ROBINSON CRUSOE 217

After these ceremonies were past, and after all his good things
were brought into my little apartment, we began to consnlt what
was to be done with the prisoners we had; for it was worth con-
sidering whether we might venture to take them with us or no,
especially two of them, whom he knew to be incorrigible and
refractory to the last degree ; and the captain said he knew they
were such rogues that there was no obliging them, and if he did
carry them away, it must be in irons, as malefactors, to be de-
livered over to justice at the first English colony he could come
to; and I found that the captain himself was very anxious about
it. Upon this, I told him that, if he desired it, I would under-
take to bring the two men he spoke of to make it their own
request that he should leave them upon the island. “I should
be very glad of that,” says the captain, “with all my heart.”
« Well,” says I, “I will send for them up and talk with them for
you.” Sol caused Friday and the two hostages, for they were
now discharged, their comrades having performed their promise ;
I say, I caused them to go to the cave, and bring up the five
men, pinioned as they were, to the bower, and keep them there
till came. After some time, I came thither dressed in my new
habit; and now I was called governor again. Being all met,
and the captain with me, I caused the men to be brought before
me, and I told them I had gota full account of their villainous
behaviour to the captain, and how they had run away with the
ship, and were preparing to commit further robberies, but that
Providence had ensnared them in their own ways, and that they
were fallen into the pit which they had dug for others. I let
them know that by my direction the ship had been seized ; that
she lay now in the road ; and they might see by-and-by that
their new captain had received the reward of his villainy, and
that they would see him hanging at the yard-arm ; that, as to
them, I wanted to know what they had to say why I should not
execute them as pirates taken in the fact, as by my commission
they could not doubt but I had authority so to do.

One of them answered in the name of the rest, that they had
nothing to say but this, that when they were taken the captain
promised them their lives, and they humbly implored my mercy.
But I told them I knew not what mercy to show them; for as
for myself, I had resolved to quit the island with all my men,
and had taken passage with the captain to go to England ; and as
for the captain, he could not carry them to England other than as
prisoners in irons, to be tried for mutiny and running away with
the ship; the consequence of which, they must needs know,
would be the gallows ; so that I could not tell what was best for