‘No matter,’ said Robinson, ‘our guns will frighten those we don’t kill.’
Friday promised to stand by him to the end, and to do just as he was bid.
Then Robinson loaded two guns with large swan shot, and gave them to Friday, and himself took four muskets, which he loaded carefully with five small bullets and two slugs each, and in each of his pistols he put two bullets. Then he hung his cutlass by his side, and gave Friday a hatchet.
When all was ready, he went up the hill with his telescope, and saw that there were in all twenty-one savages, with three prisoners. They had landed not far beyond the creek, near a spot where thick bushes grew almost down to the sea.
Giving Friday one of the pistols to stick in his belt, and one of the muskets to carry, they set off, each of them now armed with a pistol and three guns, besides Robinson’s cutlass and Friday’s hatchet. Robinson put in his pocket a small bottle of rum, and gave Friday a bag with more powder and bullets to carry, and told him to keep very quiet, and to be sure not to fire till Robinson gave the word.
To get at the savages without being seen, they had to go nearly a mile out of their way, and being heavily laden, they could not go very fast. During this walk, Robinson began to argue with himself again, and to think that perhaps after all it was no business of his to go killing savages who had never done him any harm, and who were only doing what they and their people had done for hundreds of years. They knew no better, he said to himself, and why should he kill them? His mind was so filled with doubts, that he did not know what to do. Finally, he decided that he would only go near enough to see plainly what the savages were doing, but that, unless there should be some special cause for it, he would not attack them.
When he and Friday got near the place where the savages had lit their fire, Robinson sent Friday forward, to see what was going on, and to come back and tell him.
Friday crept on, and returned very quickly, saying that the cannibals had already killed one of their prisoners, and were eating him, and that very soon they would kill the second prisoner, who was lying near to them. The second prisoner, Friday said, was a white man.
This news at once changed Robinson’s plans, and he had no longer any doubt what to do.
Creeping forward, he saw plainly through his glass the white man lying bound hand and foot on the sand. There was another tree, Robinson noticed, with a clump of bushes round it, some distance nearer to the savages, and within very easy shot of them. To that he and Friday now crawled.