As I expected, so it proved. As soon as the tyde made to the westward, I saw them all take boat and paddle away. I should have observ’d for an hour or more before they went off they went a dancing, and I could discern their hunch'd postures and gestures by my glass, altho' something unnamable in their writhing motions did bother my thoughts. I could not perceive, by my nicest observation, but they were stark naked and had not the least covering upon them.
As soon as I saw them shipped and gone, I took two guns upon my shoulders, and two pistols in my girdle, and my great sword by my side, and with all the speed I was able to make went away to the hill where I had discovered the first appearance of all. As soon as I got thither, which was not in less than an hour (for I could not go apace, being so loaden with arms as I was), I perceived there had been three canoes more of savages at that place. Looking out farther, I saw they were all at sea together, making over for the main.
This was a dreadful sight to me, especially as, going down to the shore, I could see the marks of horror which the dismal work they had been about had left behind it, viz. the blood, the bones, and part of the flesh of human bodies, all eaten and devoured by those wretches with merriment and sport. Even my trees and stones had been mark'd with their strange symbols.
I was so fill’d with indignation at the sight, I now began to premeditate the destruction of the next I saw there, let them be whom or how many soever. I took my hatchet to the trees to gouge the marks from their bark, and I could sense a great satisfaction in the spirit of the beast when this was done. When the tyde came it took the bits of flesh, and I scrub'd the stones as a sailor scrubs his deck until the dark symbols vanish'd and the stones were cleansed.
It seemed evident to me the visits which they made thus to this island were not very frequent, for it was above fifteen months before any more of them came on shore there again. I neither saw them nor any footsteps or signals of them in all that time. As to the rainy seasons, then they are sure not to come abroad, at least not so far. Yet all this while I lived uncomfortably, by reason of the constant apprehensions of their coming upon me by surprise. I observe the expectation of evil is more bitter than the suffering, especially if there is no room to shake off that expectation or those apprehensions.
During all this time I was in the murdering humour, and took up most of my hours in contriving how to fall upon them the very next time I should see them, especially if they should be divided into two parties, as they were the last time.
I spent my days now in great perplexity and anxiety of mind, expecting I should, one day or other, fall into the hands of these merciless creatures. If I did at any time venture abroad, it was not without looking round me with the greatest care and caution imaginable. And now I found, to my great comfort, how happy it was I had provided a tame flock or herd of goats. I durst not, upon any account, fire my gun, especially near that side of the island where they usually came, lest I should alarm the savages. If they had fled from me now, I was sure to have them come again, with perhaps two or three hundred canoes with them, and then I knew what to expect.
However, I wore out a year and three months more before I ever saw any more of the savages, and then I found them again. It is true, they might have been there once or twice, but either they made no stay or at least I did not see them. Nor did any memories of them come from the beast, which had once again reach'd one of its territorial phases and stalked our shores and savannahs and woods each night of the moon. The perturbation of my mind, and its mind, during this fifteen or sixteen months' interval, was very great. In the day great troubles overwhelmed my mind, and in the night I dreamed often of killing the savages, and of the reasons why I might justify the doing of it.
But in the month of May, as near as I could calculate, and in my four and twentieth year, I had a very strange encounter.
A new shipwreck, useless wealth,
my decision
It was in the middle of May, on the sixteenth day, I think, as well as my poor wooden calendar would reckon, for I marked all upon the post still, and four nights had past since the beast last ran free. It blew a very great storm of wind all day with a great deal of lightning and thunder, and a very foul night it was after it. In many ways it did remind me of that night on the Yarmouth Roads, when white worms did rise from the sea, shoggoths as the crew called them, to ravage our ship and scuttle it faster than e'en two dozen sailors could. The sea threw itself at the shore in great, loud hills of water, in a word as loud as the wind and the thunder. I knew not what was the particular occasion of it, but as I was reading and taken up with very serious thoughts about my present condition, I was surprised with the noise of a gun fired at sea.