When this had agitated my thoughts for two hours or more, with such violence that it set my very blood into a ferment, and my pulse beat as high as if I had been in a fever, merely with the extraordinary fervour of my mind about it, nature, as if I had been fatigued and exhausted with the very thought of it, threw me into a sound sleep; one would have thought I should have dreamed of it; but I did not, nor of any thing relating to it; but I dreamed, that as I was going out in the morning, as usual, from my castle, I saw upon the shore two canoes and eleven savages coming to land, and that they brought with them another savage, whom they were going to kill, in order to eat him, when on a sudden this savage that they were going to kill jumped away, and ran for his life; then I thought in my sleep, that he came running into my little thick grove, before my fortification, to hide himself; and that I, seeing him alone, and not perceiving that the others sought him that way, showed myself to him, and, smiling upon him encouraged him; that he kneeled down to me seeming to pray me to assist him; upon which I showed my ladder, made him go up it, and carried him into my cave, and he became my servant; and that as soon as I got this man, I said to myself, “Now I may certainly venture to the mainland; for this fellow will serve me as a pilot, and will tell me what to do, and whither to go for provisions, and whither not to go for fear of being devoured; what places to venture into, and what to escape.” I waked with this thought, and was under such inexpressible impressions of joy at the prospect of my escape in my dream, that the disappointments which I felt upon coming to myself, and finding that it was no more than a dream, were equally extravagant the other way, and threw me into a very great dejection of spirit.
Upon this, however, I made this conclusion, that my only way to go about an attempt for an escape was, if possible, to get a savage in my possession; and, if possible, it should be one of their prisoners whom they had condemned to be eaten and should bring hither to kill; but these thoughts still were attended with this difficulty, that it was impossible to effect this, without attacking a whole caravan of them, and killing them all; and this was not only a very desperate attempt, and might miscarry, but, on the other hand, I had greatly scrupled the lawfulness of it to myself, and my heart trembled at the thought of shedding so much blood, though it was for my deliverance. I need not repeat the arguments which occurred to me against this, they being the same mentioned before; but though I had other reasons to offer now, namely, that those men were enemies to my life, and would devour me, if they could; that it was self-preservation, in the highest degree, to deliver myself from this death of a life, and was acting in my own defence, as much as if they were actually assaulting me, and the like; I say, though these things argued for it, yet the thought of shedding human blood for my deliverance was very terrible to me, and such as I could by no means reconcile myself to for a great while.
However, at last, after many secret disputes with myself, and after great perplexities about it (for all these arguments, one way and another, struggled in my head a long time), the eager prevailing desire of deliverance at length mastered all the rest, and I resolved, if possible, to get one of these savages into my hands, cost what it would. The next thing, then, was to contrive how to do it; and this indeed was very difficult to resolve on; but as I could pitch upon no probable means for it, so I resolved to put myself upon the watch to see them when they came on shore, and leave the rest to the event, taking such measures as the opportunity should present, let it be what it would.