| Share page |
|
ROBINSON CRUSOE |
||
|
escaped, through infinite dangers and hazards, and arrived, almost starved, on the cannibal coast, where they expected to have been devoured every moment.
He told me they had some arms with them, but they were perfectly useless, for that they had neither powder nor ball, the washing of the sea having spoiled all their powder but a little, which they used, at their first landing, to provide themselves some food.
I asked him what he thought would become of them there, and if they had formed no design of making any escape ? He said they had many consultations about it; but that having neither vessel, or tools to build one, or provisions of any kind, their councils always ended in tears and despair.
I asked him how he thought they would receive a proposal from me, which might tend towards an escape; and whether, if they were all here, it might not be done ? I told him with freedom, I feared mostly their treachery and ill usage of me if I put my life in their hands; for that gratitude was no inherent virtue in the nature of man, nor did men always square their dealings by the obligations they had received, so much as they did by the advantages they expected. I told him it would be very hard that I should be the instrument of their deliverance, and that they should afterwards make me their prisoner, in New Spain, where an Englishman was certain to lose his life, what necessity or what accident soever brought him thither; and that I had rather be delivered up to the savages, and be devoured alive. I added, that otherwise I was persuaded, if they were all here, we might, with so many hands, build a bark
[323] |
||