I had a short jacket of goat's skin, the skirts coming down to about the middle of the thighs, and a pair of open-kneed breeches of the same. The breeches were made of the skin of an old he-goat, whose hair hung down such a length on either side, that, like pantaloons, it reached to the middle of my legs. Stockings and shoes I had none, but had made me a pair of somethings, I scarce know what to call them, like buskins, to flap over my legs and lace on either side like spatterdashes.
I had on a broad belt of goat's skin dried, which I drew together with two thongs of the same instead of buckles. In a kind of a frog on either side of this, instead of a sword and dagger, hung a little saw and a hatchet. I had another belt, not so broad and fastened in the same manner, which hung over my shoulder. At the end of it, under my left arm, hung two pouches, in one of which hung my powder, in the other my shot. At my back I carried my basket, and on my shoulder my gun.
As for my face, the colour of it was not so mulatto-like as one might expect from a man not at all careful and living within nine or ten degrees of the equinox. My beard I had once suffered to grow till it was about a quarter of a yard long. As I had both scissars and razors sufficient, I had cut it pretty short, except what grew on my upper lip, which I had trimmed into a large pair of Mahometan whiskers, such as I had seen worn by some Turks at Sallee. The Moors did not wear such, tho’ the Turks did. Of these mustachios or whiskers, I will not say they were long enough to hang my hat upon them, but they were of a length and shape monstrous enough, and in England, would have passed for frightful.
But all this is by the by. As to my figure, I had so few to observe me that it was of no manner of consequence, so I say no more to that part. In this kind of figure I went on my new journey, and was out five or six days. I traveled first along the sea-shore. I went over the land, a nearer way, to the same height I was upon before. When looking forward to the point which lay out, I was surprised to see the sea all smooth and quiet. No rippling, no motion, no current, any more there than in any other places. Indeed, even the black rocks could not be seen. For reasons I could not name, I bethought myself that this was why the beast had run with such glee for its three nights, viz. that nothing moved in the sea. While rarely I felt anxious, at this time a sense of great peace did come upon me, nay, upon my entire island. Two years more past, and the beast and I were most pleas'd with our lives here.
But now I come to a new scene of my life.
The foot print, my terrors,
my decisions
It happened one day, about a week after the last night of the moon, I was surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen in the sand.
I stood like one thunder-struck, or as if I had seen an apparition. I listened, I looked round me, but I could hear nothing, nor see any thing. I went up the shore and down the shore, but it was all one. I went to it again to see if there were any more, and to observe if it might not be my fancy. But there was no room for that, for there was the print of a foot, toes, heel, and every part of a foot, splayed wide upon the sand. After innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man confused and out of myself, I came home to my fortification terrified to the last degree, looking behind me at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree and stump at a distance to be a man. Nor is it possible to describe how many wild ideas were found every moment in my fancy, and what strange unaccountable whimsies came into my thoughts by the way.
When I came to my castle (for so I think I called it ever after this) I fled into it like one pursued. Whether I went over by the ladder or went in at the hole in the rock, which I had called a door, I cannot remember. Nor could I remember the next morning. Never frightened hare fled to cover, or fox to earth, with more terror of mind than I to this retreat.
I slept none that night. The farther I was from the occasion of my fright the greater my apprehensions were. I was so embarrassed with my own frightful ideas of the thing I formed nothing but dismal imaginations to myself, even tho’ I was now a great way off it. Sometimes I fancied it must be the Devil and reason joined in with me upon this supposition. How should any other thing in human shape come into the place? Where was the vessel that brought them? What marks were there of any other footsteps?
But then to think Satan should take human shape upon him, in such a place, to leave the print of his foot behind him. I considered the Devil might have found out abundance of other ways to have terrified me than this of the single print of a foot. As I lived quite on the other side of the island, it was ten thousand to one whether I should ever see it or not. And in the sand, too, which the first surge of the sea upon a high wind would have defaced entirely. All this seemed inconsistent with the notions we entertain of the subtilty of the Devil.