Their temper and calmness had appeared in their bearing the insufferable usage of the three Englishmen; and their justice and humanity appeared now in the case of the savages as above. After some consultation they resolved upon this, that they would lie still a while longer, till, if possible, these three men might be gone; but then the governor Spaniard recollected that the three savages had no boat; and that if they were left to rove about the island, they would certainly discover that there were inhabitants in it, and so they should be undone that way.
Upon this they went back again, and there lay the fellows fast asleep still; so they resolved to awaken them, and take them prisoners; and they did so. The poor fellows were strangely frighted when they were seized upon and bound, and afraid, like the women, that they should be murdered and eaten; for it seems those people think all the world do as they do, eating mens’ flesh; but they were soon made easy as to that: and away they carried them.
It was very happy for them that they did not carry them home to their castle; I mean to my palace under the hill; but they carried them first to the bower, where was the chief of their country work; such as the keeping the goats, the planting the corn, &c.; and afterwards they carried them to the habitation of the two Englishmen.
Here they were set to work, though it was not much, they had for them to do; and whether it was by negligence in guarding them, or that they thought the fellows could not mend themselves, I know not, but one of them ran away, and taking into the woods, they could never hear of him more.
They had good reason to believe he got home again soon after in some other boats or canoes of savages, who came on shore three or four weeks afterwards, and who, carrying on their revels as usual, went off again in two days time. This thought terrified them exceedingly; for they concluded, and that not without good cause indeed, that if this fellow got safe home among his comrades, he would certainly give them an account that there were people in the island, as also how weak and few they were; for this savage, as I observed before, had never been told, as it was very happy he had not, how many they were, or where they lived, nor had he ever seen or heard the fire of any of their guns, much less had they shewn him any other of their retired places, such as the cave in the valley, or the new retreat which the two Englishmen had made, and the like.
The first testimony they had that this fellow had given intelligence of them was, that about two months after this, six canoes of savages, with about seven or eight, or ten men in a canoe, came rowing along the north side of the island, where they never used to come before, and landed about an hour after sunrise, at a convenient place, about a mile from the habitation of the two Englishmen, where this escaped man had been kept. As the Spaniard governor said, had they been all there the damage would not have been so much, for not a man of them would have escaped: but the case differed now very much; for two men to fifty were too much odds. The two men had the happiness to discover them about a league off, so that it was about an hour before they landed, and as they landed about a mile from their huts, it was some time before they could come at them. Now having great reason to believe that they were betrayed, the first thing they did was to bind the slaves which were left, and cause two of the three men whom they brought with the women, who, it seems, proved very faithful to them, to lead them with their two wives, and whatever they could carry away with them, to their retired place in the woods, which I have spoken of above, and there to bind the two fellows hand and foot till they heard farther.
In the next place, seeing the savages were all come on shore, and that they bent their course directly that way, they opened the fences where their milch-goats were kept, and drove them all out, leaving their goats to straggle into the wood, whither they pleased, that the savages might think they were all bred wild; but the rogue who came with them was too cunning for that, and gave them an account of it all, for they went directly to the place.
When the poor frighted men had secured their wives and goods, they sent the other slave they had of the three, who came with the women, and who was at their place by accident, away to the Spaniards with all speed, to give them the alarm, and desire speedy help; and in the mean time they took their arms, and what ammunition they had, and retreated towards the place in the wood where their wives were sent, keeping at a distance; yet so that they might see, if possible, which way the savages took.
They had not gone far but that, from a rising ground, they could see the little army of their enemies come on directly to their habitation, and in a moment more could see all their huts and household-stuff flaming up together, to their great grief and mortification; for they had a very great loss, and to them irretrievable, at least for some time. They kept their station for a while, till they found the savages, like wild beasts, spread themselves all over the place, rummaging every way, and every place they could think of, in search for prey, and in particular for the people, of whom it plainly appeared they had intelligence.
The two Englishmen, seeing this, thinking themselves not secure where they stood, as it was likely some of the wild people might come that way, so they might come too many together, thought it proper to make another retreat about half a mile farther, believing, as it afterwards happened, that the farther they strolled, the fewer would be together.