no advantage to us if we let the boat escape; because they would row away to the ship, and then the rest of
them would be sure to weigh and set sail, and so our recovering the ship would be lost. However we had no
remedy but to wait and see what the issue of things might present. The seven men came on shore, and the
three who remained in the boat put her off to a good distance from the shore, and came to an anchor to wait
for them; so that it was impossible for us to come at them in the boat. Those that came on shore kept close
together, marching towards the top of the little hill under which my habitation lay; and we could see them
plainly, though they could not perceive us. We should have been very glad if they would have come nearer
us, so that we might have fired at them, or that they would have gone farther off, that we might come abroad.
But when they were come to the brow of the hill where they could see a great way into the valleys and
woods, which lay towards the north.east part, and where the island lay lowest, they shouted and hallooed till
they were weary; and not caring, it seems, to venture far from the shore, nor far from one another, they sat
down together under a tree to consider it. Had they thought fit to have gone to sleep there, as the other part of
them had done, they had done the job for us; but they were too full of apprehensions of danger to venture to
go to sleep, though they could not tell what the danger was they had to fear.
The captain made a very just proposal to me upon this consultation of theirs, viz. that perhaps they would all
fire a volley again, to endeavour to make their fellows hear, and that we should all sally upon them just at the
juncture when their pieces were all discharged, and they would certainly yield, and we should have them
without bloodshed. I liked this proposal, provided it was done while we were near enough to come up to them
before they could load their pieces again. But this event did not happen; and we lay still a long time, very
irresolute what course to take. At length I told them there would be nothing done, in my opinion, till night;
and then, if they did not return to the boat, perhaps we might find a way to get between them and the shore,
and so might use some stratagem with them in the boat to get them on shore. We waited a great while, though
very impatient for their removing; and were very uneasy when, after long consultation, we saw them all start
up and march down towards the sea; it seems they had such dreadful apprehensions of the danger of the place
that they resolved to go on board the ship again, give their companions over for lost, and so go on with their
intended voyage with the ship.
As soon as I perceived them go towards the shore, I imagined it to be as it really was that they had given over
their search, and were going back again; and the captain, as soon as I told him my thoughts, was ready to sink
at the apprehensions of it; but I presently thought of a stratagem to fetch them back again, and which
answered my end to a tittle. I ordered Friday and the captain's mate to go over the little creek westward,
CHAPTER XVIII . THE SHIP RECOVERED
Robinson Crusoe
towards the place where the savages came on shore, when Friday was rescued, and so soon as they came to a
little rising round, at about half a mile distant, I bid them halloo out, as loud as they could, and wait till they
found the seamen heard them; that as soon as ever they heard the seamen answer them, they should return it
again; and then, keeping out of sight, take a round, always answering when the others hallooed, to draw them
as far into the island and among the woods as possible, and then wheel about again to me by such ways as I
directed them.
They were just going into the boat when Friday and the mate hallooed; and they presently heard them, and
answering, ran along the shore westward, towards the voice they heard, when they were stopped by the creek,
where the water being up, they could not get over, and called for the boat to come up and set them over; as,
indeed, I expected. When they had set themselves over, I observed that the boat being gone a good way into
the creek, and, as it were, in a harbour within the land, they took one of the three men out of her, to go along
with them, and left only two in the boat, having fastened her to the stump of a little tree on the shore. This
was what I wished for; and immediately leaving Friday and the captain's mate to their business, I took the rest
with me; and, crossing the creek out of their sight, we surprised the two men before they were aware . one of
them lying on the shore, and the other being in the boat. The fellow on shore was between sleeping and
waking, and going to start up; the captain, who was foremost, ran in upon him, and knocked him down; and
then called out to him in the boat to yield, or he was a dead man. They needed very few arguments to
persuade a single man to yield, when he saw five men upon him and his comrade knocked down: besides, this
was, it seems, one of the three who were not so hearty in the mutiny as the rest of the crew, and therefore was
easily persuaded not only to yield, but afterwards to join very sincerely with us. In the meantime, Friday and
the captain's mate so well managed their business with the rest that they drew them, by hallooing and
answering, from one hill to another, and from one wood to another, till they not only heartily tired them, but
left them where they were, very sure they could not reach back to the boat before it was dark; and, indeed,
they were heartily tired themselves also, by the time they came back to us.
We had nothing now to do but to watch for them in the dark, and to fall upon them, so as to make sure work
with them. It was several hours after Friday came back to me before they came back to their boat; and we
could hear the foremost of them, long before they came quite up, calling to those behind to come along; and
could also hear them answer, and complain how lame and tired they were, and not able to come any faster:
which was very welcome news to us. At length they came up to the boat: but it is impossible to express their
confusion when they found the boat fast aground in the creek, the tide ebbed out, and their two men gone. We
could hear them call one to another in a most lamentable manner, telling one another they were got into an
enchanted island; that either there were inhabitants in it, and they should all be murdered, or else there were
devils and spirits in it, and they should be all carried away and devoured. They hallooed again, and called
their two comrades by their names a great many times; but no answer. After some time we could see them, by
the little light there was, run about, wringing their hands like men in despair, and sometimes they would go
and sit down in the boat to rest themselves: then come ashore again, and walk about again, and so the same
thing over again. My men would fain have had me give them leave to fall upon them at once in the dark; but I
was willing to take them at some advantage, so as to spare them, and kill as few of them as I could; and
especially I was unwilling to hazard the killing of any of our men, knowing the others were very well armed.
I resolved to wait, to see if they did not separate; and therefore, to make sure of them, I drew my ambuscade
nearer, and ordered Friday and the captain to creep upon their hands and feet, as close to the ground as they
could, that they might not be discovered, and get as near them as they could possibly before they offered to
fire.
They had not been long in that posture when the boatswain, who was the principal ringleader of the mutiny,
and had now shown himself the most dejected and dispirited of all the rest, came walking towards them, with
two more of the crew; the captain was so eager at having this principal rogue so much in his power, that he
could hardly have patience to let him come so near as to be sure of him, for they only heard his tongue
before: but when they came nearer, the captain and Friday, starting up on their feet, let fly at them. The
CHAPTER XVIII . THE SHIP RECOVERED
Robinson Crusoe
boatswain was killed upon the spot: the next man was shot in the body, and fell just by him, though he did not
die till an hour or two after; and the third ran for it. At the noise of the fire I immediately advanced with my
whole army, which was now eight men, viz. myself, generalissimo; Friday, my lieutenant.general; the
captain and his two men, and the three prisoners of war whom we had trusted with arms. We came upon
them, indeed, in the dark, so that they could not see our number; and I made the man they had left in the boat,
who was now one of us, to call them by name, to try if I could bring them to a parley, and so perhaps might
reduce them to terms; which fell out just as we desired: for indeed it was easy to think, as their condition then
was, they would be very willing to capitulate. So he calls out as loud as he could to one of them, "Tom
Smith! Tom Smith!" Tom Smith answered immediately, "Is that Robinson?" for it seems he knew the voice.
The other answered, "Ay, ay; for God's sake, Tom Smith, throw down your arms and yield, or you are all
dead men this moment." "Who must we yield to? Where are they?" says Smith again. "Here they are," says
he; "here's our captain and fifty men with him, have been hunting you these two hours; the boatswain is
killed; Will Fry is wounded, and I am a prisoner; and if you do not yield you are all lost." "Will they give us
quarter, then?" says Tom Smith, "and we will yield." "I'll go and ask, if you promise to yield," said Robinson:
so he asked the captain, and the captain himself then calls out, "You, Smith, you know my voice; if you lay
down your arms immediately and submit, you shall have your lives, all but Will Atkins."
Upon this Will Atkins cried out, "For God's sake, captain, give me quarter; what have I done? They have all
been as bad as I:" which, by the way, was not true; for it seems this Will Atkins was the first man that laid
hold of the captain when they first mutinied, and used him barbarously in tying his hands and giving him
injurious language. However, the captain told him he must lay down his arms at discretion, and trust to the
governor's mercy: by which he meant me, for they all called me governor. In a word, they all laid down their
arms and begged their lives; and I sent the man that had parleyed with them, and two more, who bound them
all; and then my great army of fifty men, which, with those three, were in all but eight, came up and seized
upon them, and upon their boat; only that I kept myself and one more out of sight for reasons of state.
Our next work was to repair the boat, and think of seizing the ship: and as for the captain, now he had leisure
to parley with them, he expostulated with them upon the villainy of their practices with him, and upon the
further wickedness of their design, and how certainly it must bring them to misery and distress in the end, and
perhaps to the gallows. They all appeared very penitent, and begged hard for their lives. As for that, he told
them they were not his prisoners, but the commander's of the island; that they thought they had set him on
shore in a barren, uninhabited island; but it had pleased God so to direct them that it was inhabited, and that
the governor was an Englishman; that he might hang them all there, if he pleased; but as he had given them
all quarter, he supposed he would send them to England, to be dealt with there as justice required, except
Atkins, whom he was commanded by the governor to advise to prepare for death, for that he would be hanged
in the morning.
Though this was all but a fiction of his own, yet it had its desired effect; Atkins fell upon his knees to beg the
captain to intercede with the governor for his life; and all the rest begged of him, for God's sake, that they
might not be sent to England.
It now occurred to me that the time of our deliverance was come, and that it would be a most easy thing to
bring these fellows in to be hearty in getting possession of the ship; so I retired in the dark from them, that
they might not see what kind of a governor they had, and called the captain to me; when I called, at a good
distance, one of the men was ordered to speak again, and say to the captain, "Captain, the commander calls
for you;" and presently the captain replied, "Tell his excellency I am just coming." This more perfectly
amazed them, and they all believed that the commander was just by, with his fifty men. Upon the captain
coming to me, I told him my project for seizing the ship, which he liked wonderfully well, and resolved to
put it in execution the next morning. But, in order to execute it with more art, and to be secure of success, I
told him we must divide the prisoners, and that he should go and take Atkins, and two more of the worst of
them, and send them pinioned to the cave where the others lay. This was committed to Friday and the two
CHAPTER XVIII . THE SHIP RECOVERED
Robinson Crusoe
men who came on shore with the captain. They conveyed them to the cave as to a prison: and it was, indeed,
a dismal place, especially to men in their condition. The others I ordered to my bower, as I called it, of which
I have given a full description: and as it was fenced in, and they pinioned, the place was secure enough,
considering they were upon their behaviour.
To these in the morning I sent the captain, who was to enter into a parley with them; in a word, to try them,
and tell me whether he thought they might be trusted or not to go on board and surprise the ship. He talked to
them of the injury done him, of the condition they were brought to, and that though the governor had given
them quarter for their lives as to the present action, yet that if they were sent to England they would all be
hanged in chains; but that if they would join in so just an attempt as to recover the ship, he would have the
governor's engagement for their pardon.
Any one may guess how readily such a proposal would be accepted by men in their condition; they fell down
