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we have no need of laws."
    '"I
have a desire to be saved which I must call immoderate," I said.
"It burns in me night and day, I can think of nothing else."
    "'I
do not wish to hear of your desire," said Cruso. "It
concerns other things, it does not concern the island, it is not a
matter of the island. On the island there is no law except the law
that we shall work for our bread, which is a commandment." And
with that he strode away.
    'This
answer did not satisfy me. If I was but a third mouth to feed, doing
no useful labour on the terraces, what held Cruso back from binding
me hand and foot and tossing me from the cliffs into the sea? What
had held Friday back all these years from beating in his master's
head with a stone while he slept, so bringing slavehood to an end and
inaugurating a reign of idleness? And what held Cruso back from tying
Friday to a post every night, like a dog, to sleep the more secure,
or from blinding him, as they blind asses in Brazil? It seemed to me
that all things were possible on the island, all tyrannies and
cruelties, though in small; and if, in despite of what was possible,
we lived at peace one with another, surely this was proof that
certain laws unknown to us held sway, or else that we had been
following the promptings of our hearts all this time, and our hearts
had not betrayed us.
    "'How.
do you punish Friday, when you punish him?" I asked on another
occasion.
    '"There
is no call to punish Friday," replied Cruso. "Friday has
lived with me for many years. He has known no other master. He
follows me in all things."
    '"Yet
Friday has lost his tongue," said I, the words uttering
themselves.
    '"Friday
lost his tongue before he became mine," said Cruso, and stared
at me in challenge. I was silent. But I thought: We are all punished,
every day. This island is our punishment, this island and one
another's company, to the death.
    'My
judgment on Cruso was not always so harsh. One evening, seeing him as
he stood on the Bluff with the sun behind him all red and purple,
staring out to sea, his staff in his hand and his great conical hat
on his head, I thought: He is a truly kingly figure; he is the true
king of his island. I thought back to the vale of melancholy through
which I had passed, when I had dragged about listlessly, weeping over
my misfortune. If I had then known misery, how much deeper must the
misery of Cruso not have been in his had braved the wilderness and
slain the monster of solitude and returned fortified by his victory?
    'I
used once to think, when I saw Cruso in this evening posture, that,
like me, he was searching the horizon for a sail. But I was mistaken.
His visits to the Bluff belonged to a practice of losing himself in
the contemplation of the wastes of water and sky. Friday never
interrupted him during these retreats; when once I innocently
approached him, I was rebuffed with angry words, and for days
afterwards he and I did not speak. To me, sea and sky remained sea
and sky, vacant and tedious. I had not the temperament to love such
emptiness.
    'I
must tell you of the death of Cruso, and of our rescue.
    'One
morning, a year and more after I became an islander, Friday brought
his master home from the terraces weak and fainting. I saw at once
the fever had returned. With some foreboding I undressed him and put
him to bed and prepared to devote myself to his care, wishing I knew
more of cupping and bloodletting.
    'This
time there was no raving or shouting or struggling. Cruso lay pale as
a ghost, a cold sweat standing out on his body, his eyes wide open,
his lips sometimes moving, though I could make out no word. I
thought: He is a dying man, I cannot save him.
    'The
very next day, as if the spell of Cruso's gaze on the waters had been
broken, a merchantman named the  John
Hobart ,
making for Bristol with a cargo of cotton and indigo, cast
anchor off the island and sent a party ashore. Of this I knew nothing
till Friday suddenly came scampering into the hut and snatched up