For two long years I lived the life of a slave. I worked in the house and the garden, and every day I planned to escape, but it was never possible. I thought
about it day and night. My master liked to go fishing in a little boat, and he
always took me with him. A man called Moely, and a young boy also went with us.
One day my master said to us, 'Some of my friends want to go fishing tomorrow. Get the
boat ready.' So we put a lot of food and drink on the boat and the next morning we waited for my
master and his friends. But when the master arrived, he was alone.
'My friends don't want to go fishing today,' he said to me. 'But you go with Moely
and the boy, and catch some fish for our supper tonight.'
'Yes master,' I answered quietly, but inside I was excited. 'Perhaps now I can
escape,' I said to myself. My
master went back to these friends and we took the boat out to the sea. For a
time we fished quietly, and then I moved carefully behind Moely and knocked him
into the water. 'Swim' I cried. 'Swim to the shore!'
My master liked to shoot seabirds and so there were guns on the boat. Quickly, I
took one of these guns. Moely was swimming after the boat and I shouted to him:
'Go back to the shore! You can swim there - it's not toot far. I won't hurt you, but if
you come near the boat, I'll shoot you through the head!' So Moely turned, and
swam back to the shore as quickly as he could.
Then I said to the boy: 'Xury, if you help me, I'll be a good friend to you. If you
don't help me, I'll push you into the sea too.'
But Xury was happy to help me. 'I'll go all over the world with you,' he cried.
I wanted to sail to the Canary Islands, but I was afraid to go too far from the shore. It
was only a small boat. And so we sailed on south for some days. We had very
little water, and it was dangerous country here, with many wild animals. We were
afraid, but we often had to go on shore to get more water. Once I used a gun to
shoot a wild animal. I don't know what animal it was, but it made a good meal.
