eople after they are dead,
or whether there is any thing in the stories they tell us of that kind,
more than the product of vapours, sick minds, and wandering fancies. But
this I know, that my imagination worked up to such a height, and brought
me into such excess of vapours, or what else I may call it, that I
actually supposed myself oftentimes upon the spot, at my old castle
behind the trees, saw my old Spaniard, Friday's father, and the
reprobate sailors whom I left upon the island; nay, I fancied I talked
with them, and looked at them so steadily, though I was broad awake, as
at persons just before me; and this I did till I often frightened myself
with the images my fancy represented to me: one time in my sleep I had
the villany of the three pirate sailors so lively related to me, by the
first Spaniard and Friday's father, that it was surprising; they told me
how they barbarously attempted to murder all the Spaniards, and that
they set fire to the provisions they had laid up, on purpose to distress
and starve them; things that I had never heard of, and that were yet all
of them true in fact; but it was so warm in my imagination, and so
realized to me, that to the hour I saw them, I could not be persuaded
but that it was or would be true; also how I resented it when the
Spaniard complained to me, and how I brought them to justice, tried them
before me, and ordered them all three to be hanged. What there was
really in this, shall be seen in its place; for however I came to form
such things in my dream, and what secret converse of spirits injected
it, yet there was, I say, very much of it true. I own, that this dream
had nothing literally and specifically true; but the general part was so
true, the base and villanous behaviour of these three hardened rogues
was such, and had been so much worse than all I can describe, that the
dream had too much similitude of the fact; and as I would afterwards
have punished them severely, so if I had hanged them all, I had been
much in the right, and should have been justifiable both by the laws of
God and man.

But to return to my story.--In this kind of temper I had lived some
years, I had no enjoyment of my life, no pleasant hours, no agreeable
diversion but what had something or other of this in it; so that my
wife, who saw my mind so wholly bent upon it, told me very seriously one
night, that she believed there was some secret powerful impulse of
Providence upon me, which had det