CHAPTER I.

I did not exactly write this story, for I can’t write very much except my name, but I talked it all, from beginning to end, to a man who writes just as plain as print, and he wrote it down just as I told it to him. At least he said he would, and I am pretty sure he kept his word; but if he did happen to put any mistakes into it, you will know they are his, and not mine.

My name is Mike Flanagan—my father was Michael Flanagan, and my uncle was Patrick Flanagan—and I was born in Ireland, in the city of Cork. We all came to America when I was a baby, and after everybody that belonged to me died I went to sea. I never saw my uncle Patrick, but I always thought a great deal of him because I was told he was a pirate, and that, of course, made the family very proud; but I found out after I grew up that he was only a 2pilot in Queenstown harbor, which is very different from being a pirate.

When I went to sea I was fourteen years old, and I made seven voyages between New York and ports in England, France, and Germany. I liked the Atlantic well enough, but I wanted to make a voyage in a deep-water ship, so I shipped on board the H. G. Thompson, a big American ship that was bound from New York to San Francisco, and then to China. I was sixteen years old then, and though I shipped as ordinary seaman, I expected that after the ship got back to New York I would be able to ship as A. B.

There were twenty-two of us in the forecastle—ten A. B.’s, ten ordinary seamen, and two boys. The captain and the second mate were very decent, but the mate was a hard man, and as I was in his watch, I didn’t have a very good time. He was a Nova Scotia chap, and he was a mean, bullying fellow. He was no sailor-man either, and I don’t see how he ever got to be mate of a ship.

We had one passenger. He was a man about thirty years old, and he was making the voyage for his health because he wasn’t very well. He was thin and tall, with the brightest eyes you ever saw, and he had a servant with him to take care of him who was the laziest and most worthless chap I 3ever saw aboard a ship. None of us knew exactly what was the matter with the passenger, except that he didn’t seem to be very strong. At least we all thought he wasn’t, until one day when the mate happened to be laying into me with a rope’s end—which he had a way of doing—the passenger jumped up and snatched the rope away, and told the mate that if he touched me again he’d heave him overboard. The mate was twice the passenger’s weight, but instead of killing him on the spot, as I expected of course he would do, he was actually frightened, and walked away without saying a word.

That was the beginning of my acquaintance with the queer passenger. After that he often used to talk to me when we happened to be on deck together, and was as kind to me as he could be. He told me his name was James Robinson Crusoe, and that his grandfather was a very celebrated man, who lived for twenty-eight years on an island all by himself, having been cast away. The passenger was forever talking about his grandfather, whose name was Robinson Crusoe, without the James; but I never could see that the old man amounted to very much, though I never read the book of travels that he wrote, and perhaps the passenger did not always tell the truth about him.

4I got to like Mr. Crusoe very much, though he afterwards gave me more trouble than any sailor-man ever before got into through being kind to a passenger, and being willing to talk to him. However, he meant to do right, and I shall never forget how he stood up for me when the mate was arguing with me, though of course, being a passenger, he had no right to be interfering between the officers and the men.

We sailed from New York on the first day of November, and we had very decent weather all the way to the Horn, and around it, for that matter. We all thought we were going to make about a ninety-day passage to San Francisco, when our luck turned, and we got a strong northerly wind that lasted till the captain got out of patience, and put the ship to the westward in hopes of meeting a fair wind. We must have run a long ways out of our course, but the wind still hung in the north, until one day a tremendous hurricane struck us all of a sudden from the eastward. It was about noon, and all hands were at dinner, and the captain and mate had gone below to work up their observations, when the second mate sung out for all hands to shorten sail. We were on the starboard tack, carrying all three top-gallant sails. We got the top-gallant sails rolled up, the main-sail, 5the outer jib, spanker, and maintop-gallant stay-sail stowed, and were furling the fore and mizzen upper top-sails, when the gale struck us. The captain was on deck long before

this time, and as it was blowing too hard to bring the ship up to the wind with the sail she had on her, he squared the yards and put her right before it.

We had the worst job I ever saw to get the sail off her. By the time we had the upper top-sails furled and the fore and aft sails stowed we had to reef the fore-sail, the fore and main lower top-sails, and to furl the mizzen-top sail. All hands were on the foreyard for at least an hour before we could get the sail reefed, and half a dozen times I thought we should have to give it up. However, we got it reefed and set at last, and when we were just through with it the sail split and blew away.

By this time it was blowing harder than I ever saw it blow before, and the ship was taking in green seas on each side over the rail every time she rolled. The captain knew we had no time to lose, for the ship was continually burying herself nearly up to the foremast, she still had so much sail on her; so he ordered the fore and mizzen lower top-sails to be brailed up, and let them blow away, while we close-reefed the lower maintop-sail, which we did without 6very much difficulty, and then knocked off to get our suppers.

The forecastle was all afloat with the water that had come down the hatchway before any one had thought to close it, so we had our supper on the quarter-deck, where all the people except the cook and Mr. Crusoe were gathered. Mr. Crusoe had got a fall, so I heard his servant say, and his left leg was a little sprung, so that he didn’t care to come on deck, but stayed below in his berth.

The wind kept on freshening and the sea kept on getting up, and by the time we were through with our supper we had to take the top-sail off her, and bring her down to bare poles. Even then she travelled faster than she had ever done before in her life, and she must have been making a good fifteen knots an hour. Nobody could go forward, for the waist of her was mostly full of water, so all hands stayed on the quarter-deck, and waited for the hurricane to blow itself out.

It didn’t show the least sign of blowing itself out, and if it had known how to blow harder it would have done it. It blew for three days and nights, gradually backing to the northward and westward, until on the last night the ship was heading nearly south-east. Of course we sailors liked it, all except the fact that it was impossible to do any cooking. 7All we had to do was to take our tricks at the wheel, and then to sit around the mizzen-mast and wonder if it meant to blow forever. We didn’t keep any lookout, for nobody could get forward, and the air was so black with flying spoondrift that you couldn’t see much more than the length of the ship. Of course the mate growled at us a good deal, but even he couldn’t think of any work that we could do, so we didn’t mind him.

It was about the middle of the last night of the hurricane that the ship struck. Without giving us the least warning she struck a reef, and the fore and main-mast and the mizzen-top mast went overboard together. At the same moment a sea boarded us over the stern, and swept the captain, the second mate, and five or six of the men away with it. The rest of us took to the mizzen rigging, and expected every moment that the ship would go to pieces.

She held together, however, though she pounded heavily and the seas broke over her constantly. There was only one boat left that had not been stove to pieces or swept away, and that was on the top of the deck-house. The mate and the rest of us watched our chances, and got safely where the boat was and launched her. We were just going to cast off when I remembered the passenger, and climbed on 8board the wreck again to look for him. The men shouted to me to come back, but the mate sang out that there was no room for passengers, and shoved the boat off. I saw a big sea lift her and carry her on out of sight, and then I went below to find Mr. Crusoe.

I found him crawling up the companion-way, and nearly drowned by the water which every minute or two rushed down on him. I got him on deck, and made a rope fast around his waist, and then around mine, and after a while I got him into the rigging, where we were out of the reach of the sea.

We had hardly got into the rigging when the ship slid over the reef into smoother water, and drifted away before the wind. The sea did not break over us any more, but we stayed in the rigging, for I expected that we would sink in a few minutes, and there was a chance that she might sink where the water would be shallow. She swung around and drifted stern foremost, and I could see by the way she rolled that there was a great deal of water in her, although her deck was still a good six feet above the water. Before she had drifted very long her stern grounded quite gently, and remained high and dry, although the forward part of her, as far as the stump of the foremast, was under water.

9Of course we did not stay in the rigging any longer, but came down and made ourselves comfortable on the quarter-deck. I got the hand-lead and sounded the water. I found that we were on a sandy bottom, and that it shelved so gently that there was no danger that the ship would slide off and sink in deep water. The wind still blew hard, but the reef protected us from the sea, and there was no danger that the ship would break up unless the wind changed. I went into the cabin, which was quite free from water, and brought up a couple of mattresses and some blankets, and told Mr. Crusoe that we would turn in and sleep on deck till morning.

He had not said very much since I brought him on deck, except to ask where the rest of the people were. I told him that the mate might not have meant to desert us, but that he cast loose so as to prevent the boat from being stove against the side of the ship; but Mr. Crusoe said that, whether the mate deserted us wilfully or not, I would have been in the boat if I had not gone back to try to save a passenger. He put his hand on my shoulder, and said, “Mike, you have done a generous and noble action, and I shall never forget it as long as I live.” But I told him that we had better go to sleep while we had the chance, and that we could find out in the morning whether we were going to live or be drowned.

10You see, if we were stranded on a sand-bank in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, our chances would not be worth much; but if we were on an island, we would be able to get ashore and make ourselves comfortable. Since we could not possibly tell where we were until daylight, there was no use in bothering ourselves about it.

Of course I didn’t like it when the boat left me on the wreck, for I thought I had lost my chance of saving my life; but the more I thought of it, the more I was sure that the boat could not have lived five minutes in the breakers, and that every one in her must have been drowned. I felt pretty certain that the ship must be near the shore, for you don’t often find sand-banks out at sea, and I made no doubt that Mr. Crusoe and I could go ashore in the morning. At any rate, we were safe enough for that night, and could be sure of a good breakfast out of the cabin stores in the morning. I don’t believe in looking too far ahead, and a good night’s sleep, with no turning out to come on deck in the middle of the night, and with a good breakfast waiting for you, and nobody to set you at work, is a good enough prospect for me. So I rolled myself up in my blanket, with a good soft mattress under me, and a real feather pillow under my head, and was asleep inside of five minutes.

CHAPTER II.

I woke up about five o’clock the next morning. It was a beautiful day. The wind had all died down, and the sea where the wreck was lying was as smooth as New York Bay. We were stranded close to the shore of a lovely island, and in the opposite direction I could see the surf breaking on a reef that seemed to surround the island about a mile from the shore, everywhere except towards the south, where there was an opening about half a mile broad. The island seemed to be covered with trees that grew close down to the shore, and at the northerly end there was a high hill that was shaped like a sugar-loaf. I could not see any signs that the island was inhabited, and the wreck lay so close to the beach that I could have swum ashore without the least trouble.

I let Mr. Crusoe sleep while I split some dry wood from the door of the captain’s room and started a fire in the galley. I found coffee, and pilot-bread, and a lot of cold roast lamb in the steward’s pantry, and when I woke up Mr. 12Crusoe, I told him that the best breakfast he ever heard of was ready for us in the cabin. We had china plates to eat off of, and a mahogany table and arm-chairs, and I found a newspaper and put it by Mr. Crusoe’s plate, so that he could read the news at breakfast, as rich people on shore always do.

Mr. Crusoe braced up after breakfast, and found that he could walk pretty well. He was in first-rate spirits, and said the island was the very one where his grandfather lived. “He landed,” said Mr. Crusoe, “just about where we are now, and he had his house just by the side of that hill.”

“Then we can move right into his house and live there, can’t we?” said I.

“Of course we can,” Mr. Crusoe replied. “Only, you see, it must be awfully out of repair by this time. And then I think it very likely that Will Atkins and his gang burnt it before they left the island; for they must have left it or we would see some signs of them. I never did believe in that fellow’s reformation myself, although my dear grandfather did.”

“Well,” said I, “we’ll go ashore anyway and see. If you’ll help me, Mr. Crusoe, we’ll build a raft.”

“My grandfather built a raft, and we’ll do everything that he did. Only he didn’t have you to help him. I don’t 13know what to do about that,” he continued, looking puzzled—“I can’t drown you now, but you see yourself, Mike, that everybody ought to have been drowned except me.”

“You can drown me after we get ashore, if you like,” I said; “I don’t care much, I’m sure.” You see I felt a little aggravated that Mr. Crusoe should stand there and tell me I ought to have been drowned; but then I didn’t begin to know at that time how aggravating he could be. But he was a good man for all that.

The first thing I did was to chop away the bulwarks amidships, where the spare spars were lashed. Then I made a line fast to half a dozen of the spars and launched them overboard. Then I went overboard myself and lashed them together, and laid planks over them. A good part of the spars that had gone overboard where we first struck were still alongside, but they were so mixed up with the rigging that I didn’t try to use them.

“Now you want to cut a spare top-mast into three lengths and add them to your raft,” said Mr. Crusoe.

I never supposed that he knew what a top-mast was, but it seems he did, and the spare top-mast was just what the raft needed to make it float high enough out of the water. However, I afterwards found out that he got the idea of 14using a spare top-mast out of his grandfather’s book of travels.

The raft was now big enough, and we were all ready to load it.

“Now we want to take nothing ashore with us this first trip except things that we can’t get along without,” said I.

“We must take,” said Mr. Crusoe, just as if he was reciting a lesson out of a book, “three seamen’s chests broken open and filled with bread, rice, Dutch cheeses, dried goat’s flesh, and a little corn, besides some bottles of rum, the carpenter’s chest, two shot-guns, two pistols, two rusty swords, three barrels of gunpowder, and a bag of shot. I’ll help you look for them. That was my grandfather’s first load.”

“And it isn’t going to be our first load,” I answered. “Where’s our goat’s flesh? and what do we want of three barrels of gunpowder?”

Mr. Crusoe came and looked straight in my face with his wonderful bright eyes, and said, “Mike, we’ll take exactly what I said. You can take anything else you want to take, but you’ll never go ashore if you show a want of respect to my sainted grandfather.”

Well, I didn’t want to hurt Mr. Crusoe’s feelings, so I said I would do what he wanted. I couldn’t find any dried 15goat’s flesh, but Mr. Crusoe found a ham, and said that it was goat’s flesh, and I didn’t contradict him. We couldn’t find any barrels of gunpowder either, though we found one small keg of it.

The raft was big enough to carry a great deal more than Mr. Crusoe put on it, so, after he was satisfied, I got together two barrels of flour, a barrel of sugar, a bag of coffee, two breech-loading rifles, a lot of cartridges, Mr. Crusoe’s trunk, the captain’s chest, and the medicine-chest. Then I found two long oars and a big coil of rope, not much larger than signal halyards, and put them aboard the raft and shoved off.

The water was so shallow that we poled the raft along with the two oars very easily. I meant to land on the beach, but Mr. Crusoe said we must keep away to the right, and land a little way up a creek that we would find just there. As Mr. Crusoe seemed to know all about the island, I did as he said, and presently we saw the entrance of a little creek, and a short distance from the mouth we found a beautiful place to land.

We carried our cargo ashore and piled it up together, and started back to the ship for another load. The tide was coming in, and it was hard work to pole the heavy raft 16against it, so I went ashore on the beach opposite to where the wreck lay, and made one end of my rope fast to a tree, and coiled the rest down on the raft. The rope was long enough to reach from the shore to the wreck, and when, after we had got to the wreck, I made the other end of the rope fast in the main channels, I had a line by which I could haul the raft back and forth without any trouble.

That is, I could have done it, only Mr. Crusoe objected because his blessed old grandfather had not known enough to do the same thing, although, according to Mr. Crusoe’s account, his grandfather’s wreck lay nearer the shore than ours did. However, he agreed to let me haul the raft up close to the beach, but he wouldn’t let me land there, and insisted that we should pole the raft around to the creek.

For the second load Mr. Crusoe said that we must take a grindstone, a dozen hatchets, three crow-bars, seven muskets, and a roll of sheet-lead. There were only two hatchets on board the ship, and neither a grindstone nor a roll of sheet-lead, though what he wanted of sheet-lead I never knew. He was quite angry when he found that he couldn’t load up the raft with grindstones and lead, and said that if he ever got back to New York he would sue the owners of the ship for not supplying her with proper provisions.