The fellow was in such a rage at the honest man’s thrusting him
away, that he returned upon him, with a pole he had in his hand,
and had not the man avoided the blow very nimbly, and run into the
hut, he had ended his days at once. His comrade, seeing the danger
they were both in, ran after him, and immediately they came both
out with their muskets, and the man that was first struck at with
the pole knocked the fellow down that began the quarrel with the
stock of his musket, and that before the other two could come to
help him; and then, seeing the rest come at them, they stood
together, and presenting the other ends of their pieces to them,
bade them stand off.
The others had firearms with them too; but one of the two honest
men, bolder than his comrade, and made desperate by his danger,
told them if they offered to move hand or foot they were dead men,
and boldly commanded them to lay down their arms. They did not,
indeed, lay down their arms, but seeing him so resolute, it brought
them to a parley, and they consented to take their wounded man with
them and be gone: and, indeed, it seems the fellow was wounded
sufficiently with the blow. However, they were much in the wrong,
since they had the advantage, that they did not disarm them
effectually, as they might have done, and have gone immediately to
the Spaniards, and given them an account how the rogues had treated
them; for the three villains studied nothing but revenge, and every
day gave them some intimation that they did so.
CHAPTER III – FIGHT WITH CANNIBALS
BUT not to crowd this part with an account of the lesser part of
the rogueries with which they plagued them continually, night and
day, it forced the two men to such a desperation that they resolved
to fight them all three, the first time they had a fair
opportunity. In order to do this they resolved to go to the castle
(as they called my old dwelling), where the three rogues and the
Spaniards all lived together at that time, intending to have a fair
battle, and the Spaniards should stand by to see fair play: so
they got up in the morning before day, and came to the place, and
called the Englishmen by their names telling a Spaniard that
answered that they wanted to speak with them.
It happened that the day before two of the Spaniards, having been
in the woods, had seen one of the two Englishmen, whom, for
distinction, I called the honest men, and he had made a sad
complaint to the Spaniards of the barbarous usage they had met with
from their three countrymen, and how they had ruined their
plantation, and destroyed their corn, that they had laboured so
hard to bring forward, and killed the milch-goat and their three
kids, which was all they had provided for their sustenance, and
that if he and his friends, meaning the Spaniards, did not assist
them again, they should be starved. When the Spaniards came home
at night, and they were all at supper, one of them took the freedom
to reprove the three Englishmen, though in very gentle and mannerly
terms, and asked them how they could be so cruel, they being
harmless, inoffensive fellows: that they were putting themselves
in a way to subsist by their labour, and that it had cost them a
great deal of pains to bring things to such perfection as they were
then in.
One of the Englishmen returned very briskly, “What had they to do
there? that they came on shore without leave; and that they should
not plant or build upon the island; it was none of their ground.”
“Why,” says the Spaniard, very calmly, “Seignior Inglese, they must
not starve.” The Englishman replied, like a rough tarpaulin, “They
might starve; they should not plant nor build in that place.” “But
what must they do then, seignior?” said the Spaniard. Another of
the brutes returned, “Do? they should be servants, and work for
them.” “But how can you expect that of them?” says the Spaniard;