and bid him go to the sea-shore, and see if he could find a turtle or tortoise, a thing which we generally got once a week, for the sake of the eggs, as well as the flesh.  Friday had not been long gone, when he came running back, and flew over my outward wall, or fence, like one that felt not the ground, or the steps he set his feet on; and before I had time to speak to him, he cried out to me, “O master!  O master!  O sorrow!  O bad!”—­“What’s the matter, Friday?” said I.  “O yonder there,” says he, “one, two, three, canoe! one, two, three!” By this way of speaking I concluded there were six; but on inquiry I found there were but three.  “Well, Friday,” said I, “do not be frighted;” so I heartened him up as well as I could.  However, I saw the poor fellow most terribly scared; for nothing ran in his head, but that they were come to look for him, and would cut him in pieces, and eat him; the poor fellow trembled so, that I scarce knew what to do with him; I comforted him as well as I could, and told him I was in as much danger as he, and that they would eat me as well as him.  “But,” said I, “Friday, we must resolve to fight them:  can you fight, Friday?” “Me shoot,” says he, “but there come many great number.”  “No matter for that,” said I again; “our guns will fright them that we do not kill.”  So I asked him, whether, if I resolved to defend him, he would defend me, and stand by me, and do just as I bade him?  He said, “Me die, when you bid die, master;” so I went and fetched a good dram of rum, and gave him; for I had been so good a husband of my rum, that I had a great deal left.  When he had drank it, I made him take the two fowling-pieces which we always carried, and load them with large swan-shot as big as small pistol bullets; then I took four muskets, and loaded them with two slugs and five small bullets each; and my two pistols I loaded with a brace of bullets each:  I hung my great sword, as usual, naked by my side, and gave Friday his hatchet.

When I had thus prepared myself, I took my perspective-glass, and went up to the side of the hill, to see what I could discover; and I found quickly, by my glass, that there were one and twenty savages, three prisoners, and three canoes; and that their whole business seemed to be the triumphant banquet upon these three human bodies; a barbarous feast indeed, but nothing more than as I had observed was usual with them.

I observed also, that they were landed, not where they had done when Friday made his escape, but nearer to my creek, where the shore was low, and where a thick wood came close almost down to the sea:  this, with the abhorrence of the inhuman errand these wretches came about, so filled me with indignation, that I came down again to Friday, and told him, I was resolved to go down to them, and kill them all; and asked him if he would stand by me.  He was now gotten over his fright, and his spirits being a little raised with the dram I had given him, he was very cheerful; and told me, as before, he would die when I bid die.