A new Robinson Crusoe

by W. L. Alden

I was so tired of being a prisoner that I was a little reckless, and I managed to pull a pistol out of my belt and began firing at the rope that tied my feet to the timbers of the house. I fired five times, and then, by great good-luck, I happened to hit the rope, and to cut it so nearly in two that I was able to break it.

I could now roll all around the house if I wanted to, but my hands and feet were still tied fast together. The fire was out by this time, I was very sure, but I knew where there was a box of matches stuck between two planks, about a foot above the floor, and I rolled over towards them, taking the chances that the pistols would go off. The pistols hurt me a good deal as I rolled over on them, but I reached the match-box at last, and found it empty.

Then I was discouraged, for I felt sure that something had happened to Mr. Crusoe, and there I was, a prisoner, and unable to help him. I had tried every way I could think of to get rid of the ropes, but had failed, and besides I was very tired, and my wrists were very raw.

I thought the fire must be out, but still I resolved to get over to it and see if I could find a live coal. I rolled over about twenty times before I reached the place where we always made the fire, and you ought to have seen the black-and-blue places that the pistols made all around my waist.

I stirred up the ashes for a while, and couldn’t find a live coal till, all of a sudden, I found the hair on the outside of my goat-skin trousers was on fire. I had rolled directly on to a piece of wood that was still burning, and for once I was glad that I had on goat-skin trousers that couldn’t burn, instead of cotton or linen trousers that would have blazed up and roasted me.

It did not take me very long to find the live coal and to press the rope that was around my hands close against it, and in the course of ten minutes or so the rope was burned through, and my hands were loose. Then I got out my knife, and cut away the rope that held my feet, and I was free again. I had a few little burns on my hands, but I have often wondered since then how it happened that some one of the pistols didn’t happen to get heated against a hot coal and go off, and shoot three or four bullets through me.

It was now just about sunset, and in the latitude where we were it used to grow dark almost as soon as the sun went down. I started on a run towards the beach to find Mr. Crusoe, and presently I found him lying as if he was dead on the ground.

He had plainly fallen down, for his rifles were scattered all around just where he had dropped them. He was just as if he was dead, and his face was as white as a sheet. He was warm, however, and I did not think he was dead; so I ran back to the house and got some brandy, and poured a little of it—not more than half a tumblerful—down his throat. This revived him, and he opened his eyes and managed to say that he rather thought he had been a little faint.

Seeing that he was alive, I left him for a few minutes while I hurried down to the beach to see if the picnickers were there, intending to ask them to come and help me; but they had been gone a long time, for their boat was out of sight. So I went back to Mr. Crusoe, and asked him if he thought he could walk to the house.

He said he thought he could, but that he would like to have me look at his leg first, for he believed it had been bleeding again. I took out my knife and contrived, after a lot of hard work, to cut a piece out of his trousers just where the bullet had entered, and I found that the poor man had bled nearly to death. This time I tied up his leg so tight that it couldn’t bleed any more, and then I picked Mr. Crusoe up and carried him home. He weighed very little, but he kept telling me that I was not strong enough to carry him, and that I must let him walk or I would burst a blood-vessel.