Robinson feared that if she was English there must be something wrong about her.  Perhaps, he thought, she was a pirate.  So he was careful not to show himself or Friday.

Presently, as he watched, he saw the men in the boat run her ashore and draw her up on the beach, about half a mile from his castle.  When they had landed, he could easily see through his glass that they were Englishmen.

There were eleven men, but three of them had their hands tied behind their backs, and were evidently prisoners.  When the first four or five men had jumped ashore, they brought out these three, all the while ill-treating them, and behaving as if they meant to kill their prisoners.  Friday was sure that they meant to eat them.

Soon, without further harming the three men, the others scattered about among the trees near the shore, leaving the three sitting on the ground very sad-looking, but with their hands now untied.

At the time the boat was run aground, it was just high-water, and the two sailors who had been left in charge of her, and who had evidently been drinking too much rum, went to sleep, and never noticed that the tide was going out.  When they woke, the boat was high and dry, and with all the strength of the whole crew they could not move her, because the sand at that part of the beach was very soft.  This did not seem to trouble any of them very much, for Robinson heard one of the sailors shout, “Let her alone, Jack, can’t ye?  She’ll float next tide.”

All forenoon Robinson watched, and when the hottest time of the day had come, he noticed the sailors throw themselves down under the trees, and go to sleep, some distance away from the three prisoners.

Then Robinson and Friday, taking their muskets and pistols, stole down cautiously behind the three men, to try to speak to them without the others knowing.

Robinson had put on his goatskin coat and the great hairy hat that he had made for himself; and with his cutlass and pistols in his belt, and a gun over each shoulder, he looked very fierce.

The men did not see him till he spoke, and they were so startled by his wild look, and by the sight of two men armed to the teeth, that they nearly ran away.  But Robinson told them not to be alarmed; he was an Englishman, and a friend, and would help them if they would show him how it could be done.

Then they explained to him what had happened.  One of the three was Captain of the ship that lay at anchor off the island.  Of the others, one was mate of the ship, and the third man was a passenger.  The crew had mutinied, the Captain told Robinson, and had put him and the other two in irons, and the ringleaders in the mutiny had proposed to kill them.  Now they meant to leave them on the island to perish.

The Captain was so astonished at finding anybody there who proposed to help him, that he said in his wonder:  “Am I talking to a man, or to an angel from heaven?”