"Children's Books - Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Children's Books)

glasses, and that it was some European boat, which, as they
supposed, must belong to some ship that was lost, so they shortened
sail to let me come up. I was encouraged with this; and as I had my
patron's ancient on board, I made a waft of it to them for a signal of
distress, and fired a gun both of which they say; for they told me
they saw the smoke, though they did not hear the gun. Upon these
signals they very kindly brought to, and lay by for me; and in about
three hours' time I came up with them.
They asked me what I was, in Portuguese, and in Spanish, and in
French, but I understood none of them; but at last a Scots sailor, who
was on board, called to me, and I answered him, and told him I was
an Englishman, that I had made my escape out of slavery from the
Moors, at Sallee. Then they bade me come on board, and very kindly
took me in, and all my goods.
It was an inexpressible joy to me, that any one will believe, that I
was thus delivered, as I esteemed it, from such a miserable, and
almost hopeless, condition as I was in; and I immediately offered
all I had to the captain of the ship, as a return for my
deliverance. But he generously told me he would take nothing from
me, but that all I had should be delivered safe to me when I came to
the Brazils. "For," says he, "I have saved your life on no other terms
than I would be glad to be saved myself; and it may, one time or
other, be my lot to be taken up in the same condition. Besides,"
says he, "when I carry you to the Brazils, so great a way from your
own country, if I should take from you what you have, you will be
starved there, and then I only take away that life I have given. No,
no, Seignior Inglese," says he, "Mr. Englishman, I will carry you
thither in charity, and those things will help you to buy your
subsistence there, and your passage home again."
As he was charitable in his proposal, so he was just in the
performance to a tittle; for he ordered the seamen that none should
offer to touch anything I had; then he took everything into his own
possession, and gave me back an exact inventory of them, that I
might have them, even so much as my three earthen jars.
As to my boat, it was a very good one, and that he saw, and told
me he would buy it of me for the ship's use, and asked me what I would
have for it? I told him he had been so generous to me in everything,
that I could not offer to make any price of the boat, but left it
entirely to him; upon which he told me he would give me a note of
his hand to pay me eighty pieces of eight for it at Brazil, and when
it came there, if any one offered to give more, he would make it up.
He offered me also sixty pieces of eight for my boy Xury, which I
was loth to take; not that I was not willing to let the captain have
him, but I was very loth to sell the poor boy's liberty, who had
assisted me so faithfully in procuring my own. However, when I let him
know my reason, he owned it to be just, and offered me this medium,
that he would give the boy an obligation to set him free in ten
years if he turned Christian. Upon this, and Xury saying he was
willing to go to him, I let the captain have him.
We had a very good voyage to the Brazils, and arrived in the Bay