At the end of the fourteenth year he is awakened one stormy night by a shot. His heart beats fast, for now the hour of deliverance is surely at hand. Another shot thunders through the night. Perhaps it is a signal of distress from a ship! He lights a huge fire to guide the crew. When morning dawns, he finds that a ship has run on to a submerged rock and been wrecked. No sign of the crew is visible. But yes, a sailor lies prostrate on the sand and a dog howls beside him. Crusoe runs up; he would like a companion in his loneliness; but however long he works with artificial respiration and other remedies, the dead will not come to life, and Robinson Crusoe sadly digs a grave for the unknown guest.
Another year passes and all the days are alike. As he sits at his table, breaking his bread and eating fish and oysters, he has his dog, parrot, and goats as companions and gives them a share of his meal.
One day he sees from his look-out hill five boats come to the island and put to shore, and thirty savages jump on land and light a fire. Then they bring two prisoners from a boat. One they kill with a club. The other runs away and makes straight towards Crusoe's dwelling. Only two men pursue him, and Crusoe runs up to help him. At a sign from his master, the dog rushes on one of the savages and holds him fast till he gets his death-blow, and the other meets the same fate. Then Crusoe by signs and kindly gestures makes the prisoner understand that he has found a friend. The poor fellow utters some incomprehensible words, and Crusoe, who has not heard a human voice for fifteen years, is delighted to hear him speak. The other savages make off as fast as they can.
Robinson Crusoe's black friend receives the name of Friday, because he came to the island on a Friday. In time Friday learns to speak, and brightens and relieves the life of the solitary man. One day another wreck is stranded on the rocks, and Robinson and Friday fetch from its stores firearms and powder, tools and provisions, and many other useful things. When eighteen long years have expired, the hero of our childhood is rescued by an English ship.
Across the Pacific Ocean
The albatross is a knowing bird, or he would not follow vessels for weeks. He knows that there is food on board, and that edible fragments are often thrown out. But his power of observation and his knowledge are much greater than might be suspected. He knows also of old where small storm birds take their prey, and when he finds them flying along with their catch he shoots down like lightning among them, appropriates all he can find, and does not trouble himself in the least about the smaller birds' disappointment.
But these vultures of the sea are still cleverer in other ways. Their forefathers have lived on the sea for thousands of years, and their senses have been developed to the greatest acuteness and perfection. They know the regular winds, and can perceive from the colour of the water if a cold or warm sea current sweeps along below them. If now our friend the albatross, travelling westwards over the islands of Polynesia, wishes to be carried along by the wind, he knows that he has only to keep between the Tropic of Capricorn and the equator in order to be in the belt of the south-east trade-wind. And no doubt he has also noticed that this wind gives rise to the equatorial current which, broad and strong, sets westwards across the Pacific Ocean. If he wishes to fly north of the equator, he receives the same help from the north-east trade-wind; but if he wanders far to the south or north of the equator, he will meet with head winds and find that the ocean current sets eastwards. In the northern half of the Pacific Ocean this north-easterly current is called the Kuroshiwo, or "Black Salt." It skirts the coast of Japan and runs right across to Canada. This current is one of the favourite haunts of the albatross.
THE SOUTH SEAS.
He knows further that the arrangement of winds and currents is just the same in the Atlantic. There, however, the current running north-east is called the Gulf Stream, and it is the warm water of this stream, coming from the equator, which makes the climate of north-western Europe so mild, and prevents even the northernmost fiords of Norway from freezing in winter.