Ormus. Whereupon, that we
might procure a pilot from them, we manned our skiff sufficiently to
bring them by force to our ship, if entreaties were unavailing, yet
without meaning to offer them the smallest injury, or even to send them
away dissatisfied.

When our skiff came up with them, instead of answering the hails of our
men, they waved our skiff to leeward with a drawn sword; on which,
thinking to fear them, and make them lower their sail, our men fired a
random shot towards them, which they answered by firing another directly
at our skiff, followed by half a hundred arrows, to which our men
answered by plying all their muskets. But our skiff was unable to hold
way with them, as they were under sail, and had therefore to return to
the ship, with one man very dangerously wounded by an arrow in the
breast, who afterwards recovered. As we in the ship saw the skiff
returning without them, we hoisted out our long-boat, and sent her after
the two _teradas_, we following with the ship as near the shore as we
could with safety; for it was now of much importance that we should
speak with them, on purpose to avoid their spreading scandalous reports
of us in the country, which might have frustrated our chief hopes of
landing the ambassador at _Guadal_, being the place we most depended
upon, and being destitute of any other place for the purpose, should
this fail, considering the unwelcome intelligence we had got concerning
Guzerat at the Cape.

Our long boat, having fetched up with the _teradas_, drove them into a
bay whence they could not escape; on which the native mariners sailed so
far into the bay, that one of the teradas was cast away on the beach,
and the other had nearly shared the same fate, but was saved by our men
just without the surf. Most of the _balloches_ leapt overboard, and
several of them narrowly escaped drowning; while nine of them were
brought by our men to our ship along with the _terada_, part of whom
they had taken out of the water. There were originally twenty-six
balloches in the two teradas, but all the rest escaped ashore by
swimming through the surf. When these men came aboard our ship, they
were found to belong to Guadal; and when told that we were sorry for the
loss of their other bark, as we meant them no harm, but only wished to
speak with them, that we might learn the navigation to their port, they
were glad to learn we had no evil intentions, thinking we had been as
merciless as themselve