he cried out to me, "O master! O master! O sorrow! O bad!"--"What's the
matter, Friday?" said I. "O yonder there," says he, "one, two, three,
canoe! one, two, three!" By this way of speaking I concluded there were
six; but on inquiry I found there were but three. "Well, Friday," said
I, "do not be frighted;" so I heartened him up as well as I could.
However, I saw the poor fellow most terribly scared; for nothing ran in
his head, but that they were come to look for him, and would cut him in
pieces, and eat him; the poor fellow trembled so, that I scarce knew
what to do with him; I comforted him as well as I could, and told him I
was in as much danger as he, and that they would eat me as well as him.
"But," said I, "Friday, we must resolve to fight them: can you fight,
Friday?" "Me shoot," says he, "but there come many great number." "No
matter for that," said I again; "our guns will fright them that we do
not kill." So I asked him, whether, if I resolved to defend him, he
would defend me, and stand by me, and do just as I bade him? He said,
"Me die, when you bid die, master;" so I went and fetched a good dram of
rum, and gave him; for I had been so good a husband of my rum, that I
had a great deal left. When he had drank it, I made him take the two
fowling-pieces which we always carried, and load them with large
swan-shot as big as small pistol bullets; then I took four muskets, and
loaded them with two slugs and five small bullets each; and my two
pistols I loaded with a brace of bullets each: I hung my great sword, as
usual, naked by my side, and gave Friday his hatchet.

When I had thus prepared myself, I took my perspective-glass, and went
up to the side of the hill, to see what I could discover; and I found
quickly, by my glass, that there were one and twenty savages, three
prisoners, and three canoes; and that their whole business seemed to be
the triumphant banquet upon these three human bodies; a barbarous feast
indeed, but nothing more than as I had observed was usual with them.