bor, on the south side of an island where
ships wa'n't very prompt to go commonly. But old Twist didn't care for
cannibals nor wild beasts, when they stood in his way; and there wasn't
but half a cask of water aboard, and that a hog wouldn't 'a' drank, only
for the name on't. So we pulled ashore after some, and findin' a spring
near by, was takin' it out, hand over hand, as fast as we could bale it
up, when all of a sudden the mate see a bunch of feathers over a little
bush near by, and yelled out to run for our lives, the savages was come.

"Now I had made up my mind to run away from the ship that very day, and
all the while I'd been baling the water up I had been tryin' to lay my
course so as to get quit of the boat's crew, and be off; but natur' is
stronger than a man thinks. When I heerd the mate sing out, and see the
men begin to run, I turned and run too, full speed, down to the shore;
but my foot caught in some root or hole, I fell flat down, and hittin'
my head ag'inst a stone near by, I lay; good as dead; and when I come
to, the boat was gone, and the ship makin' all sail out of harbor, and
a crew of wild Indian women were a-lookin' at me as I've seen a set of
Simsbury women-folks look at a baboon in a caravan; but they treated me
better!

"Findin' I was helpless, for I'd sprained my ankle in the fall, four of
'em picked me up, and carried me away to a hut, and tended me like a
baby; and when the men, who'd come over to that side of the island 'long
with 'em, and gone a-fishin', come back, I was safe enough; for women
are women all the world over, soft-hearted, kindly creturs, that like
anything that's in trouble, 'specially if they can give it a lift out
on't. So I was nursed, and fed, and finally taken over the ridge of
rocks that run acrost the island to their town of bamboo huts; and now
begun to look about me, for here I was, stranded, as one may say, out o'
sight o' land.

"Ships didn't never touch there, I knew by their ways, their wonderin'
and takin' sights at me. As for Cap'en Twist, he wouldn't come back for
his own father, unless he was short o' hands for whalin'. I was in for
life, no doubt on't; and I'd better look at the fair-weather side of the
thing. The island was as pretty a bit of land as ever lay betwixt sea
and sky; full of tall cocoa-nut palms, with broad, feathery tops, and
bunches of brown nuts; bananas hung in yellow clumps ready to drop off
at a touch; and big bread-fruit trees stoo