Robinson Crusoe | Page 8

aside with his foot, let me lie, thinking I had been dead;
and it was a great while before I came to myself.
We worked on; but the water increasing in the hold, it was apparent
that the ship would founder; and though the storm began to abate a
little, yet it was not possible she could swim till we might run into any
port; so the master continued firing guns for help; and a light ship, who
had rid it out just ahead of us, ventured a boat out to help us. It was
with the utmost hazard the boat came near us; but it was impossible for
us to get on board, or for the boat to lie near the ship's side, till at last
the men rowing very heartily, and venturing their lives to save ours, our
men cast them a rope over the stern with a buoy to it, and then veered it
out a great length, which they, after much labour and hazard, took hold
of, and we hauled them close under our stern, and got all into their boat.
It was to no purpose for them or us, after we were in the boat, to think
of reaching their own ship; so all agreed to let her drive, and only to
pull her in towards shore as much as we could; and our master
promised them, that if the boat was staved upon shore, he would make
it good to their master: so partly rowing and partly driving, our boat
went away to the northward, sloping towards the shore almost as far as
Winterton Ness.
We were not much more than a quarter of an hour out of our ship till
we saw her sink, and then I understood for the first time what was
meant by a ship foundering in the sea. I must acknowledge I had hardly
eyes to look up when the seamen told me she was sinking; for from the
moment that they rather put me into the boat than that I might be said
to go in, my heart was, as it were, dead within me, partly with fright,
partly with horror of mind, and the thoughts of what was yet before me.

While we were in this condition - the men yet labouring at the oar to
bring the boat near the shore - we could see (when, our boat mounting
the waves, we were able to see the shore) a great many people running
along the strand to assist us when we should come near; but we made
but slow way towards the shore; nor were we able to reach the shore till,
being past the lighthouse at Winterton, the shore falls off to the
westward towards Cromer, and so the land broke off a little the
violence of the wind. Here we got in, and though not without much
difficulty, got all safe on shore, and walked afterwards on foot to
Yarmouth, where, as unfortunate men, we were used with great
humanity, as well by the magistrates of the town, who assigned us good
quarters, as by particular merchants and owners of ships, and had
money given us sufficient to carry us either to London or back to Hull
as we thought fit.
Had I now had the sense to have gone back to Hull, and have gone
home, I had been happy, and my father, as in our blessed Saviour's
parable, had even killed the fatted calf for me; for hearing the ship I
went away in was cast away in Yarmouth Roads, it was a great while
before he had any assurances that I was not drowned.
But my ill fate pushed me on now with an obstinacy that nothing could
resist; and though I had several times loud calls from my reason and
my more composed judgment to go home, yet I had no power to do it. I
know not what to call this, nor will I urge that it is a secret overruling
decree, that hurries us on to be the instruments of our own destruction,
even though it be before us, and that we rush upon it with our eyes
open. Certainly, nothing but some such decreed unavoidable misery,
which it was impossible for me to escape, could have pushed me
forward against the calm reasonings and persuasions of my most retired
thoughts, and against two such visible instructions as I had met with in
my first attempt.
My comrade, who had helped to harden me before, and who was the
master's son, was now less forward than I. The first time he spoke to
me after we were at Yarmouth, which was not till two or three days, for
we were separated in the town to several quarters; I say,