“I wasn’t ever drowned,” said I. “I’ve just been out for a sail; but I won’t do it again.”
“Why, of course you’re not a ghost,” said Mr. Crusoe. “There never were any ghosts on this island, or my grandfather would have seen them. And yet strange things have happened—very strange and awful things.”
“I’m sorry I went away, Mr. Crusoe,” I said to him, “and I know it was mean and cowardly; but I promise you that I’ll never do it again, and that I’ll stand by you until we can both go together.” I was so much aggravated to think of what I had done that I talked good English, and forgot to talk like Friday.
But Mr. Crusoe didn’t forget it. If he had been dying he wouldn’t have forgotten to imitate his grandfather. “That’s all right, Friday,” he replied; “but you don’t speak as plainly as you did, which is discouraging to me after all the pains I have taken to teach you.”
I was so anxious to please him that I said, “Yes, master; me no speakee good,” which made him brighten up a little; but he soon put on a gloomy look, and turned over with his back to me.
I told him I would go and start a fire and get dinner, but he said he didn’t want anything. He wouldn’t admit that he was sick, but anybody could have seen—that is, if there had been anybody to see—that his cheeks were thinner than they were before I went away, and his eyes brighter. I supposed that he had worried himself sick about me, but I afterwards found out that he hadn’t worried at all. At least he said so one day when we were talking it over. But then I didn’t altogether believe him, for I know that if I had gone off and left myself all alone on a desert island, I should have missed myself and worried about it dreadfully.
I cooked a good dinner, and as Mr. Crusoe wouldn’t eat his share, I had to eat it to keep it from being wasted. He was always putting extra work on me. I didn’t feel so very well that afternoon, and had fallen asleep and dreamed that a big brass elephant was sitting in an arm-chair on my stomach, and saying that I must get up and eat a barrel of dry Indian meal, or he would report me to the captain, when Mr. Crusoe woke me up by shaking me, and then put his hand over my mouth as a hint for me to keep quiet.
“I am going to tell you something,” he said, “that will probably turn your hair gray. It has turned mine perfectly white”—which wasn’t true, for his hair was the same color it had always been. “Friday,” he continued, “there is somebody on the island.”
“Of course there is,” said I. “There’s you and me, and the goats and the rest of the animals.”
“There is some one else,” Mr. Crusoe replied, looking more solemn than ever. “Friday, yesterday I saw a footstep on the beach.”