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第9章 功莫大焉

otknow but it was French, or else did not take notice of it at thattime.

　　I made no hesitation, but told him I would do it. I made someceremony in letting him understand that it was wholly on hisaccount; and that, seeing I could not prevail on him, I would showmy respect to him by my concern for his son. He sent the next dayfor his son; and in about twenty days he came back with themessenger, bringing six or seven horses, loaded with very richfurs, which, in the whole, amounted to a very great value. Hisservants brought the horses into the town, but left the young lordat a distance till night, when he came incognito into ourapartment, and his father presented him to me; and, in short, weconcerted the manner of our travelling, and everything proper forthe journey.

　　We landed without any noise, and divided our men into two bodies,whereof the boatswain commanded one and I the other. We neithersaw nor heard anybody stir when we landed: and we marched up, onebody at a distance from another, to the place. At first we couldsee nothing, it being very dark; till by-and-by our boatswain, wholed the first party, stumbled and fell over a dead body. This madethem halt a while; for knowing by the circumstances that they wereat the place where the Indians had stood, they waited for my comingup there. We concluded to halt till the moon began to rise, whichwe knew would be in less than an hour, when we could easily discernthe havoc we had made among them. We told thirty-two bodies uponthe ground, whereof two were not quite dead; some had an arm andsome a leg shot off, and one his head; those that were wounded, wesupposed, they had carried away. When we had made, as I thought, afull discovery of all we could come to the knowledge of, I resolvedon going on board; but the boatswa

　　I immediately found out the supercargo, and told him the story,adding that I foresaw there would be a mutiny in the ship; andentreated him to go immediately on board and acquaint the captainof it. But I might have spared this intelligence, for before I hadspoken to him on shore the matter was effected on board. Theboatswain, the gunner, the carpenter, and all the inferiorofficers, as soon as I was gone off in the boat, came up, anddesired to speak with the captain; and then the boatswain, making along harangue, and repeating all he had said to me, told thecaptain that as I was now gone peaceably on shore, they were loathto use any violence with me, which, if I had not gone on shore,they would otherwise have done, to oblige me to have gone. Theytherefore thought fit to tell him that as they shipped themselvesto serve in the ship under his command, they would perform it welland faithfully; but if I would not quit the ship, or the captainoblige me to quit it, they would all leave the ship, and sail nofurthe

where, ifpossible, they might get a passage to France. My nephew wished toaccept their money at first word, and to consider what to do withthem afterwards; but I overruled him in that part, for I knew whatit was to be set on shore in a strange country; and if thePortuguese captain that took me up at sea had served me so, andtaken all I had for my deliverance, I must have been starved, orhave been as much a slave at the Brazils as I had been at Barbary,the mere being sold to a Mahometan excepted; and perhaps aPortuguese is not a much better master than a Turk, if not in somecases much worse.

　　The next day, giving them a salute of five guns at parting, we setsail, and arrived at the bay of All Saints in the Brazils in abouttwenty-two days, meeting nothing remarkable in our passage butthis: that about three days after we had sailed, being becalmed,and the current setting strong to the ENE., running, as it were,into a bay or gulf on the land side, we were driven something outof our course, and once or twice our men cried out, "Land to theeastward!" but whether it was the continent or islands we could nottell by any means. But the third day, towards evening, the seasmooth, and the weather calm, we saw the sea as it were coveredtowards the land with something very black; not being able todiscover what it was till after some time, our chief mate, going upthe main shrouds a little way, and looking at them with aperspective, cried out it was an army. I could not imagine what hemeant by an army, and thwarted him a little hastily. "Nay, sir,"says he, "don't be angry, for 'tis an army, and a fleet too

ght, when, within thecompass of three hours, I had all the several circumstances overagain, one after another, viz. sick, sleepy, eagerly hungry, painin the stomach, then ravenous again, then sick, then lunatic, thencrying, then ravenous again, and so every quarter of an hour, andmy strength wasted exceedingly; at night I lay me down, having nocomfort but in the hope that I should die before morning.

　　I looked upon their case to have been worse at this time than minewas at any time, after I first discovered the grains of barley andrice, and got into the manner of planting and raising my corn, andmy tame cattle; for now they had, as I may say, a hundred wolvesupon the island, which would devour everything they could come at,yet could be hardly come at themselves.

　　The two Englishmen seeing this, thinking themselves not securewhere they stood, because it was likely some of the wild peoplemight come that way, and they might come too many together, thoughtit proper to make another retreat about half a mile farther;believing, as it afterwards happened, that the further theystrolled, the fewer would be together. Their next halt was at theentrance into a very thick-grown part of the woods, and where anold trunk of a tree stood, which was hollow and very large; and inthis tree they both took their standing, resolving to see therewhat might offer. They had not stood there long before two of thesavages appeared running directly that way, as if they had alreadyhad notice where they stood, and were coming up to attack them; anda little way farther they espied three more coming after them, andfive more beyond them, all coming the same way; besides which, theysaw seven or eight more at a distance, running another way; for ina word, they ran every way, like sportsmen beating for