I had hard work to get enough provisions and water stowed on board the canoe without attracting Mr. Crusoe’s attention, but I was very careful about it, and I not only provisioned her for six weeks, but I hove overboard the stone ballast and ballasted her with canned provisions. I put two rifles and a shot-gun aboard of her, with plenty of ammunition, and I furnished her with blankets and everything that anybody could want at sea. She was more like a gentleman’s pleasure yacht than anything else, and I got to be so fond of her that I resolved I would never go to sea in any other craft, but would use her for trading among the Pacific Islands, and be my own master instead of having a lot of captains and mates over me all my days.
But when I was all ready Mr. Crusoe spoilt my plan. Perhaps he suspected what I meant to do. At any rate, he wouldn’t trust himself on board the canoe, and told me that he did not want me to go sailing in her for fear I might be blown off the island, and not be able to get back again.
I was so disgusted that I said to myself that I had had enough of Mr. Crusoe, and that if he wouldn’t come with me I would leave him. I didn’t mean to abandon him for good and all, but I expected to fall in with a ship, and then the captain would steer for the island and take Mr. Crusoe off. He could live for a while very comfortably by himself, for that was what his grandfather did before he engaged Friday to live with him. The more I thought of escaping alone, the more I liked the idea. I had given Mr. Crusoe every chance to come with me, and I was even ready to carry him off against his will, but when a man is as obstinate as he was, what can you do? After all, I could get on alone in the boat a good deal better than I could with him, for he would have been sure to try to make me sail the boat just as his grandfather used to, and he would have been no end of trouble, as a landsman always is when you have got him in a small boat, unless he happens to be sea-sick. So, after thinking it all over, I resolved to start that same night, and get rid of the island and Mr. Crusoe at the same time.
CHAPTER IX.
There was a nice westerly breeze blowing that night about ten o’clock when I crept out of the house without waking Mr. Crusoe. I had found my old flannel clothes, and I had a lump of soap with me, and when I got to the beach the first thing I did was to break out of my goat-skin clothes, wash the burnt cork off of myself, and put on my old sailor-clothes. I felt comfortable then for the first time in a great many weeks, and I thought what a fool I would be to stay on the island and wear goat-skin clothes, and have to listen to stories about old Mr. Crusoe.
I had a compass and a lantern in the canoe, but as there was a full moon I could see to steer for the opening in the reef without the compass. I was glad of this, for I did not want to light the lantern for fear that Mr. Crusoe might wake up and see it. I had forgotten that I had to swim out to the canoe when I put my flannel clothes on, so I had to take them off again till I was safe on board.
I got up my anchor and got sail on her without making any noise. The canoe slipped along through the water towards the opening in the reef, and in about ten minutes after I started I was just abreast the south end of the island. I had to run close to a ridge of rock that projected out towards the reef, and to my great surprise I saw somebody sitting on the rocks and watching the boat. From his goat-skin clothes I knew it was Mr. Crusoe, but he sat perfectly still, and never even hailed me. I could not imagine how he could have got to the end of the island before me, until I remembered that I did not look to see if he was in the house when I left it. He must have been out taking a walk in the moonlight when I started for the boat, and of course he knew when he saw the boat under sail that I was leaving him.
I expected every minute that he would call to me to come back, or that perhaps he would fire at me, but he sat still until I was nearly outside of the reef, and then he got up and walked slowly away. It made me feel a little sorry to have him catch me in the very act of leaving him, but then he had only himself to blame that he was not with me.
Beyond knowing, from the height of the sun at noon, that the island was a long way south of the line, I did not have the least idea where it was, and of course I could not tell what course to steer in order to reach any inhabited country. I did not steer for what Mr. Crusoe and I used to call the main-land—that is, the little bit of land that we could see from the island—for I felt sure that if it was inhabited at all, it was inhabited by savages. So, after I had got well clear of the island, I headed the boat due north, and resolved to keep on that course until I could find either land or a ship.