possession; and, if possible, it should be one of their prisoners whom
they had condemned to be eaten, and should bring hither to kill. But
these thoughts still were attended with this difficulty, that it was
impossible to effect this without attacking a whole caravan of them, and
killing them all; and this was not only a very desperate attempt, and
might miscarry, but, on the other hand, I had greatly scrupled the
lawfulness of it to myself; and my heart trembled at the thoughts of
shedding so much blood, though it was for my deliverance. I need not
repeat the arguments which occurred to me against this, they being the
same mentioned before: but though I had other reasons to offer now, viz.
that those men were enemies to my life, and would devour me if they
could; that it was self-preservation, in the highest degree, to deliver
myself from this death of a life, and was acting in my own defence as
much as if they were actually assaulting me, and the like; I say, though
these things argued for it, yet the thoughts of shedding human blood for
my deliverance were very terrible to me, and such as I could by no means
reconcile myself to for a great while. However, at last, after many
secret disputes with myself, and after great perplexities about it (for
all these arguments, one way and another, struggled in my head a long
time,) the eager prevailing desire of deliverance at length mastered all
the rest; and I resolved, if possible, to get one of those savages into
my hands, cost what it would. My next thing was to contrive how to do
it, and this indeed was very difficult to resolve on: but as I could
pitch upon no probable means for it, so I resolved to put myself upon
the watch, to see them when they came on shore, and leave the rest to
the event; taking such measures as the opportunity should present, let
what would be.

With these resolutions in my thoughts, I set myself upon the scout as
often as possible, and indeed so often, that I was heartily tired of it;
for it was above a year and a half that I waited; and for great part of
that time went out to the west end, and to the south-west corner of the
island, almost every day, to look for canoes, but none appeared. This
was very discouraging, and began to trouble me much; though I cannot say
that it did in this case (as it had done some time before) wear off the
edge of my desire to the thing; but the longer it seemed to be delayed,
the more eager I was for it: in a word,