Robinson Crusoe chapter 8 A ship arrives at the island

英文:

I had been expecting the Spaniard and Friday's father back for about a week when a strange event happened. I was fast asleep in my hammock early one morning when Friday came running in and awoke me.

"Master, master, they are come, they are come!" he cried.

I jumped up and ran out as soon as I could ge my clothes on. I did not even stop to collect my gun but ran to the top of the hill and looked out to sea. I saw a boat sailing towards the shore. It could not be the Spaniard returning, as it was not coming from the direction of the mainlad but from the southern end of the island. I call Friday and told him to stay by my side as this was not the boat that we were expecting. Further out the sea I saw a larger ship lying at anchor. I looked at it through my telescope and it seemed to me to be an English ship.

The sight of this ship filled me with joy as I was certain that I would find friends on board At the same time something told me to be cautious. What business could an English ship have there? I knew that they could not have been driven there by a storm as the weather had been quite calm. Perhaps they were here for some wicked purpose. I did not want to fail into the hands of thieves and murderers.

It was not long before their boat reached the shore about half a mile up the coast from my home. There were eleven men altogether who seemed to be English from their looks. When the first jumped out of the boat they brought three more men with them as prisoners. I expected that the prisoners would be killed at any minute and I wished that Spaniard and Friday's father were still with me. The rest of the crew came ashore and scattered in different directions along the beach and in the woods. The three prisoners sat on the sand looking like men without hope. 

When the boat had arrived the tide had been at its highest. While the crew were wandering about the shore the tid went out and their boat stuck firmly in the sand. Try as they would the crew could not remove it, and after a while they gave up the attempt to get it back into the sea again.

"Let us leave her alone, Jack," I heard one of them say, "she will float again at the next tide."

All this time I was watching what was happening from the hillside. I was glad that my home was so well protected, was the crew would have at least ten hours to wait before their boat floated again. In that time they could easily have discovered my home and stolen my goods. I knew that before they could leave it would be dark, when they would be at a disadvantage. I planned to attack them then and began to prepare my guns for the fight. I did this with greater care than when I defeated the savages, as I had a very different kind of enemy to deal with this time.

By two o'clock in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day, I had finished preparing for the night. I went to see if there was any sign of the party. As I could not see any of them I supposed that they must all have been asleep under the trees. Then I saw the three prisoners sitting under a tree about half a mile from me. I decided to go up to them and see what I could find out. I went as near to them as I could without being seen.

"Who are you, gentlemen?" I cried  out as I stepped out from the bushes.

They were started at the sound of my voice but even more so at my appearance. I must have looked a strange sight to them in my goatskin clothes. They stared at me with open mouths. I thought that they were on the point of running away and so I spoke to them in English.

"Gentlemen, do not be surprised at me," I said. "Perhaps you have found a friend in me  whom you did not expect."

"You must have come straight from heaven," replied one the prisoners, "for no one on this earth can hele us."

"All help is from heaven, sir," I said. Tell me what is your trouble? I saw you when you first landed, and I saw one the others in the boat lift a sword as if to kill you."

"Am I talking to God or man?" asked one of the prisoners, with tears streaming down his cheeks. "Are you a man or an angle?"

"Do not be afraid," I answered. "If I were God or an angle sent to help you I would come much better clothed than I am. I am a man, and Englishman, who is willing to help you, but first you must tell me how you come to be prisoners here."

"Out position is this, sir," was the reply. "I was the captain of the ship that you can see at anchor out to sea. My men have mutinied against me and at first were going to kill me. The they changed their minds and brought me ashore with two others intending to leave us here. They thought that the island was uninhabited and they expected that we would die here for want of food and water."

"Where are the others from the ship?" I asked.

"They are there, sir," the captain replied, pointing to the trees. "We must not talk too loudly or we will awaken them and they will come and kill us all."

"Have they any guns?" I asked.

"Only two, and one of those they have left in the boat." When I asked the captain whether we should take them as prisoners or kill them as they slept, he replied that he wanted them captured alive. Only two were dangerous and, if those two were captured and tied up, the captain believed that rest would go back to their duties. In order that we should not be overheard we moved back into the woods away from the sleeping men. When we were at a safe distance I spoke to the captain.

"Now, sir," I began. "if I save you, are you willing to agree to my conditions? I have only two. The first two. The first is that while you stay on this island you will obey any order that I give you. If I give you a gun, you will return it to me and do no harn either to me or to my possessions. The second conditon is that if you recover you ship you will take me and my servant, Friday, to England."

He replied that, as he owed his life to me and would be in my debt as long as he lived, he would accept my conditions. When I was satisfied with his answeres I gave hime three muskets ready to fire.

"Now that you are armed," I said "tell me what we should do next with those who have mutinied."

"There are two men," replied the captain, "whom we must on no account allow to escape. If we do so they will certainly go straight back to the ship and bring the rest of the crew to destroy us all."

As we were speaking two of the mutineers awoke and stood up. After looking around fof a minute or two they began to wander off into the woods.

"Are those the two dangerous men?" I asked the captain.

He replied that they were not and that the two we wanted were still asleep. He took his muskets and gave one to each of his companions and then made his way toward the sleeping men. As they walked toward them one of the party made a noise. One of the sleepers woke up and saw the captain and his men coming. He called out to waken his companion, but it was too late. Even as he cired out the captain and his two companions fired. The aimed so well that both of the leader of the mutiny were hit. One was hilled instantly and the other seriously wounded.

The wounded man began to call out for help. The captain told him that he was too late to be helped and advised hime to ask God to forgive him. Then the captain struck him with the end of his musket so that he never spoke again.

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