194 ROBINSON CRUSOE.

as before, between us ; I gave Friday one pistol to stick in his
girdle, and three guns upon his shoulder, and I took one pistol
and the other three guns myself; and in this posture we
marched out. I took a small bottle of rum in my pocket, and
gave Friday a large bag with more powder and bullets ; and as
to orders, I charged him to keep close behind me, and not to
stir, or shoot, or do anything till I bade him, and in the mean
time not to speak a word. In this posture I fetched a compass
to my right hand of near a mile, as well to get over the creek
as to get into the wood, so that I could come within shot of
them before I should be discovered, which I had seen by my
glass it was easy to do. °

While I was making this march, my former thoughts return-
ing, I began to abate my resolution :—I do not mean that I en-
tertained any fear of their number, for, as they were naked, un-
armed wretches, it is certain I was superior to them—nay,
though I had been alone. But it occurred to my thoughts,
what call, what occasion, much less what necessity, I was in
to go and dip my hands in blood, to attack people who had
neither done or intended me any wrong? who, as to me, were
innocent, and whose barbarous customs were their own disaster,
being in them a token, indeed, of God’s having left them, with
the other nations of that part of the world, to such stupidity,
and to such inhuman courses, but did not call me to take upon
me to be a judge of their actions, much less an executioner of
His justice,—that whenever He thought fit He would take the
cause into His own hands, and by national vengeance punish
them as a people for national crimes, but that, in the mean
time, it was none of my business,—that it was true Friday
might justify it, because he was a declared enemy, and in a
state of war with those very particular people, and it was lawful
for him to attack them,—but I could not say the same with re-
gard to myself. ‘These things were so warmly pressed upon
my thoughts all the way as I went, that I resolved I would only
go and place myself near them that I might observe their bar-
barous feast, and that I would act then as God should direct ‘
but that unless something offered that was more a call to me
than yet I knew of, I would not meddle with them.

With this resolution I entered the wood, and, with all pos-
sible wariness and silence, Friday following close at my heels,
I marched till I came to the skirt of the wood on the side
which was next to them, only that one corner of the wood lay
between me and them. Here I called softly to Friday, and
showing him a great tree which was just at the corner of the

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