in my ladders at night, so that he could no way come at me.

But I needed not this precaution, for never man had a more faithful,
loving servant than Friday was to me. I made it my business to teach him
everything that was proper to make him useful, especially to make him
speak, and he was the aptest scholar that ever was. Indeed, this was the
pleasantest year of all the life I led in this place. I began now to
have some use for my tongue again, and, besides the pleasure of talking
to Friday, I had a singular satisfaction in the fellow himself. His
simple, unfeigned honesty appeared to me more and more every day, and I
began really to love the creature; and I believe he loved me more than
it was possible for him ever to love anything before.


_IV.--The End of Captivity_


I was now entered on the seven-and-twentieth year of my captivity on the
island. One morning I bade Friday go to the seashore and see if he could
find a turtle. He had not been gone long when he came running back like
one that felt not the ground, or the steps he set his feet on, and cries
out to me, "O master! O sorrow! O bad!"

"What's the matter, Friday?" said I.

"O yonder, there," says he; "one, two, three canoes!"

"Well," says I, "do not be frightened."

However, I saw the poor fellow was most terribly scared, for nothing ran