“The vessel they were chasing yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“We thought you were gone.”
“We thought so ourselves, till the wind came.”
“Men sometimes swim ashore from the fleet. I thought you had swam to the rock. I’ve got an Englishman in my house now who ran away a week ago.”
“Why don’t they take you prisoner?”
“They don’t trouble the fishermen, and when they want fish, they pay for them; but our vessels and the Spaniards take ‘em without thanks or money.”
“What time in the day is it?”
“By the tide, about eleven o’clock.”