less to have let the savages have seen there were any inhabitants
in the place; or to have fallen upon them so effectually as not a
man of them should have escaped, which could only have been by
getting in between them and their boats; but this presence of mind
was wanting to them, which was the ruin of their tranquillity for a
great while.
We need not doubt but that the governor and the man with him,
surprised with this sight, ran back immediately and raised their
fellows, giving them an account of the imminent danger they were
all in, and they again as readily took the alarm; but it was
impossible to persuade them to stay close within where they were,
but they must all run out to see how things stood. While it was
dark, indeed, they were safe, and they had opportunity enough for
some hours to view the savages by the light of three fires they had
made at a distance from one another; what they were doing they knew
not, neither did they know what to do themselves. For, first, the
enemy were too many; and secondly, they did not keep together, but
were divided into several parties, and were on shore in several
places.
The Spaniards were in no small consternation at this sight; and, as
they found that the fellows went straggling all over the shore,
they made no doubt but, first or last, some of them would chop in
upon their habitation, or upon some other place where they would
see the token of inhabitants; and they were in great perplexity
also for fear of their flock of goats, which, if they should be
destroyed, would have been little less than starving them. So the
first thing they resolved upon was to despatch three men away
before it was light, two Spaniards and one Englishman, to drive
away all the goats to the great valley where the cave was, and, if
need were, to drive them into the very cave itself. Could they
have seen the savages all together in one body, and at a distance
from their canoes, they were resolved, if there had been a hundred
of them, to attack them; but that could not be done, for they were
some of them two miles off from the other, and, as it appeared
afterwards, were of two different nations.
After having mused a great while on the course they should take,
they resolved at last, while it was still dark, to send the old
savage, Friday’s father, out as a spy, to learn, if possible,
something concerning them, as what they came for, what they
intended to do, and the like. The old man readily undertook it;
and stripping himself quite naked, as most of the savages were,
away he went. After he had been gone an hour or two, he brings
word that he had been among them undiscovered, that he found they
were two parties, and of two several nations, who had war with one
another, and had a great battle in their own country; and that both
sides having had several prisoners taken in the fight, they were,
by mere chance, landed all on the same island, for the devouring
their prisoners and making merry; but their coming so by chance to
the same place had spoiled all their mirth – that they were in a
great rage at one another, and were so near that he believed they
would fight again as soon as daylight began to appear; but he did
not perceive that they had any notion of anybody being on the
island but themselves. He had hardly made an end of telling his
story, when they could perceive, by the unusual noise they made,
that the two little armies were engaged in a bloody fight.
Friday’s father used all the arguments he could to persuade our
people to lie close, and not be seen; he told them their safety
consisted in it, and that they had nothing to do but lie still, and
the savages would kill one another to their hands, and then the
rest would go away; and it was so to a tittle. But it was