The rainy season was in the meantime upon me, when I kept more within doors than at other times; so I had stowed our new vessel as secure as we could, bringing her up into the creek, where, as I said in the beginning, I landed my rafts from the ship; and, hauling her up to the shore, at high-water mark, I made my man Friday dig a little dock, just big enough for her to float in; and then, when the tide was out, we made a strong dam across the end of it, to keep the water out; and so she lay dry, as to the tide, from the sea; and, to keep the rain off, we laid a great many boughs of trees so thick, that she was as well thatched as a house; and thus we waited for the months of November and December, in which I designed to make my adventure.
When the settled season began to come in, as the thought of my design returned with the fair weather, I was preparing daily for the voyage; and the first thing I did was to lay up a certain quantity of provision, being the store for the voyage, and intended, in a week or a fortnight’s time, to open the dock and launch out our boat. I was busy one morning upon something of this kind, when I called to Friday, and bade him go to the sea-shore and see if he could find a turtle, or tortoise, a thing which we generally got once a week, for the sake of the eggs as well as the flesh. Friday had not been long gone when he came running back, and flew over my outward wall, or fence, like one that felt not the ground or the steps he set his feet on; and before I had time to speak to him, he cried out to me, “Oh, master! Oh, master! Oh, sorrow! Oh, bad!” “What’s the matter, Friday?” said I. “Oh, yonder there,” says he, “one, two, three canoe! one, two, three!” By this way of speaking, I concluded there were six; but, on inquiry, I found there were but three. “Well, Friday,” said I, “do not be frighted;” so I heartened him up as well as I could. However, I saw the poor fellow was most terribly scared; for nothing ran in his head but that they were come to look for him, and would cut him in pieces and eat him. The poor fellow trembled so, that I scarce knew what to do with him. I comforted him as well as I could, and told him I was in as much danger as he, and that they would eat me as well as him. “But,” said I, “Friday, we must resolve to fight them; can you fight, Friday?” “Me shoot,” says he, “but there come many great number.” “No matter for that,” said I again; “our guns will fright them that we do not kill.” So I asked him, whether, if I resolved to defend him, he would defend me, and stand by me, and do just as I bade him? He said, “Me die when you bid die, master.” So I went and fetched a good dram of rum, and gave him; for I had been so good a husband of my rum that I had a great deal left. When he had drunk it, I made him take the two fowling-pieces which we always carried, and load them with large swan-shot as big as small pistol-bullets; then I took four muskets, and loaded them with two slugs and five small bullets each; and my two pistols I loaded with a brace of bullets each—I hung my great sword, as usual, naked by my side, and gave Friday his hatchet.
When I had thus prepared myself, I took my perspective glass, and went up to the side of the hill to see what I could discover; and I found quickly, by my glass, that there were one-and-twenty savages, three prisoners, and three canoes; and that their whole business seemed to be the triumphant banquet upon these three human bodies—a barbarous feast, indeed, but nothing more than, as I had observed, was usual with them.