OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 445

 

home to him, and told him of it; he considered a while, for he was no
rash man neither: but musing some time, he replied, “ She is a little
ton big; but, however, we will have her.” Accordingly, we bought
the ship; and agreeing with the master, we paid for her, and took
possession; when we had done so, we resolved to entertain the men, if
we could, to join them with those we had, for the pursuing our busi-
ness; but, on a sudden, they not having received their wages, but their
share of the money, as we afterwards learned, not one of them was to
be found. We inquired much about them, and at length were told,
that they were all gone together, by land, to Agra, the great city of
the Mogul’s residence; and from thence were to travel to Surat, and so
by sea to the Gulf of Persia.

Nothing had so heartily troubled me a good while, as that I missed
the opportunity of going with them; for such a ramble, I thought, and
in such company as would both have guarded me and diverted me,
would have suited mightily with my great design; and I should both
have seen the world, and gone homewards too; but I was much better
satisfied a few days after, when I came to know what sort of fellows
they were; for, in short, their history was, that this man they called
‘captain was the gunner only, not the commander: that they had been
a trading voyage, in which they were attacked on shore by some of the
Malaccans, who had killed the captain and three of his men; and that
after the captain was killed, these men, eleven in number, had resolved .
to run away with the ship, which they did; and had brought her in at
the Bay of Bengal, leaving the mate and five men more on shore; of
whom we shall hear further.

Well; let them come by the ship how they would, we came honestly
by her, as we thought; though we did not, I confess, examine into
things so exactly as we ought; for we never inquired any thing of the
seamen, who, if we had examined, would certainly have faltered in their
accounts, contradicted one another, and perhaps have contradicted them-
selves: or, one how or other, we should have seen reason to have
suspected them; but the man showed us a Dill of sale for the ship to
one Emanuel Clostershoven; or some such name (for I suppose it wae
all a forgery), and called himself by that name: and we could not con-
tradict him; and being withal a little too unwary, or at least having
no suspicion of the thing, we went through with our bargain.