“Thank you, Sir,” I replied, saluting him with the double kick which I had given to the former. “Tell your sweetheart I sent her those,” cried I, “that is, when you get back to her.”
“Hark ye, brother,” cries one of our men, “I’ll trouble you for that jacket which you borrowed of me the other day, and in return here are a pair of iron garters (holding out the shackles), which you must wear for my sake—I think they will fit you well.”
“Mounseer,” cries another, “that wig of mine don’t suit your complexion, I’ll trouble you for it. It’s a pity such a face as yours should be disfigured in those curls. And while you are about it, I’ll thank you to strip altogether, as I think your clothes will fit me, and are much too gay for a prisoner.”
“I was left naked through your kindness the other day,” said I to another, who was well and smartly dressed, “I’ll thank you to strip to your skin, or you shall have no skin left.” And I commenced with my knife cutting his ears as if I would skin them.
It was a lucky hit of mine, for in his sash I found about twenty doubloons. He would have saved them, and held them tight, but after my knife had entered his side about half an inch he surrendered the prize. After we had plundered and stripped them of everything, we set to to kick them, and we did it for half an hour so effectually that they were all left groaning in a heap on the ballast, and we then found our way on deck.
The privateer which had recaptured us proved to be the Hero, of New Providence; the Frenchmen were taken out, and some of her own men put in to take us to Port Royal; we, being wounded, and not willing to join her, remained on board. On our arrival at Port Royal, we obtained permission to go to the King’s Hospital to be cured. As I went up-stairs to the ward allotted to me, I met the French lady whose husband had been killed, and who was still nursing her son at the hospital, his wounds not having been yet cured. Notwithstanding my altered appearance, she knew me again immediately, and seeing me pale and emaciated, with my arm in a sling, she dropped down on her knees, and thanked God for returning upon our heads a portion of the miseries we had brought upon her. She was delighted when she heard how many of us had been slain in the murderous conflict, and even rejoiced at the death of poor Captain Weatherall, which, considering how very kind and considerate he had been to her, I thought to be very unchristian.
It so happened that I was not only in the same ward, but in the cradle next to her son; and the excitement I had been under when we were recaptured, and my exertion in kicking the Frenchmen, had done me no good. A fever was the consequence, and I suffered dreadfully, and she would look at me, exulting in my agony, and mocking my groans; till at last the surgeon told her it was by extreme favour that her son had been admitted into the hospital instead of being sent to prison, and that if she did not behave herself in a proper manner he would order her to be denied admittance altogether; and that if she dared to torment suffering men in that way, on the first complaint on my part, her son should go to the gaol and finish his cure there. This brought her to her senses, and she begged pardon, and promised to offend no more; but she did not keep her word for more than a day or two, but laughed out loud when the surgeon was dressing my arm, for a piece of bone had to be taken out, and I shrieked with anguish. This exasperated one of my messmates so much that, not choosing to strike her, and knowing how to wound her still worse, he drove his fist into the head of her son as he lay in his cradle, and by so doing reopened the wound that had been nearly healed.
“There’s pain for you to laugh at, you French devil,” he cried.
And sure enough it cost the poor young man his life.
The surgeon was very angry with the man, but told the French lady, as she kneeled sobbing by the side of her son, that she had brought it upon herself and him by her own folly and cruelty. I know not whether she felt so, or whether she dreaded a repetition, but this is certain, she tormented me no more. On the contrary, I think she suffered very severely, as she perceived that I rapidly mended and that her poor son got on but slowly. At last my hurts were all healed, and I left the hospital, hoping never to see her more.