Captured by Pirates and Rescued by Sky — Gulliver's Travels

Ten days after Brobdingnag, Captain William Robinson of the Hopewell visits Redriff. He had always treated Gulliver more like a brother than an inferior officer, and now offers double surgeon's pay, two mates, and command equal to his own on an East Indies voyage. Gulliver's thirst for the world wins again; his wife consents for the children's advantage. They sail 5 August 1706, reach Fort St George in April 1707, and at Tonquin Robinson buys a sloop for island trade and makes Gulliver master with fourteen men. Three days out, pirates board the deep, laden sloop. A Dutchman in authority swears they will be tied back to back and thrown into the sea. Gulliver pleads in Dutch as English Protestant to Protestant ally; the plea inflames his rage. The Japanese captain, speaking imperfect Dutch, says they shall not die. Gulliver tells the Dutchman he finds more mercy in a heathen than in a brother Christian, and soon repents the words: the Dutchman gets him set adrift in a small canoe with paddles, sail, and four days' provisions, which the Japanese captain doubles from his own stores and will not let anyone search away. The Dutchman loads him with curses from the deck. Gulliver makes rocky islands, eats birds' eggs, sleeps under a rock, hops island to island until the fifth day brings a desolate last rock and despair so heavy he can barely leave his cave. Then the sun darkens: a vast flat, bottomed island two miles high descends over the sea, galleries and stairs on its sides, men fishing below. He waves his cap and shouts; they see him, confer, speak in a polished Italian, sounding dialect, and let down a chain with a seat. He fixes himself and is drawn up by pulleys into Laputa. Mercy came from the captain he called heathen; malice from the co, religionist; rescue from an impossibility he could not have planned.