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第3章 谁算计谁？

　　I told Atkins all this, and he heard me with great earnestness; butit seemed as if he turned off the discourse to the rest, for hesaid to me he would go and have some talk with his wife; so he wentout a while, and we talked to the rest. I perceived they were allstupidly ignorant as to matters of religion, as much as I was whenI went rambling away from my father; yet there were none of thembackward to hear what had been said; and all of them seriouslypromised that they would talk with their wives about it, and dotheir endeavours to persuade them to turn Christians.

　　We made no great gain, however, by this victory, for we lost acamel and gained a horse. I paid for the lost camel, and sent foranother; but I did not go to fetch it myself: I had had enough ofthat.

　　The young lad was about seventeen years of age, a pretty, well-bred, modest, and sensible youth, greatly dejected with the loss ofhis mother, and also at having lost his father but a few monthsbefore, at Barbadoes. He begged of the surgeon to speak to me totake him out of the ship; for he said the cruel fellows hadmurdered his mother: and indeed so they had, that is to say,passively; for they might have spared a small sustenance to thepoor helpless widow, though it had been but just enough to keep heralive; but hunger knows no friend, no relation, no justice, noright, and therefore is remorseless, and capable of no compassion.

　　W.A. - What, will my wicked life hinder you from believing in God?What a dreadful creature am I! and what a sad truth is it, that thehorrid lives of Christians hinder the conversion of heathens!

　　When the three wanderers had give this unaccountable history orjournal of their voyage, the Spaniard asked them where their newfamily was; and being told that they had brought them on shore, andput them into one of their huts, and were come up to beg somevictuals for them, they (the Spaniards) and the other twoEnglishmen, that is to say, the whole colony, resolved to go alldown to the place and see them; and did so, and Friday's fatherwith them. When they came into the hut, there they sat, all bound;for when they had brought them on shore they bound their hands thatthey might not take the boat and make their escape; there, I say,they sat, all of them stark naked. First, there were three comelyfellows, well shaped, with straight limbs, about thirty to thirty-five years of age; and five women, whereof two might be from thirtyto forty, two more about four or five and twenty; and the fifth, atall, comely maiden, about seventeen. The women were well-favoured, agreeable persons, both in shape and features, onl

　　Nay, farther, the common motive of foreign adventures was takenaway in me, for I had no fortune to make; I had nothing to seek:if I had gained ten thousand pounds I had been no richer; for I hadalready sufficient for me, and for those I had to leave it to; andwhat I had was visibly increasing; for, having no great family, Icould not spend the income of what I had unless I would set up foran expensive way of living, such as a great family, servants,equipage, gaiety, and the like, which were things I had no notionof, or inclination to; so that I had nothing, indeed, to do but tosit still, and fully enjoy what I had got, and see it increasedaily upon my hands. Yet all these things had no effect upon me,or at least not enough to resist the strong inclination I had to goabroad again, which hung about me like a chronic distemper. Inparticular, the desire of seeing my new plantation in the island,and the colony I left there, ran in my head continually. I dreamedof it all night, and my imagination ran upon it al

　　They heard all this very attentively, and I delivered it veryfaithfully to them from his mouth, as near his own words as Icould; only sometimes adding something of my own, to convince themhow just it was, and that I was of his mind; and I always verycarefully distinguished between what I said from myself and whatwere the clergyman's words. They told me it was very true what thegentleman said, that they were very indifferent Christiansthemselves, and that they had never talked to their wives aboutreligion. "Lord, sir," says Will Atkins, "how should we teach themreligion? Why, we know nothing ourselves; and besides, sir," saidhe, "should we talk to them of God and Jesus Christ, and heaven andhell, it would make them laugh at us, and ask us what we believeourselves. And if we should tell them that we believe all thethings we speak of to them, such as of good people going to heaven,and wicked people to the devil, they would ask us where we intendto go ourselves, that believe all this, and are such wicked fe

　　W.A. - No, indeed, my sins are all presumptions upon His goodness;and He would be infinitely just if He destroyed me, as He has doneother men.

tark mad. It seemshe had begun to revolve the change of his circumstances in hismind, and again this put him into an ecstasy of joy. His spiritswhirled about faster than the vessels could convey them, the bloodgrew hot and feverish, and the man was as fit for Bedlam as anycreature that ever was in it. The surgeon would not bleed himagain in that condition, but gave him something to doze and put himto sleep; which, after some time, operated upon him, and he awokenext morning perfectly composed and well. The younger priestbehaved with great command of his passions, and was really anexample of a serious, well-governed mind. At his first coming onboard the ship he threw himself flat on his face, prostratinghimself in thankfulness for his deliverance, in which I unhappilyand unseasonably disturbed him, really thinking he had been in aswoon; but he spoke calmly, thanked me, told me he was giving Godthanks for his deliverance, begged me to leave him a few moments,and that, next to his Maker, he would give me th