count of our shipwreck, sufferings, and providential
escape to the Island, was now related to him, by Manuel, which he
noticed, by a slight shrug of the shoulders, without changing a
single muscle of his face. He had a savage jeer in his look
during the recital of our misfortunes, that would have robbed
misery of her ordinary claims to compassion, and denied the
unhappy sufferer even a solitary expression of sympathy.

"There was a laughing Devil in his sneer,
That raised emotions both of rage and fear;
And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,
Hope withering fled--and Mercy sighed farewell!"

[BYRON'S CORSAIR.

After he had ascertained who we were, he returned to his own boat
with three of his men, leaving one on board of us as a kind of
prize master. Our master fisherman, who also accompanied him, was
greeted by all on board the armed vessel in a manner that denoted
him to have been an old acquaintance. We could see them passing
to each other a long white jug, which, after they had all drank,
they shook at us, saying in broken English, "Anglois, vill you
have some _Aquedente_?" to which we made no reply. When they had
apparently consulted among themselves about half an hour, they
sent two men, with the jug, on board of us, from which we all
drank sparingly, in order to avoid offence, and they returned to
their own vessel, took in two more men and proceeded to the huts,
which they entered and went around several times, then came down
to our long boat and examined her carefully. After this they came
off to our vessel with the _two canoes_, one of which, went to
the armed boat and brought on board of us, all but the Captain
and two of his men. Our little crew had thus far been the anxious
spectators of these mysterious manoeuvres.

There were circumstances which at one time encouraged the belief
that we were in the hands of friends, and at another, that these
pretended friends were calmly preparing for a "foul and most
unnatural murder." Capt. Hilton was unwilling yet to yield his
confidence in the treacherous Spaniard, who, I did not doubt, had
already received the price of our blood. In this state of painful
suspense, vibrating between hope and fear, we remained, until the
master fisherman threw on the deck a ball of cord, made of tough,
strong bark, about the size of a man's thumb, from which they
cut _seven_ pieces of about nine feet each--went to Capt. Hi