For the last two days Wafer had been in anguish from his burnt knee. As the pirates made ready to leave their bivouac, on the tenth morning of the march, he declared that he could not "trudge it further through Rivers and Woods," with his knee as it was. Two other pirates who were broken with the going, declared that they, also, were too tired out to march. There was no talk, among the rest of the band, about shooting the weary ones, according to the order they had made at starting. Instead of "putting them out of their misery," they "took a very kind Leave," giving the broken men such stores as they could spare, and telling them to keep in good heart, and follow on when they had rested.
One of Wafer's comrades on this occasion was "Mr Richard Jopson, who had served an Apprenticeship to a Druggist in London. He was an ingenious Man, and a good Scholar; he had with him a Greek Testament which he frequently read, and would translate extempore into English, to such of the Company as were dispos'd to hear him." The other weary man was John Hingson, a mariner. They watched their mates march away through the woods, and then turned back, sick at heart, to the shelter of the huts, where the Indians looked at them sulkily, and flung them green plantains, "as you would Bones to a Dog." One of the Indians made a mess of aromatic herbs and dressed Wafer's burn, so that, in three weeks' time, he could walk.
Dampier's party marched on through jungle, wading across rivers, which took them up to the chest, staggering through swamps and bogs, and clambering over rotten tree trunks, and across thorn brakes. They were wet and wretched and half starved, for their general food was macaw berries. Sometimes they killed a monkey, once Dampier killed a turkey, and once they came to a plantain patch where "we fed plentifully on plantains, both ripe and green." Their clothes were rotted into shreds, their boots were fallen to pieces, their feet were blistered and raw, their legs were mere skinless ulcers from the constant soaking. Their faces were swelled and bloody from the bites of mosquitoes and wood-ticks. "Not a Man of us but wisht the Journey at an End." Those who have seen "Bad Lands," or what is called "timber," or what is called "bush," will know what the party looked like, when, on the twenty-second day, they saw the North Sea. The day after that they reached the Rio Conception, and drifted down to the sea in some canoas, to an Indian village, built on the beach "for the benefit of Trade with the Privateers." About nine miles away, the Indians told them, was a French privateer ship, under one Captain Tristian, lying at La Sounds Key. They stayed a night at the village, and then went aboard the French ship, which was careened in a creek, with a brushwood fire on her side, cleaning away her barnacles for a roving cruise. Here they parted with their Indian guides, not without sorrow, for it is not pleasant to say "So Long" to folk with whom one has struggled, and lived, and suffered. "We were resolved to reward them to their hearts' Content," said Dampier, much as a cowboy, at the end of the trail, will give sugar to his horse, as he bids him good-bye. The pirates spent their silver royally, buying red, blue and green beads, and knives, scissors, and looking-glasses, from the French pirates. They bought up the entire stock of the French ship, but even then they felt that they had not rewarded their guides sufficiently. They therefore subscribed a half-dollar piece each, in coin, as a sort of makeweight. With the toys, and the bags of silver, the delighted Indians passed back to the isthmus, where they told golden stories of the kind whites, so that the Indians of the Main could not do enough for Wafer, and for the four pirates left behind on the march.
Dampier's party had marched in all 110 miles, over the most damnable and heart-breaking country which the mind of man can imagine. They had marched "heavy," with their guns and bags of dollars; and this in the rainy season. They had starved and suffered, and shivered and agonised, yet they had lost but two men, poor Gayny, who was drowned, and (apparently) one who had slipped away on the third day of the march. This man may have been the Spanish Indian. A note in Ringrose's narrative alludes to the capture of one of Dampier's party by the Spanish soldiers, and this may have been the man meant.
Two days later, when the Indian guides had gone, and the privateer was fit for the sea, they set sail for "the rendezvous of the fleet," which had been fixed for Springers' Key "another of the Samballoes Isles." Perhaps the English pirates hove up the anchor, the grand privilege of the guests, aboard ship, to the old anchor tune, with its mournful and lovely refrain—
"I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid."
The old band of never-strikes were outward bound on another foray.
As for Wafer, and his two companions, they stayed with the Indians for some days, living on plantains (given very grudgingly), and wondering whether the Indians would kill them. The natives were kindly, as a rule, to the French and English, but it was now the rainy season, when they liked to stay in their huts, about their fires. The pirates "had in a Manner awed the Indian guides they took ... and made them go with them very much against their Wills." The Indians had resented this act of the pirates, and as days went by, and the guides did not return, they judged that the white men had killed them. They prepared "a great Pile of Wood to burn us," says Wafer, meaning to avenge their fellows, whom they "had supposed dead." But a friendly old chief dissuaded them from this act, a few hours before the intended execution.
While the three were living thus, in doubt whether they would be speared, or held as slaves, or sold to the Spaniards, the two pirates, Spratlin and Bowman, who had been left behind at the Rio Congo, arrived at the village. They had had a terrible journey together, "among the wild Woods and Rivers," wandering without guides, and living on roots and plantains. On their way, they had come upon George Gayny "lying dead in a Creek where the Eddy had driven him ashore," "with the Rope twisted about him, and his Money at his Neck." They left the body where it lay, with its sack of silver dollars for which the poor man had come so far, and suffered so bitterly. They had no use for dollars at that time "being only in care how to work their way through a wild un-Known Country."
After a time, the Indians helped the five men a two days' march on their journey, and then deserted them, leaving them to find the path by themselves, with no better guide than a pocket compass. While crossing a river by the bole of a fallen tree, the man Bowman "a weakly Man, a Taylor by Trade," slipped into the current, and was carried off, with "400 Pieces of Eight" in his satchel. He was luckier than poor Gayny, for he contrived to get out. In time they reached the North Sea, and came to La Sounds Key, according to the prophecy of an Indian wizard. Here they found Dampier's sloop, and rejoined their comrades, to the great delight of all hands. "Mr Wafer wore a clout about him, and was painted like an Indian," so that "'twas the better Part of an Hour, before one of the Crew cry'd out Here's our Doctor." There was a great feast that night at La Sounds Key, much drinking of rum and firing of small arms, and a grand ringing of bells in honour of the happy return.