The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
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The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
Children's literature
Having done all this I left them the next day and went on board
the ship. We prepared immediately to sail, but did not weigh that
night. The next morning early, two of the five men came swimming
to the ship's side, and, making the most lamentable complaint of
the other three, begged to be taken into the ship for God's sake,
for they should be murdered, and begged the captain to take them
on board, though he hanged them immediately. Upon this the captain
pretended to have no power without me; but after some difficulty,
and after their solemn promises of amendment, they were taken on
board, and were, some time after, soundly whipped and pickled;
after which they proved very honest and quiet fellows.
Some time after this, the boat was ordered on shore, the tide
being up, with the things promised to the men; to which the
captain, at my intercession, caused their chests and clothes to be
added, which they took, and were very thankful for. I also
encouraged them, by telling them that if it lay in my power to
send any vessel to take them in, I would not forget them.
When I took leave of this island, I carried on board, for relics,
the great goat-skin cap I had made, my umbrella, and one of my
parrots; also, I forgot not to take the money I formerly
mentioned, which had lain by me so long useless that it was
grown rusty or tarnished, and could hardly pass for silver till it
had been a little rubbed and handled, as also the money I found in
the wreck of the Spanish ship. And thus I left the island, the
19th of December, as I found by the ship's account, in the year
1686, after I had been upon it eight-and-twenty years, two months,
and nineteen days; being delivered from this second captivity the
same day of the month that I first made my escape in the long-boat
from among the Moors of Sallee. In this vessel, after a long
voyage, I arrived in England the 11th of June, in the year 1687,
having been thirty-five years absent.
GULLIVER'S TRAVELS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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