“Now, do ye see, to lose your way with a full stomach is not altogether pleasant, but to lose it on an empty one, and not to know where a dinner is to be found, is worse any day than to get three dozen. That’s got quickly over, and you know the worst. We had no baccy neither, and the air up there sharpened our teeth till we were ready to bite our tongues out.
“‘Well, mate,’ says I to Abraham Coxe, ‘I wish that I were safe aboard again. I don’t by no manner of means like these short commons.’
“‘Wait a bit till we have been knocking about for two or three days more, and then cry out, my bo’,’ says he, for he was a regular Job’s comforter, that he was.
“Well, evening was coming on, and as we couldn’t find our way out of the mountains, nor get any food either, we thought that we might as well look out for a warm berth to sleep in at night. At last we saw a small hole in a rock, which looked like the mouth of a cave.
“‘There will be a comfortable bed-place inside that place, mate,’ says I, as I poked my head into the hole, while Abraham stood outside. It was almost dark inside, but still there was light enough to make out that, there was a good big place further in. I was going along on my hands and knees, when what should I see but several animals like biggish pigs crawling about. I was wondering what they were, when I heard Abraham Coxe sing out.
“‘Quick, Jerry, quick, get out of the cave, for there is a great big bear coming along the valley, and she’s close aboard of us!’
“It was all very well for Coxe to say, get out of the cave; but that was more than I could do in a hurry without turning round, when I might have had all the young bears attacking my rump, saving your presence, ladies. Coxe also didn’t stop to help me, but scampered off as hard as his legs could carry him. I was going to make the best of my way after him, when I saw a big white bear not three fathoms off, evidently steering for the very place itself.
“There was no use trying to get out, for to a certainty the brute would have grappled me in a moment; so I drew back, thinking to remain concealed. Just then I remembered the beasts I had seen inside, and I guessed that they were the bear’s cubs, and that I had taken possession of her abode. It was not a pleasant idea, certainly, but there was no help for it. In another minute the great big she-bear came snuffing up to the hole where I lay. I thought that it was all up with me, and expected every moment to be made into a supper for the bear and her cubs. The little beasts were all the time licking my heels just to have a taste, I thought, of what was to come. The bear began to growl, I fancied because she found me inside; but I believe it was just her way of talking to her cubs. Thinks I to myself, I’ll have a fight for it; so I doubled my fists, intending to give her a good lick on the eye before she ate me, when, just as I thought that she was going to make a grab at me, she slewed round and began to back into the cave stern foremost.
“‘Ho! ho!’ says I to myself, ‘if you goes to make a stern-board, old gal, I’ll rake you before you shows your broadside to me again;’ so on that I whips out my long knife, which I had tucked away in my belt, with a lanyard round my neck, and drove it with all my force right into her. The more she backed, and the louder she growled, the harder and faster I drove in the knife. Still she came backing and backing, and I didn’t like the prospect at all. I thought to myself, ‘If she drives me up against the end of the cave, she’ll squeeze all the breath out of my body, to a certainty.’
“At last, however, when she got to the narrowest part of the hole, she sank down from loss of blood. I thought she would perhaps begin to move on again, but she didn’t. After she had given a few growls, which grew fainter and fainter, I made sure she was dead.