The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808)

by Daniel Defoe

This was, to be sure, a surprise of a quite different nature from any I had met with before; for the notions this put into my thoughts were quite of another kind: I started up in the greatest haste imaginable; and in a trice clapped up my ladder to the middle place of the rock, and pulled it after me, and mounting it the second time, got to the top of the hill; that very moment a flash of fire bade me listen for a second gun, which accordingly in about half a moment I heard, and by the sound knew that it was from that part of the sea where I was driven out with the current in my boat.

I immediately considered that this must be some ship in distress, and that they had some comrade, or some other ship in company, and fired these guns for signals of distress, and to obtain help. I had this presence of mind at that minute as to think, that though I could not help them, it may be they might help me; so I brought together all the dry wood I could get at hand, and making a good handsome pile, I set it on fire upon the hill; the wood was dry, and blazed freely, and though the wind blew very hard, yet it burnt fairly out, so that I was certain, if there was any such thing as a ship, they must need see it, and no doubt they did; for as soon as ever my fire blazed up, I heard another gun, and after that several others, all from the same quarter. I plied my fire all night long, till day broke; and when it was broad day, and the air cleared up, I saw something at a great distance at sea, full east of the island, whether a sail, or an hull, I could not distinguish, no not with my glasses, the distance was so great, and the weather still something hazy also; at least it was so out at sea.

I looked frequently at it all that day, and soon perceived that it did not move; so I presently concluded that it was a ship at anchor; and being eager, you may be sure, to be satisfied, I took my gun in my hand, and ran towards the south-east side of the island, to the rocks, where I had been formerly carried away with the current; and getting up there, the weather by this time being perfectly clear, I could plainly see, to my great sorrow, the wreck of a ship cast away in the night upon those concealed rocks which I found when I was out in my boat; and which rocks, as they checked the violence of the stream, and made a kind of counter-stream, or eddy, were the occasion of my recovering then from the most desperate hopeless condition that ever I had been in all my life.

Thus, what is one man’s safety is another man’s destruction; for it seems these men, whoever they were, being out of their knowledge, and the rocks being wholly under water, had been driven upon them in the night, the wind blowing hard at E. and E.N.E. Had they seen the island, as I must necessarily suppose they did not, they must, as I thought, have endeavoured to have saved themselves on shore by the help of their boat; but the firing of their guns for help, especially when they saw, as I imagined, my fire, filled me with many thoughts: first, I imagined, that, upon seeing my light, they might have put themselves into their boat, and have endeavoured to make the shore; but that the sea going very high, they might have been cast away; other times I imagined, that they might have lost their boat before, as might be the case many ways; as particularly, by the breaking of the sea upon their ship, which many times obliges men to stave, or take in pieces their boat; and sometimes to throw it overboard with their own hands; other times I imagined, they had some other ship or ships in company, who, upon the signals of distress they had made, had taken them up, and carried them off: other whiles I fancied they were all gone off to sea in their boat, and being hurried away by the current that I had been formerly in, were carried out into the great ocean, where there was nothing but misery and perishing; and that perhaps they might by this time think of starving, and of being in a condition to eat one another.

All these were but conjectures at best, so, in the condition I was in, I could do no more than look upon the misery of the poor men, and pity them; which had still this good effect on my side, that it gave me more and more cause to give thanks to God, who had so happily and comfortably provided for me in my desolate condition; and that of two ships’ companies, who were now cast away upon this part of the world, not one life should be spared but mine. I learnt here again to observe, that it is very rare that the providence of God casts us into any condition of life so low, or any misery so great, but we may see something or other to be thankful for, and may see others in worse circumstances than our own.

Such certainly was the case of these men, of whom I could not so much as see room to suppose any of them were saved; nothing could make it rational, so much as to wish or expect that they did not all perish there, except the possibility only of their being taken up by another ship in company: and this was but mere possibility indeed; for I saw not the least signal or appearance of any such thing.

I cannot explain, by any possible energy of words, what a strange longing, or hankering of desire, I felt in my soul upon this sight; breaking out sometimes thus: “O that there had been but one or two, nay, but one soul saved out of the ship, to have escaped to me, that I might but have had one companion, one fellow-creature to have spoken to me, and to have conversed with!” In all the time of my solitary life, I never felt so earnest, so strong a desire after the society of my fellow-creatures, or so deep a regret at want of it.

There are some secret moving springs in the affections, which, when they are set a going by some object in view, or be it some object though not in view, yet rendered present to the mind by the power of imagination, that motion carries out the soul by its impetuosity to such violent eager embracings of the object, that the absence of it is insupportable.

Such were these earnest wishings, “That but one man had been saved! O that it had been but one!” I believe I repeated the words, “O that it had been but one!” a thousand times; and my desires were so moved by it, that when I spoke the words, my hands would clinch together, and my fingers press the palms of my hands, that if I had had any soft thing in my hand, it would have crushed it involuntarily; and my teeth in my head would strike together, and set against one another so strong, that for some time I could not part them again.

Let the naturalists explain these things, and the reason and manner of them: all I can say of them is, to describe the fact, which was ever surprising to me when I found it, though I knew not from what it should proceed; it was doubtless the effect of ardent wishes, and of strong ideas formed in my mind, realizing the comfort which the conversation of one of my fellow-christians would have been to me.