8 ADVENTURE CLASSICS IN ONE PREMIUM EDITION (Illustrated). Даниэль Дефо

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СКАЧАТЬ a most lamentable manner, telling one another they were gotten 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 all be 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 that 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 me give them leave to fall upon them at once in the dark; but I was willing to take them at some advantage, so to spare them, and kill as few of them as I could; and especially I was unwilling to hazard the killing any of our own men, knowing the other 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 but that 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 their crew. The captain was so eager, as 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 into 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 we had left in the boat, who was now one of us, call to them by name, to try if I could bring them to a parley, and so might perhaps 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, “Who’s that? Robinson?” For it seems he knew his 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? What are they?” says Smith again. “Here they are,” says he; “here’s our captain and fifty men with him, have been hunting you this two hours; the boatswain is killed, Will Frye 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,” says Robinson. So he asked the captain, and the captain then calls himself 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 been all as bad as I;” which, by the way, was not true neither; 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, particularly with those three, were all but eight, came up and seized upon them all, 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 at length upon the farther 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 none of his prisoners, but the commander 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 the island 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 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, as 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 a-coming.” This more perfectly amused them, and they all believed that the commander was just by with his fifty men.

      Upon the captain’s coming to me, I told him my project for seizing the ship, which he liked of wonderfully well, and resolved to put it in execution the next morning. But in order to execute it with more art, and secure of success, I told him we must divide the prisoners, and that they 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 behavior.

      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 also he hanged in chains, to be sure; but that if they would join 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 for 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 СКАЧАТЬ