So the seamen stopped fighting and we took their guns. Three of the men agreed to come back
to the captain and we put the others in my cave. Friday and I stayed at watch
the prisoners, while the captain and his men went back to fight for the ship.
All night we listened to the sound of guns and shouting, but in the morning, when
the sun came up, the captain was the master of his ship again. I went down to the
shore to meet him.
‘My dear friend,’ he cried. ‘There’s your ship! I’ll take you to the ends of the
world in it!’
I put my arms around him and we laughed and cried together. How happy I was to
leave the island!
My good friend Friday came with me, of course, but we left the mutineers on the island.
We decided not to kill them; they could begin a new life on the island. I showed them
my three houses, my cornfields and my goats, and all my tools. Their life would be easy
because of all my hard work for so many years.
And so, on the nineteenth of December 1686 – after twenty-seven years, two
months and nineteen days – I said goodbye to my island and sailed home to
England.
