The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
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 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 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 on their knees to the captain, and
promised, with the deepest imprecations, that they would be faithful to
him to the last drop, and that they should owe their lives to him, and
would go with him all over the world; that they would own him as a
father to them as long as they lived. “Well,” says the captain, “I must
go and tell the governor what you say, and see what I can do to bring
him to consent to it.” So he brought me an account of the temper he
found them in, and that he verily believed they would be faithful.
However, that we might be very secure, I told him he should go back
again and choose out those five, and tell them, that they might see he
did not want men, that he would take out those five to be his
assistants, and that the governor would keep the other two, and the
three that were sent prisoners to the castle (my cave), as hostages for
the fidelity of those five; and that if they proved unfaithful in the
execution, the five hostages should be hanged in chains alive on the
shore. This looked severe, and convinced them that the governor was in
earnest; however, they had no way left them but to accept it; and it
was now the business of the prisoners, as much as of the captain, to
persuade the other five to do their duty.
Our strength was now thus ordered for the expedition: first, the
captain, his mate, and passenger; second, the two prisoners of the
first gang, to whom, having their character from the captain, I had
given their liberty, and trusted them with arms; third, the other two
that I had kept till now in my bower, pinioned, but on the captain’s
motion had now released; fourth, these five released at last; so that
there were twelve in all, besides five we kept prisoners in the cave
for hostages.
I asked the captain if he was willing to venture with these hands on
board the ship; but as for me and my man Friday, I did not think it was
proper for us to stir, having seven men left behind; and it was
employment enough for us to keep them asunder, and supply them with
victuals. As to the five in the cave, I resolved to keep them fast, but
Friday went in twice a day to them, to supply them with necessaries;
and I made the other two carry provisions to a certain distance, where
Friday was to take them.
When I showed myself to the two hostages, it was with the captain, who
told them I was the person the governor had ordered to look after them;
and that it was the governor’s pleasure they should not stir anywhere
but by my direction; that if they did, they would be fetched into the
castle, and be laid in irons: so that as we never suffered them to see
me as governor, I now appeared as another person, and spoke of the
governor, the garrison, the castle, and the like, upon all occasions.
The captain now had no difficulty before him, but to furnish his two
boats, stop the breach of one, and man them. He made his passenger
captain of one, with four of the men; and himself, his mate, and five
more, went in the other; and they contrived their business very well,
for they came up to the ship about midnight. As soon as they came
within call of the ship, he made Robinson hail them, and tell them they
had brought off the men and the boat, but that it was a long time
before they had found them, and the like, holding them in a chat till
they came to the ship’s side; when the captain and the mate entering
first with their arms, immediately knocked down the second mate and
carpenter with the butt-end of their muskets, being very faithfully
seconded by their men; they secured all the rest that were upon the
main and quarter decks, and began to fasten the hatches, to keep them
down that were below; when the other boat and their men, entering at
the forechains, secured the forecastle of the ship, and the scuttle
which went down into the cook-room, making three men they found there
prisoners. When this was done, and all safe upon deck, the captain
ordered the mate, with three men, to break into the round-house, where
the new rebel captain lay, who, having taken the alarm, had got up, and
with two men and a boy had got firearms in their hands; and when the
mate, with a crow, split open the door, the new captain and his men
fired boldly among them, and wounded the mate with a musket ball, which
broke his arm, and wounded two more of the men, but killed nobody. The
mate, calling for help, rushed, however, into the round-house, wounded
as he was, and, with his pistol, shot the new captain through the head,
the bullet entering at his mouth, and came out again behind one of his
ears, so that he never spoke a word more: upon which the rest yielded,
and the ship was taken effectually, without any more lives lost.
As soon as the ship was thus secured, the captain ordered seven guns to
be fired, which was the signal agreed upon with me to give me notice of
his success, which, you may be sure, I was very glad to hear, having
sat watching upon the shore for it till near two o’clock in the
morning. Having thus heard the signal plainly, I laid me down; and it
having been a day of great fatigue to me, I slept very sound, till I
was surprised with the noise of a gun; and presently starting up, I
heard a man call me by the name of “Governor! Governor!” and presently
I knew the captain’s voice; when, climbing up to the top of the hill,