________________________________________________
_ I had no more business to go to the East Indies than a man at full
liberty has to go to the turnkey at Newgate, and desire him to lock
him up among the prisoners there, and starve him. Had I taken a
small vessel from England and gone directly to the island; had I
loaded her, as I did the other vessel, with all the necessaries for
the plantation and for my people; taken a patent from the
government here to have secured my property, in subjection only to
that of England; had I carried over cannon and ammunition, servants
and people to plant, and taken possession of the place, fortified
and strengthened it in the name of England, and increased it with
people, as I might easily have done; had I then settled myself
there, and sent the ship back laden with good rice, as I might also
have done in six months' time, and ordered my friends to have
fitted her out again for our supply--had I done this, and stayed
there myself, I had at least acted like a man of common sense. But
I was possessed of a wandering spirit, and scorned all advantages:
I pleased myself with being the patron of the people I placed
there, and doing for them in a kind of haughty, majestic way, like
an old patriarchal monarch, providing for them as if I had been
father of the whole family, as well as of the plantation. But I
never so much as pretended to plant in the name of any government
or nation, or to acknowledge any prince, or to call my people
subjects to any one nation more than another; nay, I never so much
as gave the place a name, but left it as I found it, belonging to
nobody, and the people under no discipline or government but my
own, who, though I had influence over them as a father and
benefactor, had no authority or power to act or command one way or
other, further than voluntary consent moved them to comply. Yet
even this, had I stayed there, would have done well enough; but as
I rambled from them, and came there no more, the last letters I had
from any of them were by my partner's means, who afterwards sent
another sloop to the place, and who sent me word, though I had not
the letter till I got to London, several years after it was
written, that they went on but poorly; were discontented with their
long stay there; that Will Atkins was dead; that five of the
Spaniards were come away; and though they had not been much
molested by the savages, yet they had had some skirmishes with
them; and that they begged of him to write to me to think of the
promise I had made to fetch them away, that they might see their
country again before they died.
But I was gone a wildgoose chase indeed, and they that will have
any more of me must be content to follow me into a new variety of
follies, hardships, and wild adventures, wherein the justice of
Providence may be duly observed; and we may see how easily Heaven
can gorge us with our own desires, make the strongest of our wishes
be our affliction, and punish us most severely with those very
things which we think it would be our utmost happiness to be
allowed to possess. Whether I had business or no business, away I
went: it is no time now to enlarge upon the reason or absurdity of
my own conduct, but to come to the history--I was embarked for the
voyage, and the voyage I went.
I shall only add a word or two concerning my honest Popish
clergyman, for let their opinion of us, and all other heretics in
general, as they call us, be as uncharitable as it may, I verily
believe this man was very sincere, and wished the good of all men:
yet I believe he used reserve in many of his expressions, to
prevent giving me offence; for I scarce heard him once call on the
Blessed Virgin, or mention St. Jago, or his guardian angel, though
so common with the rest of them. However, I say I had not the
least doubt of his sincerity and pious intentions; and I am firmly
of opinion, if the rest of the Popish missionaries were like him,
they would strive to visit even the poor Tartars and Laplanders,
where they have nothing to give them, as well as covet to flock to
India, Persia, China, &c.;, the most wealthy of the heathen
countries; for if they expected to bring no gains to their Church
by it, it may well be admired how they came to admit the Chinese
Confucius into the calendar of the Christian saints.
A ship being ready to sail for Lisbon, my pious priest asked me
leave to go thither; being still, as he observed, bound never to
finish any voyage he began. How happy it had been for me if I had
gone with him. But it was too late now; all things Heaven appoints
for the best: had I gone with him I had never had so many things
to be thankful for, and the reader had never heard of the second
part of the travels and adventures of Robinson Crusoe: so I must
here leave exclaiming at myself, and go on with my voyage. From
the Brazils we made directly over the Atlantic Sea to the Cape of
Good Hope, and had a tolerably good voyage, our course generally
south-east, now and then a storm, and some contrary winds; but my
disasters at sea were at an end--my future rubs and cross events
were to befall me on shore, that it might appear the land was as
well prepared to be our scourge as the sea.
Our ship was on a trading voyage, and had a supercargo on board,
who was to direct all her motions after she arrived at the Cape,
only being limited to a certain number of days for stay, by
charter-party, at the several ports she was to go to. This was
none of my business, neither did I meddle with it; my nephew, the
captain, and the supercargo adjusting all those things between them
as they thought fit. We stayed at the Cape no longer than was
needful to take in-fresh water, but made the best of our way for
the coast of Coromandel. We were, indeed, informed that a French
man-of-war, of fifty guns, and two large merchant ships, were gone
for the Indies; and as I knew we were at war with France, I had
some apprehensions of them; but they went their own way, and we
heard no more of them.
I shall not pester the reader with a tedious description of places,
journals of our voyage, variations of the compass, latitudes,
trade-winds, &c.; it is enough to name the ports and places which
we touched at, and what occurred to us upon our passages from one
to another. We touched first at the island of Madagascar, where,
though the people are fierce and treacherous, and very well armed
with lances and bows, which they use with inconceivable dexterity,
yet we fared very well with them a while. They treated us very
civilly; and for some trifles which we gave them, such as knives,
scissors, &c.;, they brought us eleven good fat bullocks, of a
middling size, which we took in, partly for fresh provisions for
our present spending, and the rest to salt for the ship's use.
We were obliged to stay here some time after we had furnished
ourselves with provisions; and I, who was always too curious to
look into every nook of the world wherever I came, went on shore as
often as I could. It was on the east side of the island that we
went on shore one evening: and the people, who, by the way, are
very numerous, came thronging about us, and stood gazing at us at a
distance. As we had traded freely with them, and had been kindly
used, we thought ourselves in no danger; but when we saw the
people, we cut three boughs out of a tree, and stuck them up at a
distance from us; which, it seems, is a mark in that country not
only of a truce and friendship, but when it is accepted the other
side set up three poles or boughs, which is a signal that they
accept the truce too; but then this is a known condition of the
truce, that you are not to pass beyond their three poles towards
them, nor they to come past your three poles or boughs towards you;
so that you are perfectly secure within the three poles, and all
the space between your poles and theirs is allowed like a market
for free converse, traffic, and commerce. When you go there you
must not carry your weapons with you; and if they come into that
space they stick up their javelins and lances all at the first
poles, and come on unarmed; but if any violence is offered them,
and the truce thereby broken, away they run to the poles, and lay
hold of their weapons, and the truce is at an end.
It happened one evening, when we went on shore, that a greater
number of their people came down than usual, but all very friendly
and civil; and they brought several kinds of provisions, for which
we satisfied them with such toys as we had; the women also brought
us milk and roots, and several things very acceptable to us, and
all was quiet; and we made us a little tent or hut of some boughs
or trees, and lay on shore all night. I know not what was the
occasion, but I was not so well satisfied to lie on shore as the
rest; and the boat riding at an anchor at about a stone's cast from
the land, with two men in her to take care of her, I made one of
them come on shore; and getting some boughs of trees to cover us
also in the boat, I spread the sail on the bottom of the boat, and
lay under the cover of the branches of the trees all night in the
boat.
About two o'clock in the morning we heard one of our men making a
terrible noise on the shore, calling out, for God's sake, to bring
the boat in and come and help them, for they were all like to be
murdered; and at the same time I heard the fire of five muskets,
which was the number of guns they had, and that three times over;
for it seems the natives here were not so easily frightened with
guns as the savages were in America, where I had to do with them.
All this while, I knew not what was the matter, but rousing
immediately from sleep with the noise, I caused the boat to be
thrust in, and resolved with three fusees we had on board to land
and assist our men. We got the boat soon to the shore, but our men
were in too much haste; for being come to the shore, they plunged
into the water, to get to the boat with all the expedition they
could, being pursued by between three and four hundred men. Our
men were but nine in all, and only five of them had fusees with
them; the rest had pistols and swords, indeed, but they were of
small use to them.
We took up seven of our men, and with difficulty enough too, three
of them being very ill wounded; and that which was still worse was,
that while we stood in the boat to take our men in, we were in as
much danger as they were in on shore; for they poured their arrows
in upon us so thick that we were glad to barricade the side of the
boat up with the benches, and two or three loose boards which, to
our great satisfaction, we had by mere accident in the boat. And
yet, had it been daylight, they are, it seems, such exact marksmen,
that if they could have seen but the least part of any of us, they
would have been sure of us. We had, by the light of the moon, a
little sight of them, as they stood pelting us from the shore with
darts and arrows; and having got ready our firearms, we gave them a
volley that we could hear, by the cries of some of them, had
wounded several; however, they stood thus in battle array on the
shore till break of day, which we supposed was that they might see
the better to take their aim at us.
In this condition we lay, and could not tell how to weigh our
anchor, or set up our sail, because we must needs stand up in the
boat, and they were as sure to hit us as we were to hit a bird in a
tree with small shot. We made signals of distress to the ship, and
though she rode a league off, yet my nephew, the captain, hearing
our firing, and by glasses perceiving the posture we lay in, and
that we fired towards the shore, pretty well understood us; and
weighing anchor with all speed, he stood as near the shore as he
durst with the ship, and then sent another boat with ten hands in
her, to assist us. We called to them not to come too near, telling
them what condition we were in; however, they stood in near to us,
and one of the men taking the end of a tow-line in his hand, and
keeping our boat between him and the enemy, so that they could not
perfectly see him, swam on board us, and made fast the line to the
boat: upon which we slipped out a little cable, and leaving our
anchor behind, they towed us out of reach of the arrows; we all the
while lying close behind the barricade we had made. As soon as we
were got from between the ship and the shore, that we could lay her
side to the shore, she ran along just by them, and poured in a
broadside among them, loaded with pieces of iron and lead, small
bullets, and such stuff, besides the great shot, which made a
terrible havoc among them.
When we were got on board and out of danger, we had time to examine
into the occasion of this fray; and indeed our supercargo, who had
been often in those parts, put me upon it; for he said he was sure
the inhabitants would not have touched us after we had made a
truce, if we had not done something to provoke them to it. At
length it came out that an old woman, who had come to sell us some
milk, had brought it within our poles, and a young woman with her,
who also brought us some roots or herbs; and while the old woman
(whether she was mother to the young woman or no they could not
tell) was selling us the milk, one of our men offered some rudeness
to the girl that was with her, at which the old woman made a great
noise: however, the seaman would not quit his prize, but carried
her out of the old woman's sight among the trees, it being almost
dark; the old woman went away without her, and, as we may suppose,
made an outcry among the people she came from; who, upon notice,
raised that great army upon us in three or four hours, and it was
great odds but we had all been destroyed.
One of our men was killed with a lance thrown at him just at the
beginning of the attack, as he sallied out of the tent they had
made; the rest came off free, all but the fellow who was the
occasion of all the mischief, who paid dear enough for his
brutality, for we could not hear what became of him for a great
while. We lay upon the shore two days after, though the wind
presented, and made signals for him, and made our boat sail up
shore and down shore several leagues, but in vain; so we were
obliged to give him over; and if he alone had suffered for it, the
loss had been less. I could not satisfy myself, however, without
venturing on shore once more, to try if I could learn anything of
him or them; it was the third night after the action that I had a
great mind to learn, if I could by any means, what mischief we had
done, and how the game stood on the Indians' side. I was careful
to do it in the dark, lest we should be attacked again: but I
ought indeed to have been sure that the men I went with had been
under my command, before I engaged in a thing so hazardous and
mischievous as I was brought into by it, without design.
We took twenty as stout fellows with us as any in the ship, besides
the supercargo and myself, and we landed two hours before midnight,
at the same place where the Indians stood drawn up in the evening
before. I landed here, because my design, as I have said, was
chiefly to see if they had quitted the field, and if they had left
any marks behind them of the mischief we had done them, and I
thought if we could surprise one or two of them, perhaps we might
get our man again, by way of exchange.
We landed without any noise, and divided our men into two bodies,
whereof the boatswain commanded one and I the other. We neither
saw nor heard anybody stir when we landed: and we marched up, one
body at a distance from another, to the place. At first we could
see nothing, it being very dark; till by-and-by our boatswain, who
led the first party, stumbled and fell over a dead body. This made
them halt a while; for knowing by the circumstances that they were
at the place where the Indians had stood, they waited for my coming
up there. We concluded to halt till the moon began to rise, which
we knew would be in less than an hour, when we could easily discern
the havoc we had made among them. We told thirty-two bodies upon
the ground, whereof two were not quite dead; some had an arm and
some a leg shot off, and one his head; those that were wounded, we
supposed, they had carried away. When we had made, as I thought, a
full discovery of all we could come to the knowledge of, I resolved
on going on board; but the boatswain and his party sent me word
that they were resolved to make a visit to the Indian town, where
these dogs, as they called them, dwelt, and asked me to go along
with them; and if they could find them, as they still fancied they
should, they did not doubt of getting a good booty; and it might be
they might find Tom Jeffry there: that was the man's name we had
lost.
Had they sent to ask my leave to go, I knew well enough what answer
to have given them; for I should have commanded them instantly on
board, knowing it was not a hazard fit for us to run, who had a
ship and ship-loading in our charge, and a voyage to make which
depended very much upon the lives of the men; but as they sent me
word they were resolved to go, and only asked me and my company to
go along with them, I positively refused it, and rose up, for I was
sitting on the ground, in order to go to the boat. One or two of
the men began to importune me to go; and when I refused, began to
grumble, and say they were not under my command, and they would go.
"Come, Jack," says one of the men, "will you go with me? I'll go
for one." Jack said he would--and then another--and, in a word,
they all left me but one, whom I persuaded to stay, and a boy left
in the boat. So the supercargo and I, with the third man, went
back to the boat, where we told them we would stay for them, and
take care to take in as many of them as should be left; for I told
them it was a mad thing they were going about, and supposed most of
them would have the fate of Tom Jeffry.
They told me, like seamen, they would warrant it they would come
off again, and they would take care, &c.; so away they went. I
entreated them to consider the ship and the voyage, that their
lives were not their own, and that they were entrusted with the
voyage, in some measure; that if they miscarried, the ship might be
lost for want of their help, and that they could not answer for it
to God or man. But I might as well have talked to the mainmast of
the ship: they were mad upon their journey; only they gave me good
words, and begged I would not be angry; that they did not doubt but
they would be back again in about an hour at furthest; for the
Indian town, they said, was not above half-a mile off, though they
found it above two miles before they got to it.
Well, they all went away, and though the attempt was desperate, and
such as none but madmen would have gone about, yet, to give them
their due, they went about it as warily as boldly; they were
gallantly armed, for they had every man a fusee or musket, a
bayonet, and a pistol; some of them had broad cutlasses, some of
them had hangers, and the boatswain and two more had poleaxes;
besides all which they had among them thirteen hand grenadoes.
Bolder fellows, and better provided, never went about any wicked
work in the world. When they went out their chief design was
plunder, and they were in mighty hopes of finding gold there; but a
circumstance which none of them were aware of set them on fire with
revenge, and made devils of them all.
When they came to the few Indian houses which they thought had been
the town, which was not above half a mile off, they were under
great disappointment, for there were not above twelve or thirteen
houses, and where the town was, or how big, they knew not. They
consulted, therefore, what to do, and were some time before they
could resolve; for if they fell upon these, they must cut all their
throats; and it was ten to one but some of them might escape, it
being in the night, though the moon was up; and if one escaped, he
would run and raise all the town, so they should have a whole army
upon them; on the other hand, if they went away and left those
untouched, for the people were all asleep, they could not tell
which way to look for the town; however, the last was the best
advice, so they resolved to leave them, and look for the town as
well as they could. They went on a little way, and found a cow
tied to a tree; this, they presently concluded, would be a good
guide to them; for, they said, the cow certainly belonged to the
town before them, or the town behind them, and if they untied her,
they should see which way she went: if she went back, they had
nothing to say to her; but if she went forward, they would follow
her. So they cut the cord, which was made of twisted flags, and
the cow went on before them, directly to the town; which, as they
reported, consisted of above two hundred houses or huts, and in
some of these they found several families living together.
Here they found all in silence, as profoundly secure as sleep could
make them: and first, they called another council, to consider
what they had to do; and presently resolved to divide themselves
into three bodies, and so set three houses on fire in three parts
of the town; and as the men came out, to seize them and bind them
(if any resisted, they need not be asked what to do then), and so
to search the rest of the houses for plunder: but they resolved to
march silently first through the town, and see what dimensions it
was of, and if they might venture upon it or no.
They did so, and desperately resolved that they would venture upon
them: but while they were animating one another to the work, three
of them, who were a little before the rest, called out aloud to
them, and told them that they had found--Tom Jeffry: they all ran
up to the place, where they found the poor fellow hanging up naked
by one arm, and his throat cut. There was an Indian house just by
the tree, where they found sixteen or seventeen of the principal
Indians, who had been concerned in the fray with us before, and two
or three of them wounded with our shot; and our men found they were
awake, and talking one to another in that house, but knew not their
number.
The sight of their poor mangled comrade so enraged them, as before,
that they swore to one another that they would be revenged, and
that not an Indian that came into their hands should have any
quarter; and to work they went immediately, and yet not so madly as
might be expected from the rage and fury they were in. Their first
care was to get something that would soon take fire, but, after a
little search, they found that would be to no purpose; for most of
the houses were low, and thatched with flags and rushes, of which
the country is full; so they presently made some wildfire, as we
call it, by wetting a little powder in the palm of their hands, and
in a quarter of an hour they set the town on fire in four or five
places, and particularly that house where the Indians were not gone
to bed.
As soon as the fire begun to blaze, the poor frightened creatures
began to rush out to save their lives, but met with their fate in
the attempt; and especially at the door, where they drove them
back, the boatswain himself killing one or two with his poleaxe.
The house being large, and many in it, he did not care to go in,
but called for a hand grenado, and threw it among them, which at
first frightened them, but, when it burst, made such havoc among
them that they cried out in a hideous manner. In short, most of
the Indians who were in the open part of the house were killed or
hurt with the grenado, except two or three more who pressed to the
door, which the boatswain and two more kept, with their bayonets on
the muzzles of their pieces, and despatched all that came in their
way; but there was another apartment in the house, where the prince
or king, or whatever he was, and several others were; and these
were kept in till the house, which was by this time all in a light
flame, fell in upon them, and they were smothered together.
All this while they fired not a gun, because they would not waken
the people faster than they could master them; but the fire began
to waken them fast enough, and our fellows were glad to keep a
little together in bodies; for the fire grew so raging, all the
houses being made of light combustible stuff, that they could
hardly bear the street between them. Their business was to follow
the fire, for the surer execution: as fast as the fire either
forced the people out of those houses which were burning, or
frightened them out of others, our people were ready at their doors
to knock them on the head, still calling and hallooing one to
another to remember Tom Jeffry.
While this was doing, I must confess I was very uneasy, and
especially when I saw the flames of the town, which, it being
night, seemed to be close by me. My nephew, the captain, who was
roused by his men seeing such a fire, was very uneasy, not knowing
what the matter was, or what danger I was in, especially hearing
the guns too, for by this time they began to use their firearms; a
thousand thoughts oppressed his mind concerning me and the
supercargo, what would become of us; and at last, though he could
ill spare any more men, yet not knowing what exigence we might be
in, he took another boat, and with thirteen men and himself came
ashore to me.
He was surprised to see me and the supercargo in the boat with no
more than two men; and though he was glad that we were well, yet he
was in the same impatience with us to know what was doing; for the
noise continued, and the flame increased; in short, it was next to
an impossibility for any men in the world to restrain their
curiosity to know what had happened, or their concern for the
safety of the men: in a word, the captain told me he would go and
help his men, let what would come. I argued with him, as I did
before with the men, the safety of the ship, the danger of the
voyage, the interests of the owners and merchants, &c.;, and told
him I and the two men would go, and only see if we could at a
distance learn what was likely to be the event, and come back and
tell him. It was in vain to talk to my nephew, as it was to talk
to the rest before; he would go, he said; and he only wished he had
left but ten men in the ship, for he could not think of having his
men lost for want of help: he had rather lose the ship, the
voyage, and his life, and all; and away he went.
I was no more able to stay behind now than I was to persuade them
not to go; so the captain ordered two men to row back the pinnace,
and fetch twelve men more, leaving the long-boat at an anchor; and
that, when they came back, six men should keep the two boats, and
six more come after us; so that he left only sixteen men in the
ship: for the whole ship's company consisted of sixty-five men,
whereof two were lost in the late quarrel which brought this
mischief on.
Being now on the march, we felt little of the ground we trod on;
and being guided by the fire, we kept no path, but went directly to
the place of the flame. If the noise of the guns was surprising to
us before, the cries of the poor people were now quite of another
nature, and filled us with horror. I must confess I was never at
the sacking a city, or at the taking a town by storm. I had heard
of Oliver Cromwell taking Drogheda, in Ireland, and killing man,
woman, and child; and I had read of Count Tilly sacking the city of
Magdeburg and cutting the throats of twenty-two thousand of all
sexes; but I never had an idea of the thing itself before, nor is
it possible to describe it, or the horror that was upon our minds
at hearing it. However, we went on, and at length came to the
town, though there was no entering the streets of it for the fire.
The first object we met with was the ruins of a hut or house, or
rather the ashes of it, for the house was consumed; and just before
it, plainly now to be seen by the light of the fire, lay four men
and three women, killed, and, as we thought, one or two more lay in
the heap among the fire; in short, there were such instances of
rage, altogether barbarous, and of a fury something beyond what was
human, that we thought it impossible our men could be guilty of it;
or, if they were the authors of it, we thought they ought to be
every one of them put to the worst of deaths. But this was not
all: we saw the fire increase forward, and the cry went on just as
the fire went on; so that we were in the utmost confusion. We
advanced a little way farther, and behold, to our astonishment,
three naked women, and crying in a most dreadful manner, came
flying as if they had wings, and after them sixteen or seventeen
men, natives, in the same terror and consternation, with three of
our English butchers in the rear, who, when they could not overtake
them, fired in among them, and one that was killed by their shot
fell down in our sight. When the rest saw us, believing us to be
their enemies, and that we would murder them as well as those that
pursued them, they set up a most dreadful shriek, especially the
women; and two of them fell down, as if already dead, with the
fright.
My very soul shrunk within me, and my blood ran chill in my veins,
when I saw this; and, I believe, had the three English sailors that
pursued them come on, I had made our men kill them all; however, we
took some means to let the poor flying creatures know that we would
not hurt them; and immediately they came up to us, and kneeling
down, with their hands lifted up, made piteous lamentation to us to
save them, which we let them know we would: whereupon they crept
all together in a huddle close behind us, as for protection. I
left my men drawn up together, and, charging them to hurt nobody,
but, if possible, to get at some of our people, and see what devil
it was possessed them, and what they intended to do, and to command
them off; assuring them that if they stayed till daylight they
would have a hundred thousand men about their ears: I say I left
them, and went among those flying people, taking only two of our
men with me; and there was, indeed, a piteous spectacle among them.
Some of them had their feet terribly burned with trampling and
running through the fire; others their hands burned; one of the
women had fallen down in the fire, and was very much burned before
she could get out again; and two or three of the men had cuts in
their backs and thighs, from our men pursuing; and another was shot
through the body and died while I was there.
I would fain have learned what the occasion of all this was; but I
could not understand one word they said; though, by signs, I
perceived some of them knew not what was the occasion themselves.
I was so terrified in my thoughts at this outrageous attempt that I
could not stay there, but went back to my own men, and resolved to
go into the middle of the town, through the fire, or whatever might
be in the way, and put an end to it, cost what it would;
accordingly, as I came back to my men, I told them my resolution,
and commanded them to follow me, when, at the very moment, came
four of our men, with the boatswain at their head, roving over
heaps of bodies they had killed, all covered with blood and dust,
as if they wanted more people to massacre, when our men hallooed to
them as loud as they could halloo; and with much ado one of them
made them hear, so that they knew who we were, and came up to us.
As soon as the boatswain saw us, he set up a halloo like a shout of
triumph, for having, as he thought, more help come; and without
waiting to hear me, "Captain," says he, "noble captain! I am glad
you are come; we have not half done yet. Villainous hell-hound
dogs! I'll kill as many of them as poor Tom has hairs upon his
head: we have sworn to spare none of them; we'll root out the very
nation of them from the earth;" and thus he ran on, out of breath,
too, with action, and would not give us leave to speak a word. At
last, raising my voice that I might silence him a little,
"Barbarous dog!" said I, "what are you doing! I won't have one
creature touched more, upon pain of death; I charge you, upon your
life, to stop your hands, and stand still here, or you are a dead
man this minute."--"Why, sir," says he, "do you know what you do,
or what they have done? If you want a reason for what we have
done, come hither;" and with that he showed me the poor fellow
hanging, with his throat cut.
I confess I was urged then myself, and at another time would have
been forward enough; but I thought they had carried their rage too
far, and remembered Jacob's words to his sons Simeon and Levi:
"Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it
was cruel." But I had now a new task upon my hands; for when the
men I had carried with me saw the sight, as I had done, I had as
much to do to restrain them as I should have had with the others;
nay, my nephew himself fell in with them, and told me, in their
hearing, that he was only concerned for fear of the men being
overpowered; and as to the people, he thought not one of them ought
to live; for they had all glutted themselves with the murder of the
poor man, and that they ought to be used like murderers. Upon
these words, away ran eight of my men, with the boatswain and his
crew, to complete their bloody work; and I, seeing it quite out of
my power to restrain them, came away pensive and sad; for I could
not bear the sight, much less the horrible noise and cries of the
poor wretches that fell into their hands.
I got nobody to come back with me but the supercargo and two men,
and with these walked back to the boat. It was a very great piece
of folly in me, I confess, to venture back, as it were, alone; for
as it began now to be almost day, and the alarm had run over the
country, there stood about forty men armed with lances and boughs
at the little place where the twelve or thirteen houses stood,
mentioned before: but by accident I missed the place, and came
directly to the seaside, and by the time I got to the seaside it
was broad day: immediately I took the pinnace and went on board,
and sent her back to assist the men in what might happen. I
observed, about the time that I came to the boat-side, that the
fire was pretty well out, and the noise abated; but in about half-
an-hour after I got on board, I heard a volley of our men's
firearms, and saw a great smoke. This, as I understood afterwards,
was our men falling upon the men, who, as I said, stood at the few
houses on the way, of whom they killed sixteen or seventeen, and
set all the houses on fire, but did not meddle with the women or
children.
By the time the men got to the shore again with the pinnace our men
began to appear; they came dropping in, not in two bodies as they
went, but straggling here and there in such a manner, that a small
force of resolute men might have cut them all off. But the dread
of them was upon the whole country; and the men were surprised, and
so frightened, that I believe a hundred of them would have fled at
the sight of but five of our men. Nor in all this terrible action
was there a man that made any considerable defence: they were so
surprised between the terror of the fire and the sudden attack of
our men in the dark, that they knew not which way to turn
themselves; for if they fled one way they were met by one party, if
back again by another, so that they were everywhere knocked down;
nor did any of our men receive the least hurt, except one that
sprained his foot, and another that had one of his hands burned. _
Read next: CHAPTER X - HE IS LEFT ON SHORE
Read previous: CHAPTER VIII - SAILS FROM THE ISLAND FOR THE BRAZILS
Table of content of Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
