myself to him, and, smiling upon him, encouraged him:  that he kneeled down to me, seeming to pray me to assist him; upon which I shewed my ladder, made him go up it, and carried him into my cave, and he became my servant; and that as soon as I had got this man, I said to myself, “Now I may certainly venture to the main land; for this fellow will serve me as a pilot, and will tell me what to do, and whither to go for provisions, and whither not to go for fear of being devoured; what places to venture into, and what to escape.”  I waked with this thought, and was under such inexpressible impressions of joy at the prospect of my escape in my dream, that the disappointments which I felt upon coming to myself, and finding it was no more than a dream, were equally extravagant the other way, and threw me into a very great dejection of spirit.

Upon this, however, I made this conclusion, that my only way to go about an attempt for an escape, was, if possible, to get a savage in my possession; and, if possible, it should be one of their prisoners whom they had condemned to be eaten, and should bring hither to kill:  but these thoughts still were attended with this difficulty, that it was impossible to effect this, without attacking a whole caravan of them, and killing them all; and this was not only a very desperate attempt, and might miscarry; but, on the other hand, I had greatly scrupled the lawfulness of it to me, and my heart trembled at the thoughts of shedding so much blood, though it was for my deliverance:  I need not repeat the arguments which occurred to me against this, they being the same mentioned before:  but though I had other reasons to offer now, viz. that those men were enemies to my life, and would devour me, if they could; that it was self-preservation, in the highest degree, to deliver myself from this death of a life, and was acting in my own defence, as much as if they were actually assaulting me, and the like; I say, though these things argued for it, yet the thoughts of shedding human blood for my deliverance were very terrible to me, and such as I could by no means reconcile myself to a great while.

However, at last, after many secret disputes with myself, and after great perplexities about it, (for all these arguments, one way and another, struggled in my head a long time,) the eager prevailing desire of deliverance at length mastered all the rest, and I resolved, if possible, to get one of these savages into my bands, cost what it would:  the next thing then was to contrive how to do it; and this indeed was very difficult to resolve on:  but as I could pitch upon no probable means for it, so I resolved to put myself upon the watch to see them when they came on shore, and leave the rest to the event, taking such measures as the opportunity should present, let it be what it would.