‘Then step by step I recovered my spirits and began to apply myself again to little tasks. Though my heart was no warmer towards Cruso, I was grateful he had suffered my moods and not turned me out.
‘Cruso did not use me again. On the contrary, he held himself as distant as if nothing had passed be-tween us. For this I was not sorry. Yet I will confess, had I been convinced I was to spend the rest of my days on the island, I would have offered myself to him again, or importuned him, or done whatever was necessary to conceive and bear a child; for the morose silence which he impressed upon our lives would have driven me mad, to say nothing of the prospect of passing my last years alone with Friday.
‘One day I asked Cruso whether there were laws on his island, and what such laws might be; or whether he preferred to follow his inner dictates, trusting his heart to guide him on the path of righteousness.
‘“Laws are made for one purpose only,” he told me: “to hold us in check when our desires grow immoderate. As long as our desires are moderate we have no need of laws.”
‘“I have a desire to be saved which I must call immoderate,” I said. “It burns in me night and day, I can think of nothing else.”
‘“I do not wish to hear of your desire,” said Cruso. “It concerns other things, it does not concern the island, it is not a matter of the island. On the island there is no law except the law that we shall work for our bread, which is a commandment.” And with that he strode away.
‘This answer did not satisfy me. If I was but a third mouth to feed, doing no useful labour on the terraces, what held Cruso back from binding me hand and foot and tossing me from the cliffs into the sea? What had held Friday back all these years from beating in his master’s head with a stone while he slept, so bringing slavehood to an end and inaugurating a reign of idleness? And what held Cruso back from tying Friday to a post every night, like a dog, to sleep the more secure, or from blinding him, as they blind asses in Brazil? It seemed to me that all things were possible on the island, all tyrannies and cruelties, though in small; and if, in despite of what was possible, we lived at peace one with another, surely this was proof that certain laws unknown to us held sway, or else that we had been following the promptings of our hearts all this time, and our hearts had not betrayed us.
“‘How. do you punish Friday, when you punish him?” I asked on another occasion.
‘“There is no call to punish Friday,” replied Cruso. “Friday has lived with me for many years. He has known no other master. He follows me in all things.”
‘“Yet Friday has lost his tongue,” said I, the words uttering themselves.
‘“Friday lost his tongue before he became mine,” said Cruso, and stared at me in challenge. I was silent. But I thought: We are all punished, every day. This island is our punishment, this island and one another’s company, to the death.
‘My judgment on Cruso was not always so harsh. One evening, seeing him as he stood on the Bluff with the sun behind him all red and purple, staring out to sea, his staff in his hand and his great conical hat on his head, I thought: He is a truly kingly figure; he is the true king of his island. I thought back to the vale of melancholy through which I had passed, when I had dragged about listlessly, weeping over my misfortune. If I had then known misery, how much deeper must the misery of Cruso not have been in his had braved the wilderness and slain the monster of solitude and returned fortified by his victory?
‘I used once to think, when I saw Cruso in this evening posture, that, like me, he was searching the horizon for a sail. But I was mistaken. His visits to the Bluff belonged to a practice of losing himself in the contemplation of the wastes of water and sky. Friday never interrupted him during these retreats; when once I innocently approached him, I was rebuffed with angry words, and for days afterwards he and I did not speak. To me, sea and sky remained sea and sky, vacant and tedious. I had not the temperament to love such emptiness.
‘I must tell you of the death of Cruso, and of our rescue.
‘One morning, a year and more after I became an islander, Friday brought his master home from the terraces weak and fainting. I saw at once the fever had returned. With some foreboding I undressed him and put him to bed and prepared to devote myself to his care, wishing I knew more of cupping and bloodletting.
‘This time there was no raving or shouting or struggling. Cruso lay pale as a ghost, a cold sweat standing out on his body, his eyes wide open, his lips sometimes moving, though I could make out no word. I thought: He is a dying man, I cannot save him.
‘The very next day, as if the spell of Cruso’s gaze on the waters had been broken, a merchantman named the
‘Of the arrival of strangers in his kingdom Cruso had his first intimation when three seamen lifted him from his bed into a litter and proceeded to bear him down the path to the shore; and even then he likely thought it all a dream. But when he was hoisted aboard the
‘“There is another person on the island,” I told the ship’s-master. “He is a Negro slave, his name is Friday, and he is fled among the crags above the north shore. Nothing you can say will persuade him to yield himself up. for he has no understanding of words or power of speech. It will cost great effort to take him. Nevertheless, I beseech you to send your men ashore again; inasmuch as Friday is a slave and a child, it is our duty to care for him in all things, and not abandon him to a solitude worse than death.”
‘My plea for Friday was heeded. A new party was sent ashore under the command of the third mate, with orders by no means to harm Friday, since he was a poor simpleton, but to effect what was needed to bring him aboard. I offered to accompany the party, but Captain Smith would not allow this.
‘So I sat with the captain in his cabin and ate a plate of salt pork and biscuit, very good after a year of fish, and drank a glass of Madeira, and told him my story, as I have told it to you, which he heard with great attention. “It is a story you should set down in writing and offer to the booksellers,” he urged — “There has never before, to my knowledge, been a female castaway of our nation. It will cause a great stir.” I shook my head sadly. “As I relate it to you, my story passes the time well enough,” I replied; “but what little I know of book-writing tells me its charm will quite vanish when it is set down baldly in print. A liveliness is lost in the writing down which must be supplied by art, and I have no art.” “As to art I cannot pronounce, being only a sailor,” said Captain Smith; “but you may depend on it, the booksellers will hire a man to set your story to rights, and put in a dash of colour too, here and there.” “I will not have any lies told,” said I. The captain smiled. “There I cannot vouch for them,” he said: “their trade is in books, not in truth.” “I would rather be the author of my own story than have lies told about me,” I persisted — “If I cannot come forward, as author, and swear to the truth of my tale, what will be the worth of it? I might as well have dreamed it in a snug bed in Chichester.”
‘At this juncture we were summoned above deck. The landing party was on its way back, and to my joy I made out the dark figure of Friday among the sailors. “Friday, Friday!” I called as the boat came alongside, and smiled to show that all was well, the seamen were friends, not foes. But when he was brought aboard Friday would not meet my eye. With sunken shoulders and bowed head he awaited whatever was to befall him. “Can he not be taken to his master?” I asked the captain — “When he sees Mr Cruso is well cared for, perhaps he will accept that we mean no harm.”
‘So while sail was hoisted and the head of the ship put about, I led Friday below to the cabin where Cruso lay. “Here is your master, Friday,” I said. “He is sleeping, he has taken a sleeping draught. You can see that these are good people. They will bring us back to England, which is your master’s home, and there you will be set free. You will discover that life in England is better than life ever was on the island.”
‘I knew of course that Friday did not understand the words. But it had been my belief from early on that Friday understood tones, that he could hear kindness in a human voice when kindness was sincerely meant. So I went on speaking to him, saying the same words over and over, laying my hand on his arm to soothe him; I guided him to his master’s bedside and made him kneel there till I felt calm overtake us, and the sailor who escorted us began to yawn and shuffle.
‘It was agreed that I should sleep in Cruso’s cabin. As for Friday, I pleaded that he not be quartered with the common seamen. “He would rather sleep on the floor at his master’s feet than on the softest bed in Christendom,” I said. So Friday was allowed to sleep under the transoms a few paces from the door of Cruso’s cabin; from this little den he barely stirred for the duration of the voyage, except when I brought him to visit his master. Whenever I
