“If the Lord had sent an angel, sir,” said Robinson, “he would probably have come better clothed.”

Then he asked if the boat’s crew had any firearms, and was told that they had only two muskets, one of which was left in the boat.  “The rest should be easy, then,” Robinson said; “we can either kill them all, or take them prisoners, as we please.”

The Captain was unwilling to see the men killed, for he said if two of the worst of them were got rid of, he believed the rest would return to their duty.

Robinson made a bargain that if he saved the Captain from the mutineers, and recovered the ship, he and Friday were to be taken home to England in her, free of cost; and to this the Captain and the others agreed.

Then Robinson gave each of them a musket, with powder and ball, after which the Captain and the mate and the passenger marched towards the spot where the mutinous sailors lay asleep.  One of the men heard them advance, and turning round, saw them, and cried out to his companions.  But it was too late, the mate and the passenger fired, and one of the ringleaders fell dead.  A second man also fell, but jumped up immediately and called to the others to help him.  But the Captain knocked him down with the butt of his musket, and the rest of the men, seeing Robinson and Friday coming, and knowing they had no chance against five armed men, begged for mercy.  Three others who had been straying about among the trees came back on hearing the shots, and were also taken, and thus the whole crew of the boat was captured.

The Captain and Robinson now began to think how they might recover the ship.  There were on board, the Captain said, several men on whom he thought he could depend, and who had been forced by the others into the mutiny against their wills.  But it would be no easy thing to retake the ship, for there were still twenty-six men on board, and as they were guilty of mutiny, all of them, if taken back to England, would most likely be hanged.  Thus they were certain to make a fight for it.

The first thing that Robinson and the others now did was to take everything out of the boat—­oars, and mast, and sail, and rudder; then they knocked a hole in her bottom, so that she could not float.  While they were doing this, and drawing her still further up on the beach, they heard first one gun and then another fired by the ship as signals to the boat to return.

As she of course did not move, Robinson saw through his glass another boat with ten men on board, armed with muskets, leave the ship, coming to bring the others back.

This was serious enough, for now Robinson and his party had to make plans whereby they might capture also this fresh boat’s crew.  Accordingly, they tied the hands of all the men they had first taken, and sent the worst of them to the cave under the charge of Friday and of one of the men that the Captain said was to be trusted, with orders to shoot any who tried to give an alarm or to escape.  Then Robinson took his party and the rest of the prisoners into the castle, where, from the rock, they watched for the landing of the second boat.