to another in a most lamentable manner, telling one
another they were got into an enchanted island; that either there
were inhabitants in it, and they should all be murdered, or else
there were devils and spirits in it, and they should be all carried
away and devoured. They hallooed again, and called their two
comrades by their names a great many times; but no answer. After
some time we could see them, by the little light there was, run
about, wringing their hands like men in despair, and sometimes they
would go and sit down in the boat to rest themselves: then come
ashore again, and walk about again, and so the same thing over
again. My men would fain have had me give them leave to fall upon
them at once in the dark; but I was willing to take them at some
advantage, so as to spare them, and kill as few of them as I could;
and especially I was unwilling to hazard the killing of any of our
men, knowing the others were very well armed. I resolved to wait,
to see if they did not separate; and therefore, to make sure of
them, I drew my ambuscade nearer, and ordered Friday and the
captain to creep upon their hands and feet, as close to the ground
as they could, that they might not be discovered, and get as near
them as they could possibly before they offered to fire.
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
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