come to the old habitation again: we shall see their different
conduct presently. When the three came back like furious
creatures, flushed with the rage which the work they had been about
had put them into, they came up to the Spaniards, and told them
what they had done, by way of scoff and bravado; and one of them
stepping up to one of the Spaniards, as if they had been a couple
of boys at play, takes hold of his hat as it was upon his head, and
giving it a twirl about, fleering in his face, says to him, “And
you, Seignior Jack Spaniard, shall have the same sauce if you do
not mend your manners.” The Spaniard, who, though a quiet civil
man, was as brave a man as could be, and withal a strong, well-made
man, looked at him for a good while, and then, having no weapon in
his hand, stepped gravely up to him, and, with one blow of his
fist, knocked him down, as an ox is felled with a pole-axe; at
which one of the rogues, as insolent as the first, fired his pistol
at the Spaniard immediately; he missed his body, indeed, for the
bullets went through his hair, but one of them touched the tip of
his ear, and he bled pretty much. The blood made the Spaniard
believe he was more hurt than he really was, and that put him into
some heat, for before he acted all in a perfect calm; but now
resolving to go through with his work, he stooped, and taking the
fellow’s musket whom he had knocked down, was just going to shoot
the man who had fired at him, when the rest of the Spaniards, being
in the cave, came out, and calling to him not to shoot, they
stepped in, secured the other two, and took their arms from them.
When they were thus disarmed, and found they had made all the
Spaniards their enemies, as well as their own countrymen, they
began to cool, and giving the Spaniards better words, would have
their arms again; but the Spaniards, considering the feud that was
between them and the other two Englishmen, and that it would be the
best method they could take to keep them from killing one another,
told them they would do them no harm, and if they would live
peaceably, they would be very willing to assist and associate with
them as they did before; but that they could not think of giving
them their arms again, while they appeared so resolved to do
mischief with them to their own countrymen, and had even threatened
them all to make them their servants.
The rogues were now quite deaf to all reason, and being refused
their arms, they raved away like madmen, threatening what they
would do, though they had no firearms. But the Spaniards,
despising their threatening, told them they should take care how
they offered any injury to their plantation or cattle; for if they
did they would shoot them as they would ravenous beasts, wherever
they found them; and if they fell into their hands alive, they
should certainly be hanged. However, this was far from cooling
them, but away they went, raging and swearing like furies. As soon
as they were gone, the two men came back, in passion and rage
enough also, though of another kind; for having been at their
plantation, and finding it all demolished and destroyed, as above
mentioned, it will easily be supposed they had provocation enough.
They could scarce have room to tell their tale, the Spaniards were
so eager to tell them theirs: and it was strange enough to find
that three men should thus bully nineteen, and receive no
punishment at all.
The Spaniards, indeed, despised them, and especially, having thus
disarmed them, made light of their threatenings; but the two
Englishmen resolved to have their remedy against them, what pains
soever it cost to find them out. But the Spaniards interposed here
too, and told them that as they had disarmed them, they could not
consent that they (the two) should pursue them with firearms, and
perhaps kill them. “But,” said the grave Spaniard, who was their