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第2章 第一位病人

illed by anarrow, which struck him on the side of his head, just under thetemple, so that he never spoke more; and it was very remarkablethat this was the same barbarous fellow that cut the poor savageslave with his hatchet, and who afterwards intended to havemurdered the Spaniards.

　　I had been here eight months, and a dark, dreadful winter I thoughtit; the cold so intense that I could not so much as look abroadwithout being wrapped in furs, and a kind of mask of fur before myface, with only a hole for breath, and two for sight: the littledaylight we had was for three months not above five hours a day,and six at most; only that the snow lying on the groundcontinually, and the weather being clear, it was never quite dark.Our horses were kept, or rather starved, underground; and as forour servants, whom we hired here to look after ourselves andhorses, we had, every now and then, their fingers and toes to thawand take care of, lest they should mortify and fall off.

　　After having mused a great while on the course they should take,they resolved at last, while it was still dark, to send the oldsavage, Friday's father, out as a spy, to learn, if possible,something concerning them, as what they came for, what theyintended to do, and the like. The old man readily undertook it;and stripping himself quite naked, as most of the savages were,away he went. After he had been gone an hour or two, he bringsword that he had been among them undiscovered, that he found theywere two parties, and of two several nations, who had war with oneanother, and had a great battle in their own country; and that bothsides having had several prisoners taken in the fight, they were,by mere chance, landed all on the same island, for the devouringtheir prisoners and making merry; but their coming so by chance tothe same place had spoiled all their mirth - that they were in agreat rage at one another, and were so near that he believed theywould fight again as soon as daylight began to appear; but he d

hand, stepped gravely up to him, and, with one blow of hisfist, knocked him down, as an ox is felled with a pole-axe; atwhich one of the rogues, as insolent as the first, fired his pistolat the Spaniard immediately; he missed his body, indeed, for thebullets went through his hair, but one of them touched the tip ofhis ear, and he bled pretty much. The blood made the Spaniardbelieve he was more hurt than he really was, and that put him intosome heat, for before he acted all in a perfect calm; but nowresolving to go through with his work, he stooped, and taking thefellow's musket whom he had knocked down, was just going to shootthe man who had fired at him, when the rest of the Spaniards, beingin the cave, came out, and calling to him not to shoot, theystepped in, secured the other two, and took their arms from them.

dog, "and so youshall, too, before we have done with you;" mixing two or threeoaths in the proper intervals of his speech. The Spaniard onlysmiled at that, and made him no answer. However, this littlediscourse had heated them; and starting up, one says to the other.(I think it was he they called Will Atkins), "Come, Jack, let's goand have t'other brush with them; we'll demolish their castle, I'llwarrant you; they shall plant no colony in our dominions."

　　They were far from being satisfied with this for an answer: and agreat crowd of them came running down in the morning, by break ofday, to our camp; but seeing us so well posted, they durst come nofarther than the brook in our front, where they stood in suchnumber as to terrify us very much; indeed, some spoke of tenthousand. Here they stood and looked at us a while, and then,setting up a great howl, let fly a crowd of arrows among us; but wewere well enough sheltered under our baggage, and I do not rememberthat one of us was hurt.

　　I would fain have learned what the occasion of all this was; but Icould not understand one word they said; though, by signs, Iperceived some of them knew not what was the occasion themselves.I was so terrified in my thoughts at this outrageous attempt that Icould not stay there, but went back to my own men, and resolved togo into the middle of the town, through the fire, or whatever mightbe in the way, and put an end to it, cost what it would;accordingly, as I came back to my men, I told them my resolution,and commanded them to follow me, when, at the very moment, camefour of our men, with the boatswain at their head, roving overheaps of bodies they had killed, all covered with blood and dust,as if they wanted more people to massacre, when our men hallooed tothem as loud as they could halloo; and with much ado one of themmade them hear, so that they knew who we were, and came up to us.

metimes surrounded withmultitudes, and in great danger from their arrows, till at lastthey found the way to make themselves large targets of wood, whichthey covered with skins of wild beasts, whose names they knew not,and these covered them from the arrows of the savages: that,notwithstanding these, they were sometimes in great danger; andfive of them were once knocked down together with the clubs of thesavages, which was the time when one of them was taken prisoner -that is to say, the Spaniard whom I relieved. At first theythought he had been killed; but when they afterwards heard he wastaken prisoner, they were under the greatest grief imaginable, andwould willingly have all ventured their lives to have rescued him.

　　But I shall not make digression into other men's stories which haveno relation to my own; so I return to what concerns our affair inthe island. He came to me one morning (for he lodged among us allthe while we were upon the island), and it happened to be just whenI was going to visit the Englishmen's colony, at the furthest partof the island; I say, he came to me, and told me, with a very gravecountenance, that he had for two or three days desired anopportunity of some discourse with me, which he hoped would not bedispleasing to me, because he thought it might in some measurecorrespond with my general design, which was the prosperity of mynew colony, and perhaps might put it, at least more than he yetthought it was, in the way of God's blessing.