"I thought now was my time to make my escape, by getting leave, if possible, to stay here: for it seemed not very feasible to do it by stealth, and I had no reason to despair of getting leave, this being a place where my stay could, probably, do the crew no harm, should I design it. Indeed, one reason that put me on the thoughts of staying at this particular place, besides the present opportunity of leaving Captain Read, which I did always intend to do as soon as I could, was that I had here also a prospect of advancing a profitable trade for ambergris with these people, and of gaining a considerable fortune to myself. For in a short time I might have learned their language, and by accustoming myself to row with them in their praus or canoes--especially by conforming myself to their customs and manners of living--should have seen how they got their ambergris, and have known what quantities they got, and the time of the year when it most is found. And then afterwards I thought it would be easy for me to have transported myself from thence, either in some ship that passed that way, whether English, Dutch or Portuguese, or else to have gotten one of the young men of the island to have gone with me in one of their canoes to Achin, and there to have furnished myself with such commodities as I found most coveted by them, and therewith, at my return, to have bought their ambergris. "I had, till this time, made no open show of going ashore here; but now, the water being filled and the ship in readiness to sail, I desired Captain Read to set me ashore on this island. He, supposing that I could not go ashore in a place less frequented by ships than this, gave me leave; which possibly he would have refused to have done if he thought I should have gotten from hence in any short time, for fear of my giving an account of him to the English or Dutch. I soon got up my chest and bedding, and immediately got some to row me ashore, for fear lest his mind should change again. "The canoe that brought me ashore landed me on a small sandy bay, where there were two houses, but no person in them. For the inhabitants were removed to some other house, probably for fear of us; because the ship was close by: and yet both men and women came aboard the ship without any sign of fear. When our ship's canoe was going aboard again, they met the owner of the houses coming ashore in his boat. He made a great many signs to them to fetch me off again, but they would not understand him. Then he came to me, and offered his boat to carry me off, but I refused it. Then he made signs to me to go up into the house, and, according as I did understand him by his signs, and a few Malayan words that he used, he intimated that somewhat would come out of the woods in the night, when I was asleep, and kill me, meaning, probably, some wild beast. Then I carried my chest and clothes up into the house.