鲁宾孙飘流记 英文版 Robinson Crusoe
丹尼尔.笛福 Daniel Defoe
CHAPTER XVIII - THE SHIP RECOVERED Page 1
WHILE we were thus preparing our designs, and had first, by mainstrength, heaved the boat upon the beach, so high that the tidewould not float her off at high-water mark, and besides, had brokea hole in her bottom too big to be quickly stopped, and were setdown musing what we should do, we heard the ship fire a gun, andmake a waft with her ensign as a signal for the boat to come onboard - but no boat stirred; and they fired several times, makingother signals for the boat. At last, when all their signals andfiring proved fruitless, and they found the boat did not stir, wesaw them, by the help of my glasses, hoist another boat out and rowtowards the shore; and we found, as they approached, that therewere no less than ten men in her, and that they had firearms withthem.
As the ship lay almost two leagues from the shore, we had a fullview of them as the came, and a plain sight even of their faces;because the tide having set them a little to the east of the otherboat, they rowed up under shore, to come to the same place wherethe other had landed, and where the boat lay; by this means, I say,we had a full view of them, and the captain knew the persons andcharacters of all the men in the boat, of whom, he said, there werethree very honest fellows, who, he was sure, were led into thisconspiracy by the rest, being over-powered and frightened; but thatas for the boatswain, who it seems was the chief officer amongthem, and all the rest, they were as outrageous as any of theship's crew, and were no doubt made desperate in their newenterprise; and terribly apprehensive he was that they would be toopowerful for us. I smiled at him, and told him that men in ourcircumstances were past the operation of fear; that seeing almostevery condition that could be was better than that which we weresupposed to be in, we ought to expect that the consequence, whetherdeath or life, would be sure to be a deliverance. I asked him whathe thought of the circumstances of my life, and whether adeliverance were not worth venturing for? "And where, sir," saidI, "is your belief of my being preserved here on purpose to saveyour life, which elevated you a little while ago? For my part,"said I, "there seems to be but one thing amiss in all the prospectof it." "What is that?" say she. "Why," said I, "it is, that asyou say there are three or four honest fellows among them whichshould be spared, had they been all of the wicked part of the crewI should have thought God's providence had singled them out todeliver them into your hands; for depend upon it, every man thatcomes ashore is our own, and shall die or live as they behave tous." As I spoke this with a raised voice and cheerful countenance,I found it greatly encouraged him; so we set vigorously to ourbusiness.
We had, upon the first appearance of the boat's coming from theship, considered of separating our prisoners; and we had, indeed,secured them effectually. Two of them, of whom the captain wasless assured than ordinary, I sent with Friday, and one of thethree delivered men, to my cave, where they were remote enough, andout of danger of being heard or discovered, or of finding their wayout of the woods if they could have delivered themselves. Herethey left them bound, but gave them provisions; and promised them,if they continued there quietly, to give them their liberty in aday or two; but that if they attempted their escape they should beput to death without mercy. They promised faithfully to bear theirconfinement with patience, and were very thankful that they hadsuch good usage as to have provisions and light left them; forFriday gave them candles (such as we made ourselves) for theircomfort; and they did not know but that he stood sentinel over themat the entrance.
The other prisoners had better usage; two of them were keptpinioned, indeed, because the captain was not able to trust them;but the other two were taken into my service, upon the captain'srecommendation, and upon their solemnly engaging to live and diewith us; so with them and the three honest men we were seven men,well armed; and I made no doubt we should be able to deal wellenough with the ten that were coming, considering that the captainhad said there were three or four honest men among them also. Assoon as they got to the place where their other boat lay, they rantheir boat into the beach and came all on shore, hauling the boatup after them, which I was glad to see, for I was afraid they wouldrather have left the boat at an anchor some distance from theshore, with some hands in her to guard her, and so we should not beable to seize the boat. Being on shore, the first thing they did,they ran all to their other boat; and it was easy to see they wereunder a great surprise to find her stripped, as above, of all thatwas in her, and a great hole in her bottom. After they had mused awhile upon this, they set up two or three great shouts, hallooingwith all their might, to try if they could make their companionshear; but all was to no purpose. Then they came all close in aring, and fired a volley of their small arms, which indeed weheard, and the echoes made the woods ring. But it was all one;those in the cave, we were sure, could not hear; and those in ourkeeping, though they heard it well enough, yet durst give no answerto them. They were so astonished at the surprise of this, that, asthey told us afterwards, they resolved to go all on board again totheir ship, and let them know that the men were all murdered, andthe long-boat staved; accordingly, they immediately launched theirboat again, and got all of them on board.
The captain was terribly amazed, and even confounded, at this,believing they would go on board the ship again and set sail,giving their comrades over for lost, and so he should still losethe ship, which he was in hopes we should have recovered; but hewas quickly as much frightened the other way.
They had not been long put off with the boat, when we perceivedthem all coming on shore again; but with this new measure in theirconduct, which it seems they consulted together upon, viz. to leavethree men in the boat, and the rest to go on shore, and go up intothe country to look for their fellows. This was a greatdisappointment to us, for now we were at a loss what to do, as ourseizing those seven men on shore would be no advantage to us if welet the boat escape; because they would row away to the ship, andthen the rest of them would be sure to weigh and set sail, and soour recovering the ship would be lost. However we had no remedybut to wait and see what the issue of things might present. Theseven men came on shore, and the three who remained in the boat puther off to a good distance from the shore, and came to an anchor towait for them; so that it was impossible for us to come at them inthe boat. Those that came on shore kept close together, marchingtowards the top of the little hill under which my habitation lay;and we could see them plainly, though they could not perceive us.We should have been very glad if they would have come nearer us, sothat we might have fired at them, or that they would have gonefarther off, that we might come abroad. But when they were come tothe brow of the hill where they could see a great way into thevalleys and woods, which lay towards the north-east part, and wherethe island lay lowest, they shouted and hallooed till they wereweary; and not caring, it seems, to venture far from the shore, norfar from one another, they sat down together under a tree toconsider it. Had they thought fit to have gone to sleep there, asthe other part of them had done, they had done the job for us; butthey were too full of apprehensions of danger to venture to go tosleep, though they could not tell what the danger was they had tofear.
The captain made a very just proposal to me upon this consultationof theirs, viz. that perhaps they would all fire a volley again, toendeavour to make their fellows hear, and that we should all sallyupon them just at the juncture when their pieces were alldischarged, and they would certainly yield, and we should have themwithout bloodshed. I liked this proposal, provided it was donewhile we were near enough to come up to them before they could loadtheir pieces again. But this event did not happen; and we laystill a long time, very irresolute what course to take. At lengthI told them there would be nothing done, in my opinion, till night;and then, if they did not return to the boat, perhaps we might finda way to get between them and the shore, and so might use somestratagem with them in the boat to get them on shore. We waited agreat while, though very impatient for their removing; and werevery uneasy when, after long consultation, we saw them all start upand march down towards the sea; it seems they had such dreadfulapprehensions of the danger of the place that they resolved to goon board the ship again, give their companions over for lost, andso go on with their intended voyage with the ship.
As soon as I perceived them go towards the shore, I imagined it tobe as it really was that they had given over their search, and weregoing back again; and the captain, as soon as I told him mythoughts, was ready to sink at the apprehensions of it; but Ipresently thought of a stratagem to fetch them back again, andwhich answered my end to a tittle. I ordered Friday and thecaptain's mate to go over the little creek westward, towards theplace where the savages came on shore, when Friday was rescued, andso soon as they came to a little rising round, at about half a miledistant, I bid them halloo out, as loud as they could, and waittill they found the seamen heard them; that as soon as ever theyheard the seamen answer them, they should return it again; andthen, keeping out of sight, take a round, always answering when theothers hallooed, to draw them as far into the island and among thewoods as possible, and then wheel about again to me by such ways asI directed them.
They were just going into the boat when Friday and the matehallooed; and they presently heard them, and answering, ran alongthe shore westward, towards the voice they heard, when they werestopped by the creek, where the water being up, they could not getover, and called for the boat to come up and set them over; as,indeed, I expected. When they had set themselves over, I observedthat the boat being gone a good way into the creek, and, as itwere, in a harbour within the land, they took one of the three menout of her, to go along with them, and left only two in the boat,having fastened her to the stump of a little tree on the shore.This was what I wished for; and immediately leaving Friday and thecaptain's mate to their business, I took the rest with me; and,crossing the creek out of their sight, we surprised the two menbefore they were aware - one of them lying on the shore, and theother being in the boat. The fellow on shore was between sleepingand waking, and going to start up; the captain, who was foremost,ran in upon him, and knocked him down; and then called out to himin the boat to yield, or he was a dead man. They needed very fewarguments to persuade a single man to yield, when he saw five menupon him and his comrade knocked down: besides, this was, it seems,one of the three who were not so hearty in the mutiny as the restof the crew, and therefore was easily persuaded not only to yield,but afterwards to join very sincerely with us. In the meantime,Friday and the captain's mate so well managed their business withthe rest that they drew them, by hallooing and answering, from onehill to another, and from one wood to another, till they not onlyheartily tired them, but left them where they were, very sure theycould not reach back to the boat before it was dark; and, indeed,they were heartily tired themselves also, by the time they cameback to us.
We had nothing now to do but to watch for them in the dark, and tofall upon them, so as to make sure work with them. It was severalhours after Friday came back to me before they came back to theirboat; and we could hear the foremost of them, long before they camequite up, calling to those behind to come along; and could alsohear them answer, and complain how lame and tired they were, andnot able to come any faster: which was very welcome news to us. Atlength they came up to the boat: but it is impossible to expresstheir confusion when they found the boat fast aground in the creek,the tide ebbed out, and their two men gone. We could hear themcall one to another in a most lamentable manner, telling oneanother they were got into an enchanted island; that either therewere inhabitants in it, and they should all be murdered, or elsethere were devils and spirits in it, and they should be all carriedaway and devoured. They hallooed again, and called their twocomrades by their names a great many times; but no answer. Aftersome time we could see them, by the little light there was, runabout, wringing their hands like men in despair, and sometimes theywould go and sit down in the boat to rest themselves: then comeashore again, and walk about again, and so the same thing overagain. My men would fain have had me give them leave to fall uponthem at once in the dark; but I was willing to take them at someadvantage, so as to spare them, and kill as few of them as I could;and especially I was unwilling to hazard the killing of any of ourmen, knowing the others were very well armed. I resolved to wait,to see if they did not separate; and therefore, to make sure ofthem, I drew my ambuscade nearer, and ordered Friday and thecaptain to creep upon their hands and feet, as close to the groundas they could, that they might not be discovered, and get as nearthem as they could possibly before they offered to fire.
They had not been long in that posture when the boatswain, who wasthe principal ringleader of the mutiny, and had now shown himselfthe most dejected and dispirited of all the rest, came walkingtowards them, with two more of the crew; the captain was so eagerat having this principal rogue so much in his power, that he couldhardly have patience to let him come so near as to be sure of him,for they only heard his tongue before: but when they came nearer,the captain and Friday, starting up on their feet, let fly at them.The boatswain was killed upon the spot: the next man was shot inthe body, and fell just by him, though he did not die till an houror two after; and the third ran for it. At the noise of the fire Iimmediately advanced with my whole army, which was now eight men,viz. myself, generalissimo; Friday, my lieutenant-general; thecaptain and his two men, and the three prisoners of war whom we hadtrusted with arms. We came upon them, indeed, in the dark, so thatthey could not see our number; and I made the man they had left inthe boat, who was now one of us, to call them by name, to try if Icould bring them to a parley, and so perhaps might reduce them toterms; which fell out just as we desired: for indeed it was easy tothink, as their condition then was, they would be very willing tocapitulate. So he calls out as loud as he could to one of them,"Tom Smith! Tom Smith!" Tom Smith answered immediately, "Is thatRobinson?" for it seems he knew the voice. The other answered,"Ay, ay; for God's sake, Tom Smith, throw down your arms and yield,or you are all dead men this moment." "Who must we yield to?Where are they?" says Smith again. "Here they are," says he;"here's our captain and fifty men with him, have been hunting youthese two hours; the boatswain is killed; Will Fry is wounded, andI am a prisoner; and if you do not yield you are all lost." "Willthey give us quarter, then?" says Tom Smith, "and we will yield.""I'll go and ask, if you promise to yield," said Robinson: so heasked the captain, and the captain himself then calls out, "You,Smith, you know my voice; if you lay down your arms immediately andsubmit, you shall have your lives, all but Will Atkins."
Upon this Will Atkins cried out, "For God's sake, captain, give mequarter; what have I done? They have all been as bad as I:" which,by the way, was not true; for it seems this Will Atkins was thefirst man that laid hold of the captain when they first mutinied,and used him barbarously in tying his hands and giving himinjurious language. However, the captain told him he must lay downhis arms at discretion, and trust to the governor's mercy: by whichhe meant me, for they all called me governor. In a word, they alllaid down their arms and begged their lives; and I sent the manthat had parleyed with them, and two more, who bound them all; andthen my great army of fifty men, which, with those three, were inall but eight, came up and seized upon them, and upon their boat;only that I kept myself and one more out of sight for reasons ofstate.
Our next work was to repair the boat, and think of seizing theship: and as for the captain, now he had leisure to parley withthem, he expostulated with them upon the villainy of theirpractices with him, and upon the further wickedness of theirdesign, and how certainly it must bring them to misery and distressin the end, and perhaps to the gallows. They all appeared verypenitent, and begged hard for their lives. As for that, he toldthem they were not his prisoners, but the commander's of theisland; that they thought they had set him on shore in a barren,uninhabited island; but it had pleased God so to direct them thatit was inhabited, and that the governor was an Englishman; that hemight hang them all there, if he pleased; but as he had given themall quarter, he supposed he would send them to England, to be dealtwith there as justice required, except Atkins, whom he wascommanded by the governor to advise to prepare for death, for thathe would be hanged in the morning.
Though this was all but a fiction of his own, yet it had itsdesired effect; Atkins fell upon his knees to beg the captain tointercede with the governor for his life; and all the rest beggedof him, for God's sake, that they might not be sent to England.
It now occurred to me that the time of our deliverance was come,and that it would be a most easy thing to bring these fellows in tobe hearty in getting possession of the ship; so I retired in thedark from them, that they might not see what kind of a governorthey had, and called the captain to me; when I called, at a gooddistance, one of the men was ordered to speak again, and say to thecaptain, "Captain, the commander calls for you;" and presently thecaptain replied, "Tell his excellency I am just coming." This moreperfectly amazed them, and they all believed that the commander wasjust by, with his fifty men. Upon the captain coming to me, I toldhim my project for seizing the ship, which he liked wonderfullywell, and resolved to put it in execution the next morning. But,in order to execute it with more art, and to be secure of success,I told him we must divide the prisoners, and that he should go andtake Atkins, and two more of the worst of them, and send thempinioned to the cave where the others lay. This was committed toFriday and the two men who came on shore with the captain. Theyconveyed them to the cave as to a prison: and it was, indeed, adismal place, especially to men in their condition. The others Iordered to my bower, as I called it, of which I have given a fulldescription: and as it was fenced in, and they pinioned, the placewas secure enough, considering they were upon their behaviour.