discover any of the new thoughts which I suspected
were in him; but I found everything he said was so honest and so
innocent, that I could find nothing to nourish my suspicion; and in spite
of all my uneasiness, he made me at last entirely his own again; nor did
he in the least perceive that I was uneasy, and therefore I could not
suspect him of deceit.

One day, walking up the same hill, but the weather being hazy at sea, so
that we could not see the continent, I called to him, and said, "Friday,
do not you wish yourself in your own country, your own nation?" "Yes,"
he said, "I be much O glad to be at my own nation." "What would you do
there?" said I. "Would you turn wild again, eat men's flesh again, and
be a savage as you were before?" He looked full of concern, and shaking
his head, said, "No, no, Friday tell them to live good; tell them to pray
God; tell them to eat corn-bread, cattle flesh, milk; no eat man again."
"Why, then," said I to him, "they will kill you." He looked grave at
that, and then said, "No, no, they no kill me, they willing love learn."
He meant by this, they would be willing to learn. He added, they learned
much of the bearded mans that came in the boat. Then I asked him if he
would go back to them. He smiled at that, and told me that he could not
swim so far. I told him I would make a canoe for him. He told me he
would go if I would go with him. "I go!" says I; "why, they will eat me
if I come there." "No, no," says he, "me make they no eat you; me make
they much love you." He meant, he would tell them how I had killed his
enemies, and saved his life, and so he would make them love me. Then he
told me, as well as he could, how kind they were to seventeen white men,
or bearded men, as he called them who came on shore there in distress.

From this time, I confess, I had a mind to venture over, and see if I
could possibly join with those bearded men, who I made no doubt were
Spaniards and Portuguese; not doubting but, if I could, we might find
some method to escape from thence, being upon the continent, and a good
company together, better than I could from an island forty miles off the
shore, alone and without help. So, after some days, I took Friday to
work again by way of discourse, and told him I would give him a boat to
go back to his own nation; and, accordingly, I carried him to my frigate,
which lay on the other side of the island, and having cleared it of water
(for I alway