Crusoe rescuing the Spaniard
Sir John Gilbert, R. A.
1867?
Steel-engraving
7.6 cm high x 5.6 cm, vignetted
Illustration for Daniel Defoe's Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, facing p. 187.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Passage Illustrated
While my man Friday fired at them, I pulled out my knife and cut the flags that bound the poor victim; and loosing his hands and feet, I lifted him up, and asked him in the Portuguese tongue what he was. He answered in Latin, Christianus; but was so weak and faint that he could scarce stand or speak. I took my bottle out of my pocket and gave it him, making signs that he should drink, which he did; and I gave him a piece of bread, which he ate. Then I asked him what countryman he was: and he said, Espagniole; and being a little recovered, let me know, by all the signs he could possibly make, how much he was in my debt for his deliverance. "Seignior," said I, with as much Spanish as I could make up, “we will talk afterwards, but we must fight now: if you have any strength left, take this pistol and sword, and lay about you." He took them very thankfully; and no sooner had he the arms in his hands, but, as if they had put new vigour into him, he flew upon his murderers like a fury, and had cut two of them in pieces in an instant; for the truth is, as the whole was a surprise to them, so the poor creatures were so much frightened with the noise of our pieces that they fell down for mere amazement and fear, and had no more power to attempt their own escape than their flesh had to resist our shot; and that was the case of those five that Friday shot at in the boat; for as three of them fell with the hurt they received, so the other two fell with the fright. [Chapter XVI, "Rescue of the Prisoners from the Cannibals," pp. 235-236]
Related Scenes from Stothard (1790), Cruikshank (1831), and Phiz (1864)
Left: Stothard's 1790 realisation of the consequence of the rescue scene, an illustration of which Phiz was probably aware, Robinson Crusoe and Friday making a tent to lodge Friday's father and the Spaniard (copper-plate engraving, [Chapter XVI). Right: Cruikshank's suspense but static illustration of Crusoe's scouting the cannibals' position, Crusoe and Friday watch the Cannibals from hiding (1831).
Phiz's full-page steel-engraving focussing on the same scene, but with considerably more peripheral action, Robinson Crusoe rescues the Spaniard (1864).
Related Material
Bibliography
De Foe, Daniel. The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Written by Himself. Illustrated by Gilbert, Cruikshank, and Brown. London: Darton and Hodge, 1867?].
Last modified 16 February 2018