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第6章 聂安归来

ribution;and thus I ought to submit to this, just as I would to a shipwreck,if it had pleased God to have brought such a disaster upon me.

ather Simon did notcome up to his character by a great deal; for though this friar hadno appearance of a criminal levity in him, yet he had not that fundof Christian zeal, strict piety, and sincere affection to religionthat my other good ecclesiastic had.

　　He heard me very attentively, and looked earnestly on me all thewhile I spoke; nay, I could see in his very face that what I saidput his spirits into an exceeding ferment; his colour frequentlychanged, his eyes looked red, and his heart fluttered, till itmight be even perceived in his countenance; nor could heimmediately answer me when I had done, and, as it were, hesitatedwhat he would say to it; but after he had paused a little, heembraced me, and said, "How unhappy are we, unguarded creatures aswe are, that even our greatest acts of friendship are made snaresunto us, and we are made tempters of one another!" He thenheartily thanked me for my offers of service, but withstoodresolutely the arguments I used to urge him to set himself free.He declared, in earnest terms, that he was fully bent on remainingwhere he was rather than seek to return to his former miserablegreatness, as he called it: where the seeds of pride, ambition,avarice, and luxury might revive, take root, and again overwhelmhim. "Let me r

ese stakesalso being of a wood very forward to grow, they took care to havethem generally much larger and taller than those which I hadplanted. As they grew apace, they planted them so very thick andclose together, that when they had been three or four years grownthere was no piercing with the eye any considerable way into theplantation. As for that part which I had planted, the trees weregrown as thick as a man's thigh, and among them they had placed somany other short ones, and so thick, that it stood like a palisadoa quarter of a mile thick, and it was next to impossible topenetrate it, for a little dog could hardly get between the trees,they stood so close.

ys he, "do not talk ofbeing upon your guard; the best defence is to be out of danger. Ifyou have any regard for your life and the lives of all your men,put to sea without fail at high-water; and as you have a whole tidebefore you, you will be gone too far out before they can come down;for they will come away at high-water, and as they have twentymiles to come, you will get near two hours of them by thedifference of the tide, not reckoning the length of the way:besides, as they are only boats, and not ships, they will notventure to follow you far out to sea, especially if it blows." -"Well," said I, "you have been very kind in this: what shall I doto make you amends?" - "Sir," says he, "you may not be willing tomake me any amends, because you may not be convinced of the truthof it. I will make an offer to you: I have nineteen months' paydue to me on board the ship -, which I came out of England in; andthe Dutchman that is with me has seven months' pay due to him. Ifyou will make good our pay to us we will

　　Accordingly, he got hands, and finished the sloop in a very fewdays, for she was already framed; and I gave the master of her suchinstructions that he could not miss the place; nor did he, as I hadan account from my partner afterwards. I got him soon loaded withthe small cargo I sent them; and one of our seamen, that had beenon shore with me there, offered to go with the sloop and settlethere, upon my letter to the governor Spaniard to allot him asufficient quantity of land for a plantation, and on my giving himsome clothes and tools for his planting work, which he said heunderstood, having been an old planter at Maryland, and a buccaneerinto the bargain. I encouraged the fellow by granting all hedesired; and, as an addition, I gave him the savage whom we hadtaken prisoner of war to be his slave, and ordered the governorSpaniard to give him his share of everything he wanted with therest.

　　W.A. - That's true, indeed; but I have been a wicked wretch, andhave not only forgotten to acquaint thee with anything before, buthave lived without God in the world myself.

　　But before I come to the particulars of this part, I must supply adefect in my former relation; and this was, I forgot to set downamong the rest, that just as we were weighing the anchor to setsail, there happened a little quarrel on board of our ship, which Iwas once afraid would have turned to a second mutiny; nor was itappeased till the captain, rousing up his courage, and taking usall to his assistance, parted them by force, and making two of themost refractory fellows prisoners, he laid them in irons: and asthey had been active in the former disorders, and let fall someugly, dangerous words the second time, he threatened to carry themin irons to England, and have them hanged there for mutiny andrunning away with the ship. This, it seems, though the captain didnot intend to do it, frightened some other men in the ship; andsome of them had put it into the head of the rest that the captainonly gave them good words for the present, till they should come tosame English port, and that then they should be a

　　After we had passed this desert we came into a country pretty wellinhabited - that is to say, we found towns and castles, settled bythe Czar with garrisons of stationary soldiers, to protect thecaravans and defend the country against the Tartars, who wouldotherwise make it very dangerous travelling; and his czarishmajesty has given such strict orders for the well guarding thecaravans, that, if there are any Tartars heard of in the country,detachments of the garrison are always sent to see the travellerssafe from station to station. Thus the governor of Adinskoy, whomI had an opportunity to make a visit to, by means of the Scotsmerchant, who was acquainted with him, offered us a guard of fiftymen, if we thought there was any danger, to the next station.