him here to cheer me in this lone isle!

I did my best to teach him, so like a child as he was, to do and
feel all that was right, I found him apt, and full of fun; and he
took great pains to learn all that I could tell him. Our lives
ran on in a calm, smooth way; and, but for the vile feasts which
were held on the shores, I felt no wish to leave the isle.

As my slave had by no means lost his zest for these meals, it
struck me that the best way to cure him, was to let him taste the
flesh of beasts; so I took him with me one day to the wood for
some sport. I saw a she-goat, in the shade, with her two kids. I
caught Friday by the arm, and made signs to him not to stir, and
then shot one of the kids; but the noise of the gun gave the poor
man a great shock. He did not see the kid, nor did he know that
it was dead. He tore his dress off his breast to feel if there
was a wound there; then he knelt down to me, and took hold of my
knees to pray of me not to kill him.

To show poor Friday that his life was quite safe, I led him by
the hand, and told him to fetch the kid. By and by, I saw a hawk
in a tree, so I bade him look at the gun, the hawk, and the
ground; and then I shot the bird. But my poor slave gave still
more signs of fear this time, than he did at first: for he shook
from head to foot. He must have thought that some fiend of death
dwelt in the gun, and I think that he would have knelt down to
it, as well as to me; but he would not so much as touch the gun
for some time, though he would speak to it when he thought I was
not near. Once he told me that what he said to it was to ask it
not to kill him.