; and others repeated the 15
same words several times, but I then knew not what they
meant. I lay all this while, as the reader may believe, in
great uneasiness.

At length, struggling to get loose, I had the fortune to
break the strings and wrench out the pegs that fastened 20
my left arm to the ground; for, by lifting it up to my face,
I discovered the methods they had taken to bind me; and,
at the same time, with a violent pull which gave me
excessive pain, I a little loosened the strings that tied down
my hair on the left side, so that I was just able to turn my 25
head about two inches; but the creatures ran off a second
time, before I could seize them, whereupon there was a
great shout in a very shrill accent, and after it ceased I
heard one of them cry aloud, "_Tolgo phonac_," when in an
instant I felt above a hundred arrows discharged on my 30
left hand, which pricked me like so many needles; and,
besides, they shot another flight into the air, as we do bombs
in Europe, whereof many, I suppose, fell on my body
(though I felt them not) and some on my face, which I
immediately covered with my left hand. When this shower
was over, I fell a groaning with grief and pain; and then
striving again to get loose, they discharged another volley 5
larger than the first, and some of them attempted with
spears to stick me in the sides; but, by good luck, I had
on me a buff jerkin, which they could not pierce.

I thought it the most prudent method to lie still, and
my design was to continue so till night, when my left hand 10
being already loose I could easily free myself. And as for
the inhabitants, I had reason to believe I might be a match
for the greatest armies they could bring against me, if
they were all of the same size with him that I saw. But
fortune disposed otherwise of me. When the people 15
observed I was quiet, they discharged no more arrows;
but by the noise I heard I knew their numbers increased;
and about four yards from me, over against my right ear,
I heard a knocking for above an hour, like that of people at
work; when, turning my head that way as well as the pegs 20
and strings would permit me, I saw a stage erected about a
foot and a half from the ground, capable of holding four
of the inhabitants, with two or three ladders to mount it,