Upon this, I inquired of him more critically what was become of them. He assured me they lived still there. The savages let them alone and gave them victuals to live on. I asked him how it came to pass they did not kill them and eat them? He said, "No, they make brother with them." then he added, "They no eat mans but when make the war fight."
It was after this some considerable time, being upon the top of the hill, at the east side of the island, Friday looked towards the main land, and, in a kind of surprise, fell a jumping and dancing, and called out to me, for I was at some distance from him. I asked him what was the matter? "O joy!" said he. "O glad! there see my country, there my nation!"
I observ’d an extraordinary sense of pleasure appear’d in his face. His eyes sparkled, and his countenance discover'd a strange eagerness, as if he had a mind to be in his own country again. This observation of mine put a great many thoughts into me, which made me at first not so easy about my new man Friday as I was before. I made no doubt but that if Friday could get back to his own nation again, he would not only forget all his religion, but all his obligation to me, and would be forward enough to give his countrymen an account of me, and come back perhaps with a hundred or two of them and make a feast upon me.
But I wronged the poor honest creature very much, for which I was very sorry afterwards. One day, walking up the same hill, but the weather being hazy at sea so we could not see the continent, I called to him, and said, "Friday, do not you wish yourself in your own country, your own nation?"
"Yes," he said. "I be much glad to be at my own nation."
"What would you do there?" said I. "Would you turn wild again, eat men's flesh again, and be a savage as you were before?"
He looked full of concern, and shaking his head, said, "No, no, Friday tell them to live good. Tell them to pray God. Tell them to eat corn-bread, cattle-flesh, milk. No eat man again."
"Why then," said I to him, "they will kill you."
He looked grave at that, and then said, "No, no. They no kill me, they willing love learn." He meant by this, they would be willing to learn. He added, they learned much of the bearded mans that came in the boat. Then I asked him if he would go back to them. He smiled at that, and told me he could not swim so far. I told him, I would make a canoe for him. He told me he would go, if I would go with him.
"I go?" said I. "Why, they will eat me if I come there."
"No, no," said he. "Me make they no eat you. Me make they much love you." Then he told me how kind they were to seventeen white men, or bearded men, as he called them, who came on shore there in distress.
I confess I still had a mind to escape away from the island, and see if I could join with those bearded men, who, I made no doubt, were Spaniards and Portuguese. Upon the whole, I was by this time so fixed upon my design of going over with him to the continent and escaping the island, I told him we would go and make a boat and he should go home in it. He answered not one word, but looked very grave and sad. I asked him what was the matter with him? He asked me, "Why you angry mad with Friday? What me done?"
I asked him what he meant. I told him I was not angry with him at all.
"No angry!" said he, repeating the words several times. "Why send Friday home away to my nation?"
"Why," said I, "Friday, did not you say you wished you were there?"
"Yes, yes," said he. "Wish be both there. No wish Friday there, no master there." With a swift motion, he pulled out his great wooden sword and gave it to me.
"What must I do with this?" said I to him.
"You take kill Friday," said he.
"What must I kill you for?" said I again.
He return’d very quick, "What you send Friday away for? Take, kill Friday, no send Friday away." This he spoke so earnestly I saw tears stand in his eyes.
I told him then, and often after, that I would never send him away from me if he was willing to stay with me, for I knew now the depth of his loyalty to me and love for me.
Therefore, without any more delay, I went to work with Friday to find out a great tree proper to fell and make a large canoe to undertake the voyage. The main thing I looked at was to get one so near the water we might launch it when it was made.
At last, Friday pitched upon a tree. I found he knew much better than I what kind of wood was fittest for it. Friday was for burning the hollow of this tree out to make it for a boat, but I showed him how to cut it with tools. After I had showed him how to use these, he did very handily. In about a month's hard labour we finished it, and made it very handsome when, with our axes, we cut and hewed the outside into the true shape of a boat. After this, however, it cost us near a fortnight's time to get her along, as it were inch by inch, upon great rollers into the water. But when she was in, she would have carried twenty men with great ease.
When she was in the water, tho’ she was so big, it amazed me to see with what dexterity and how swift my man Friday would manage her, turn her, and paddle her along. So I asked him if he would, and if we might venture over in her.