Things going on thus for some time, I seemed, excepting these cautions, to be reduced to my former calm sedate way of living. Even the beast still ran across the island, tho' now I was keenly aware that it never ran or hunt'd in the south-west point or in the shadow'd valley. All these things tended to show me, more and more, how far my condition was from being miserable compared to some others, even if it were not perfect.
As in my present condition there were not many things which I wanted, so, indeed, I thought the frights I had been in about these savage wretches, and the concern I had been in for my own preservation, had taken off the edge of my invention for my own conveniences. But my invention now ran quite another way. Night and day I could think of nothing but how I might destroy some of these monsters in their cruel, bloody ritual, and, if possible, save the victim they should bring hither to destroy. It would take up a larger volume than this whole work to set down all the contrivances I brooded upon for destroying these creatures, or at least frightening them so as to prevent their coming hither any more. But all this was abortive. Nothing could be possible to take effect unless I was to be there to do it myself. And what could one man do among them, when perhaps there might be twenty or thirty of them together, with their darts or their bows and arrows, with which they could shoot as true to a mark as I could with my gun? Even the beast would be hard press'd against such numbers, tho' their weapons could do naught to kill it.
Sometimes I thought of digging a hole under the place where they made their fire, and putting in five or six pounds of gunpowder, which, when they kindled their fire, would take fire and blow up all that was near it. But as, in the first place, I should be unwilling to waste so much powder upon them, my store being now within the quantity of one barrel, so neither could I be sure of its going off at any certain time when it might surprise them. At best it would do little more than just blow the fire about their ears and fright them, but not sufficient to make them forsake the place.
So I laid it aside and then proposed I would place myself in ambush in some convenient place, with my three guns all double-loaded, and in the middle of their bloody ceremony let fly at them, when I should be sure to kill or wound perhaps two or three at every shot. Then falling in upon them with my three pistols and my sword, I made no doubt but if there were twenty I should kill them all. This fancy pleased my thoughts for some weeks.
I went so far with it in my imagination, I employed myself several days to find out proper places to put myself in ambuscade, as I said, to watch for them. I went to the dark church itself, which was now grown more familiar to me. But while my mind was thus fill’d with thoughts of revenge, and a bloody putting twenty or thirty of them to the sword, as I may call it, the unease I had at the place abetted my malice.
Well, at length I found a place in the side of the hill where I was satisfied I might wait till I saw any of their boats coming. There was a hollow large enough to conceal me. There I might sit and observe all their bloody doings and take my full aim at their heads when they were so close together as it would be next to impossible I should miss my shot, or that I could fail wounding three or four of them at the first shot.
After I had thus laid the scheme of my design, and, in my imagination put it in practice, I made my tour every morning up to the top of the hill, which was from my castle about three miles, to see if I could observe any boats upon the sea coming near the island or standing over towards it. But I began to tire of this hard duty after I had, for two or three months, constantly kept my watch but came always back without any discovery. There was not, in all that time, the least appearance, not only on or near the shore but on the whole ocean, so far as my eyes or glasses could reach every way.
As long as I kept my daily tour to the hill to look out, my spirits seemed to be all the while in a suitable form for so outrageous an execution as the killing of twenty or thirty naked savages. But now, when I began to be weary of the fruitless excursion which I had made so far every morning in vain, so my opinion of the action itself began to alter. I began, with cooler and calmer thoughts which enter’d my mind, to consider what I was going to engage in.