by Daniel Defoe
soon as I saw them shipped and gone, I took two guns upon myshoulders, and two pistols in my girdle, and my great sword by my side,without a scabbard, and with all the speed I was able to make, went awayto the hill where I had discovered the first appearance of all; and assoon as I got thither, which was not in less than two hours (for I couldnot go apace, being so loaden with arms as I was,) I perceived there hadbeen three canoes more of savages at that place; and looking outfarther, I saw they were all at sea together, making over for the main.This was a dreadful sight to me, especially as, going down to the shore,I could see the marks of horror, which the dismal work they had beenabout had left behind it, viz. the blood, the bones, and part of theflesh, of human bodies, eaten and devoured by those wretches withmerriment and sport. I was so filled with indignation at the sight, thatI now began to premeditate the destruction of the next that I saw there,let them be whom or how many soever. It seemed evident to me that thevisits which they made thus to this island were not very frequent, forit was above fifteen months before any more of them came on shore thereagain; that is to say, I neither saw them; nor any footsteps or signalsof them, in all that time; for, as to the rainy seasons, then they aresure not to come abroad, at least not so far: yet all this while I liveduncomfortably, by reason of the constant apprehensions of their comingupon me by surprise: from whence I observe, that the expectation of evilis more bitter than the suffering, especially if there is no room toshake off that expectation, or those apprehensions.
During all this time I was in the murdering humour, and took up most ofmy hours, which should have been better employed, in contriving how tocircumvent and fall upon them, the very next time I should see them;especially if they should be divided, as they were the last time, intotwo parties: nor did I consider at all, that if I killed one party,suppose ten or a dozen, I was still the next day, or week, or month, tokill another, and so another, even _ad infinitum_, till I should be atlength no less a murderer than they were in being man-eaters, andperhaps much more so. I spent my days now in great perplexity andanxiety of mind, expecting that I should, one day or other, fall intothe hands of these merciless creatures; and if I did at any timeventure abroad, it was not without looking round me with the greatestcare and caution imaginable. And now I found, to my great comfort, howhappy it was that I had provided a tame flock or herd of goats; for Idurst not, upon any account, fire my gun, especially near that side ofthe island where they usually came, lest I should alarm the savages; andif they had fled from me now, I was sure to have them come again, withperhaps two or three hundred canoes with them, in a few days, and then Iknew what to expect. However, I wore out a year and three months morebefore I ever saw any more of the savages, and then I found them again,as I shall soon observe. It is true, they might have been there once ortwice, but either they made no stay, or at least I did not see them: butin the month of May, as near as I could calculate, and in my four andtwentieth year, I had a very strange encounter with them; of which inits place.
The perturbation of my mind, during this fifteen or sixteen months'interval, was very great; I slept unquiet, dreamed always frightfuldreams, and often started out of my sleep in the night: in the day greattroubles overwhelmed my mind; and in the night, I dreamed often ofkilling the savages, and of the reasons why I might justify the doing ofit. But, to wave all this for a while.--It was in the middle of May, onthe sixteenth day, I think, as well as my poor wooden calendar wouldreckon, for I marked all upon the post still; I say, it was on thesixteenth of May that it blew a very great storm of wind all day, with agreat deal of lightning and thunder, and a very foul night it was afterit. I knew not what was the particular occasion of it, but as I wasreading in the Bible, and taken up with very serious thoughts about mypresent condition, I was surprised with the noise of a gun, as Ithought, fired at sea. This was, to be sure, a surprise quite of adifferent nature from any I had met with before; for the notions thisput into my thoughts were quite of another kind. I started up in thegreatest haste imaginable, and, in a trice, clapped my ladder to themiddle place of the rock, and pulled it after me; and mounting it thesecond time, got to the top of the hill the very moment that a flash offire bid me listen for a second gun, which accordingly, in about half aminute, I heard; and, by the sound, knew that it was from that part ofthe sea where I was driven down the current in my boat. I immediatelyconsidered that this must be some ship in distress, and that they hadsome comrade, or some other ship in company, and fired these guns forsignals of distress, and to obtain help. I had the presence of mind, atthat minute, to think, that though I could not help them, it might bethey might help me: so I brought together all the dry wood I could getat hand, and making a good handsome pile, I set it on fire upon thehill. The wood was dry, and blazed freely; and though the wind blew veryhard, yet it burnt fairly out, so that I was certain, if there was anysuch thing as a ship, they must needs see it, and no doubt they did; foras soon as ever my fire blazed up I heard another gun, and after thatseveral others, all from the same quarter, I plied my fire all nightlong, till daybreak; and when it was broad day, and the air cleared up,I saw something at a great distance at sea, full east of the island,whether a sail or a hull I could not distinguish, no, not with my glass;the distance was so great, and the weather still something hazy also; atleast it was so out at sea.
I looked frequently at it all that day, and soon perceived that it didnot move; so I presently concluded that it was a ship at anchor; andbeing eager, you may be sure, to be satisfied, I took my gun in my hand,and ran towards the south side of the island, to the rocks where I hadformerly been carried away with the current; and getting up there, theweather by this time being perfectly clear, I could plainly see, to mygreat sorrow, the wreck of a ship, cast away in the night upon thoseconcealed rocks which I found when I was out in my boat; and whichrocks, as they checked the violence of the stream, and made a kind ofcounter-stream, or eddy, were the occasion of my recovering from themost desperate, hopeless condition that ever I had been in, all my life.Thus, what is one man's safety is another man's destruction; for itseems these men, whoever they were, being out of their knowledge, andthe rocks being wholly under water, had been driven upon them in thenight, the wind blowing hard at E.N.E. Had they seen the island, as Imust necessarily suppose they did not, they must, as I thought, haveendeavoured to have saved themselves on shore by the help of their boat;but their firing off guns for help, especially when they saw, as Iimagined, my fire, filled me with many thoughts: first, I imagined thatupon seeing my light, they might have put themselves into their boat,and endeavoured to make the shore; but that the sea going very high,they might have been cast away: other times I imagined that they mighthave lost their boat before, as might be the case many ways; as,particularly, by the breaking of the sea upon their ship, which manytimes obliges men to stave, or take in pieces, their boat, and sometimesto throw it overboard with their own hands: other times I imagined theyhad some other ship or ships in company, who, upon the signals ofdistress they had made, had taken them up and carried them off: othertimes I fancied they were all gone off to sea in their boat, and beinghurried away by the current that I had been formerly in, were carriedout into the great ocean, where there was nothing but misery andperishing; and that, perhaps, they might by this time think of starving,and of being in a condition to eat one another.
As all these were but conjectures at best, so, in the condition I wasin, I could do no more than look on upon the misery of the poor men, andpity them; which had still this good effect on my side, that it gave memore and more cause to give thanks to God, who had so happily andcomfortably provided for me in my desolate condition; and that of twoships' companies who were now cast away upon this part of the world, notone life should be spared but mine. I learned here again to observe,that it is very rare that the providence of God casts us into anycondition of life so low, or any misery so great, but we may seesomething or other to be thankful for, and may see others in worsecircumstances than our own. Such certainly was the case of these men, of
whom I could not so much as see room to suppose any of them were saved;nothing could make it rational so much as to wish or expect that theydid not all perish there, except the possibility only of their beingtaken up by another ship in company; and this was but mere possibilityindeed, for I saw not the least sign or appearance of any such thing. Icannot explain, by any possible energy of words, what a strange longingor hankering of desires I felt in my soul upon this sight, breaking outsometimes thus: "O that there had been but one or two, nay, or but onesoul, saved out of this ship, to have escaped to me, that I might buthave had one companion, one fellow-creature to have spoken to me, and tohave conversed with!" In all the time of my solitary life, I never feltso earnest, so strong a desire after the society of my fellow-creatures,or so deep a regret at the want of it.
There are some secret moving springs in the affections, which, when theyare set a going by some
