I observed an extraordinary sense of pleasure appeared in his face, and his eyes sparkled, and his countenance discovered a strange eagerness, as if he had a mind to be in his own country again; and this observation of mine put a great many thoughts into me; which made me at first not so easy about my new man Friday as I was before; and I made no doubt, but that if Friday could get back to his own nation again, he would not only forget all his religion, but all his obligations to me; and would be forward enough to give his countrymen an account of me, and come back, perhaps, with an hundred or two of them, and make a feast upon me, at which he might be as merry as he used to be with those of his enemies, when they were taken in war.
But I wronged the poor honest creature very much, for which I was very sorry afterwards: however, as my jealousy increased, and held me some weeks, I was a little more circumspect, and not so familiar and kind to him as before; in which I was certainly in the wrong too, the honest grateful creature having no thought about it, but what consisted of the best principles, both as a religious Christian and as a grateful friend, as appeared afterwards to my full satisfaction.
Whilst my jealousy of him lasted, you may be sure I was every day pumping him, to see if he would discover any of the new thoughts which I suspected were in him; but I found every thing he said was so honest and so innocent, that I could find nothing to nourish my suspicion; and, in spite of all my uneasiness, he made me at last entirely his own again; nor did he in the least perceive that I was uneasy; and therefore I could not suspect him of deceit.
One day, walking up the same hill, but the weather being hazy at sea, so that we could not see the continent, I called to him, and said, “Friday, do not you wish yourself in your own country, your own nation”—“Yes,” he said, “I be much O glad to be at my own nation.”—“What would you do there?” said I: “would you turn wild again, eat men’s flesh again, and be a savage as you were before?” He looked full of concern, and shaking his head, said, “No, no, Friday tell them to live good; tell them to pray God; tell them to eat corn-bread, cattle-flesh, milk, no eat man again.”—“Why, then,” said I to him, “they will kill you.” He looked grave at that, and then said, “No, they no kill me, they willing love learn:” he meant by this, they would be willing to learn. He added, they learnt much of the bearded mans that came in the boat. Then I asked him, if he would go back to them? He smiled at that, and told me he could not swim so far. I told him I would make a canoe for him. He told me he would go, if I would so with him. “I go!” said I, “why, they will eat me if I come there.”—“No, no,” says he, “me make them no eat you, me make they much love you:” he meant he would tell them how I had killed his enemies and saved his life, and so he would make them love me. Then he told me, as well as he could, how kind they were to seventeen white men, or bearded men, as he called them, who came on shore in distress.
From this time, I confess, I had a mind to venture over, and see if I could possibly join with these bearded men, who, I made no doubt, were Spaniards or Portuguese; not doubting but, if I could, we might find some method to escape from thence, being upon the continent, and a good company together, better than I could from an island forty miles off the shore, and alone without help. So, after some days, I took Friday to work again, by way of discourse; and told him, I would give him a boat to go back to his own nation; and accordingly I carried him to my frigate, which lay on the other side of the island; and having cleared it of water (for I always kept it sunk in the water), I brought it out, shewed it him, and we both went into it.
I found he was a most dexterous fellow at managing it, would make it go almost as swift and fast again as I could; so when he was in, I said to him, “Well, now, Friday, shall we go to your nation?” He looked very dull at my saying so, which, it seems, was because he thought the boat too small to go so far. I told him then I had a bigger; so the next day I went to the place where the first boat lay which I had made, but which I could not get into the water; he said that was big enough; but then, as I had taken no care of it, and it had lain two or three and twenty years there, the sun had split and dried it, that it was in a manner rotten. Friday told me, such a boat would do very well, and would carry “much enough vittle, drink, bread:” that was his way of talking.
Upon the whole, I was by this time so fixed upon my design of going over with him to the continent, that I told him we would go and make one as big as that, and he should go home in it. He answered not one word, but looked very, grave and sad. I asked him, what was the matter with him? He asked me again thus, “Why you angry mad with Friday? what me done?” I asked him, what he meant? I told him I was not angry with him at all: “No angry! no angry!” says he, repeating the words several times, “why send Friday home away to my nation?”—“Why,” said I, “Friday, did you not say you wished you were there?”—“Yes, yes,” says he, “wish be both there; no wish Friday there, no master there.” In a word, he would not think of going there without me. “I go there, Friday!” said I; “what should I do there?” He turned very quick upon me at this; “You do great deal much good,” says he; “you teach wild mans be good, sober, tame mans; you tell them know God, pray God, and live new life.”—“Alas, Friday,” said I, “thou knowest not what thou sayest; I am but an ignorant man myself.”—“Yes, yes,” says he, “you teechee me good, you teechee them good.”—“No, no, Friday,” said I, “you shall go without me; leave me here to live by myself, as I did before.” He looked confused again at that word, and running to one of the hatchets which he used to wear, he takes it up hastily, and gives it me. “What must I do with this?” said I to him. “You take kill Friday,” says he. “What must I kill you for?” said I again, He returns very quick, “What you send Friday away for? Take kill Friday, no send Friday away.” This he spoke so earnestly, that I saw tears stand in his eyes. In a word, I so plainly discovered the utmost affection in him to me, and a firm resolution in him, that I told him then, and often after, that I would never send him away from me, if he was willing to stay with me.
Upon the whole, as I found by all his discourse a settled affection to me, and that nothing should part him from me, so I found all the foundation of his desire to go to his own country was laid in his ardent affection to the people, and his hopes of my doing them good; a thing, which as I had no notion of myself, so I had not the least thought, or intention, or desire of undertaking it. But still I found a strong inclination to my attempting an escape, as above, founded on the supposition gathered from the former discourse; viz. that there were seventeen bearded men there; and therefore, without any delay, I went to work with Friday, to find out a great tree proper to fell, and make a large periagua or canoe, to under take the voyage: there were trees enough in the island to have built a little fleet, not of periaguas and canoes only, but even of good large vessels: but the main thing I looked at, was to get one so near the water, that we might launch it when it was made, to avoid the mistake I committed at first.
At last Friday pitched upon a tree; for I found he knew much better than I what kind of wood was fittest for it; nor can I tell to this day what wood to call the tree we cut down, except that it was very like the tree we call tustick, or between that and the Nicaragua wood, for it was much of the same colour and smell. Friday was for burning the hollow or cavity of this tree out, to make it into a boat: but I shewed him how rather to cut it out with tools, which after I shewed him how to use, he did very handily; and in about a month’s hard labour we finished it, and made it very handsome, especially, when, with our axes, which I shewed him how to handle, we cut and hewed the outside into the true shape of a boat; after this, however, it cost us near a fortnight’s time to get her along, as it were inch by inch, upon great rollers, into the water: but when she was in, she would have carried twenty men with great ease.
When she was in the water, and though she was so big, it amazed me to see with what dexterity and how swift my man Friday could manage her, turn her, and paddle her along; so I asked him if he would, and if we might venture over in her? “Yes,” he said, “he venture over in her very well, though great blow wind.” However, I had a farther design that he knew nothing of, and that was, to make a mast and sail, and to fit her with an anchor and cable. As to a mast, that was easy enough to get; so I pitched upon a straight young cedar-tree, which I found near the place, and which there was a great plenty of in the island; and I set Friday to work to cut it down, and gave him directions how to shape and order it: but as to the sail, that was my particular care; I knew I had old sails, or rather pieces of old sails enough; but as I had had them now twenty-six years by me, and had not been very careful to preserve them, not imagining that I should ever have this kind of use for them, I did not doubt but they were all rotten; and indeed most of them were so; however, I found two pieces which appeared pretty good, and with these I went to work, and with a great deal of pains, and awkward tedious stitching (you may be sure) for want of needles, I at length made a three-cornered ugly thing, like what we call in England a shoulder-of-mutton sail, to go with a boom at bottom, and a little short sprit at the top, such as usually our ships’ long-boats sail with, and such as I best knew how to manage; because it was such a one as I used in the boat in which I made my escape from Barbary, as related in the first part of my story.