But I needed not this precaution, for never man had a more faithful, loving servant than Friday was to me.  I made it my business to teach him everything that was proper to make him useful, especially to make him speak, and he was the aptest scholar that ever was.  Indeed, this was the pleasantest year of all the life I led in this place.  I began now to have some use for my tongue again, and, besides the pleasure of talking to Friday, I had a singular satisfaction in the fellow himself.  His simple, unfeigned honesty appeared to me more and more every day, and I began really to love the creature; and I believe he loved me more than it was possible for him ever to love anything before.

IV.—­The End of Captivity

I was now entered on the seven-and-twentieth year of my captivity on the island.  One morning I bade Friday go to the seashore and see if he could find a turtle.  He had not been gone long when he came running back like one that felt not the ground, or the steps he set his feet on, and cries out to me, “O master!  O sorrow!  O bad!”

“What’s the matter, Friday?” said I.

“O yonder, there,” says he; “one, two, three canoes!”

“Well,” says I, “do not be frightened.”

However, I saw the poor fellow was most terribly scared, for nothing ran in his head but that the savages were come back to look for him, and would cut him in pieces and eat him.  I comforted him, and told him I was in as much danger as he.  Then I went up the hill and found quickly by my glass that there were one-and-twenty savages, whose business seemed to be a triumphant banquet upon three human bodies.  I came down again to Friday and, going towards the wretches, sent Friday a little ahead to see what they were doing.  He came back and told me that they were eating the flesh of one of their prisoners, and that a bearded man lay bound, whom he said they would kill next.

This fired the very soul within me, and, going to a little rising ground, I turned to Friday and said, “Now, Friday, do exactly as you see me do.”  So, with a musket, I took aim at the savages; Friday did the like, and we fired, killing three of them and wounding five more.  They were in a dreadful consternation, and after we fired again among the amazed wretches, I made directly towards the poor victim who was lying upon the beach.  Loosing him, I found he was a Spaniard.  He took pistol and sword from me thankfully, and flew upon his murderers, and, Friday, pursuing the flying wretches, in the end but four of the twenty-one escaped in a canoe.