shouldbe Friday, which was the day I saved his life; and I called him so forthe memory of the time; I likewise taught him to say Master, and thenlet him know that was to be my name; I likewise taught him to say Yesand No, and