The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
again, as if he had supposed the bear could speak English, “What, you
come no farther? pray you come farther;” so he left jumping and shaking
the tree; and the bear, just as if he understood what he said, did come
a little farther; then he began jumping again, and the bear stopped
again. We thought now was a good time to knock him in the head, and
called to Friday to stand still and we should shoot the bear: but he
cried out earnestly, “Oh, pray! Oh, pray! no shoot, me shoot by and
then:” he would have said by-and-by. However, to shorten the story,
Friday danced so much, and the bear stood so ticklish, that we had
laughing enough, but still could not imagine what the fellow would do:
for first we thought he depended upon shaking the bear off; and we
found the bear was too cunning for that too; for he would not go out
far enough to be thrown down, but clung fast with his great broad claws
and feet, so that we could not imagine what would be the end of it, and
what the jest would be at last. But Friday put us out of doubt quickly:
for seeing the bear cling fast to the bough, and that he would not be
persuaded to come any farther, “Well, well,” says Friday, “you no come
farther, me go; you no come to me, me come to you;” and upon this he
went out to the smaller end, where it would bend with his weight, and
gently let himself down by it, sliding down the bough till he came near
enough to jump down on his feet, and away he ran to his gun, took it
up, and stood still. “Well,” said I to him, “Friday, what will you do
now? Why don’t you shoot him?” “No shoot,” says Friday, “no yet; me
shoot now, me no kill; me stay, give you one more laugh:” and, indeed,
so he did; for when the bear saw his enemy gone, he came back from the
bough, where he stood, but did it very cautiously, looking behind him
every step, and coming backward till he got into the body of the tree,
then, with the same hinder end foremost, he came down the tree,
grasping it with his claws, and moving one foot at a time, very
leisurely. At this juncture, and just before he could set his hind foot
on the ground, Friday stepped up close to him, clapped the muzzle of
his piece into his ear, and shot him dead. Then the rogue turned about
to see if we did not laugh; and when he saw we were pleased by our
looks, he began to laugh very loud. “So we kill bear in my country,”
says Friday. “So you kill them?” says I; “why, you have no guns.”—“No,”
says he, “no gun, but shoot great much long arrow.” This was a good
diversion to us; but we were still in a wild place, and our guide very
much hurt, and what to do we hardly knew; the howling of wolves ran
much in my head; and, indeed, except the noise I once heard on the
shore of Africa, of which I have said something already, I never heard
anything that filled me with so much horror.
These things, and the approach of night, called us off, or else, as
Friday would have had us, we should certainly have taken the skin of
this monstrous creature off, which was worth saving; but we had near
three leagues to go, and our guide hastened us; so we left him, and
went forward on our journey.
The ground was still covered with snow, though not so deep and
dangerous as on the mountains; and the ravenous creatures, as we heard
afterwards, were come down into the forest and plain country, pressed
by hunger, to seek for food, and had done a great deal of mischief in
the villages, where they surprised the country people, killed a great
many of their sheep and horses, and some people too.
We had one dangerous place to pass, and our guide told us if there were
more wolves in the country we should find them there; and this was a
small plain, surrounded with woods on every side, and a long, narrow
defile, or lane, which we were to pass to get through the wood, and
then we should come to the village where we were to lodge.
It was within half-an-hour of sunset when we entered the wood, and a
little after sunset when we came into the plain: we met with nothing in
the first wood, except that in a little plain within the wood, which
was not above two furlongs over, we saw five great wolves cross the
road, full speed, one after another, as if they had been in chase of
some prey, and had it in view; they took no notice of us, and were gone
out of sight in a few moments. Upon this, our guide, who, by the way,
was but a fainthearted fellow, bid us keep in a ready posture, for he
believed there were more wolves a-coming. We kept our arms ready, and
our eyes about us; but we saw no more wolves till we came through that
wood, which was near half a league, and entered the plain. As soon as
we came into the plain, we had occasion enough to look about us. The
first object we met with was a dead horse; that is to say, a poor horse
which the wolves had killed, and at least a dozen of them at work, we
could not say eating him, but picking his bones rather; for they had
eaten up all the flesh before. We did not think fit to disturb them at
their feast, neither did they take much notice of us. Friday would have
let fly at them, but I would not suffer him by any means; for I found
we were like to have more business upon our hands than we were aware
of. We had not gone half over the plain when we began to hear the
wolves howl in the wood on our left in a frightful manner, and
presently after we saw about a hundred coming on directly towards us,
all in a body, and most of them in a line, as regularly as an army
drawn up by experienced officers. I scarce knew in what manner to
receive them, but found to draw ourselves in a close line was the only
way; so we formed in a moment; but that we might not have too much
interval, I ordered that only every other man should fire, and that the
others, who had not fired, should stand ready to give them a second
volley immediately, if they continued to advance upon us; and then that
those that had fired at first should not pretend to load their fusees
again, but stand ready, every one with a pistol, for we were all armed
with a fusee and a pair of pistols each man; so we were, by this
method, able to fire six volleys, half of us at a time; however, at
present we had no necessity; for upon firing the first volley, the
enemy made a full stop, being terrified as well with the noise as with
the fire. Four of them being shot in the head, dropped; several others
were wounded, and went bleeding off, as we could see by the snow. I
found they stopped, but did not immediately retreat; whereupon,
remembering that I had been told that the fiercest creatures were
terrified at the voice of a man, I caused all the company to halloo as
loud as they could; and I found the notion not altogether mistaken; for
upon our shout they began to retire and turn about. I then ordered a
second volley to be fired in their rear, which put them to the gallop,
and away they went to the woods. This gave us leisure to charge our
pieces again; and that we might lose no time, we kept going; but we had
but little more than loaded our fusees, and put ourselves in readiness,
when we heard a terrible noise in the same wood on our left, only that
it was farther onward, the same way we were to go.
The night was coming on, and the light began to be dusky, which made it
worse on our side; but the noise increasing, we could easily perceive
that it was the howling and yelling of those hellish creatures; and on
a sudden we perceived three troops of wolves, one on our left, one
behind us, and one in our front, so that we seemed to be surrounded
with them: however, as they did not fall upon us, we kept our way
forward, as fast as we could make our horses go, which, the way being
very rough, was only a good hard trot. In this manner, we came in view
of the entrance of a wood, through which we were to pass, at the
farther side of the plain; but we were greatly surprised, when coming
nearer the lane or pass, we saw a confused number of wolves standing
just at the entrance. On a sudden, at another opening of the wood, we
heard the noise of a gun, and looking that way, out rushed a horse,
with a saddle and a bridle on him, flying like the wind, and sixteen or
seventeen wolves after him, full speed: the horse had the advantage of
them; but as we supposed that he could not hold it at that rate, we
doubted not but they would get up with him at last: no question but
they did.
But here we had a most horrible sight; for riding up to the entrance
where the horse came out, we found the carcasses of another horse and
of two men, devoured by the ravenous creatures; and one of the men was
no doubt the same whom we heard fire the gun, for there lay a gun just
by him fired off; but as to the man, his head and the upper part of his
body was eaten up. This filled us with horror, and we knew not what
course to take; but the creatures resolved us soon, for they gathered
about us presently, in hopes of prey; and I verily believe there were
three hundred of them. It happened, very much to our advantage, that at
the entrance into the wood, but a little way from it, there lay some
large timber-trees, which had been cut down the summer before, and I
suppose lay there for carriage. I drew my little troop in among those
trees, and placing ourselves in a line behind one long tree, I advised
them all to alight, and keeping that tree before us for a breastwork,
to stand in a triangle, or three fronts, enclosing our horses in the
centre. We did so, and it was well we did; for never was a more furious
charge than the creatures made upon us in this place. They came on with
a growling kind of noise, and mounted the piece of timber, which, as I
said, was our breastwork, as if they were only rushing upon their prey;
and this fury of theirs, it seems, was principally occasioned by their
seeing our horses behind us. I ordered our men to fire as before, every
other man; and they took their aim so sure that they killed several of
the wolves at the first volley; but there was a necessity to keep a
continual firing, for they came on like devils, those behind pushing on
those before.
When we had fired a second volley of our fusees, we thought they
stopped a little, and I hoped they would have gone off, but it was but
a moment, for others came forward again; so we fired two volleys of our
pistols; and I believe in these four firings we had killed seventeen or
eighteen of them, and lamed twice as many, yet they came on again. I
was loth to spend our shot too hastily; so I called my servant, not my
man Friday, for he was better employed, for, with the greatest
dexterity imaginable, he had charged my fusee and his own while we were
engaged—but, as I said, I called my other man, and giving him a horn of
powder, I had him lay a train all along the piece of timber, and let it
be a large train. He did so, and had but just time to get away, when
the wolves came up to it, and some got upon it, when I, snapping an
uncharged pistol close to the powder, set it on fire; those that were
upon the timber were scorched with it, and six or seven of them fell;
or rather jumped in among us with the force and fright of the fire; we
despatched these in an instant, and the rest were so frightened with
the light, which the night—for it was now very near dark—made more
terrible that they drew back a little; upon which I ordered our last
pistols to be fired off in one volley, and after that we gave a shout;
upon this the wolves turned tail, and we sallied immediately upon near
twenty lame ones that we found struggling on the ground, and fell to
cutting them with our swords, which answered our expectation, for the
crying and howling they made was better understood by their fellows; so
that they all fled and left us.
We had, first and last, killed about threescore of them, and had it