and then Master Wingfield, Captain Gosnold, and Captain
Newport went on shore with a party of thirty, made up of seamen and
gentlemen, and my master, who had not so much as stretched his legs
since we sailed from Martinique, was left in his narrow cabin with none
but me to care for him!

I had thought they would open the box containing the instructions from
London, before doing anything else; but Captain Smith was of the mind
that such business could wait until they had explored sufficiently to
find a place where the new town might be built.

It was a long, weary, anxious day for me. The party had left the ship in
the morning, remaining absent until nightfall, and at least four or five
times every hour did I run up from the cabin to gaze shoreward in the
hope of seeing them return, for I was most eager to have the business
pushed forward, and to know whether my master's enemies were given, by
the London Company, permission to do whatsoever they pleased.

AN ATTACK BY THE SAVAGES

Just after sunset, and before the darkness of night closed in, those
who had been on shore came back very hurriedly and in disorder, bringing
with them in the foremost boat, two wounded men.

"They have had a battle with some one, Master," I reported, before
yet the boats were come alongside, and for the first time that day did
Captain Smith appear to be deeply concerned. I heard him say as if to
himself, not intending that the words should reach me:

"Lack of caution in dealing with the savages is like to cost us dearly."

Half an hour later I heard all the story from Nathaniel Peacock, who had
believed himself fortunate when he was allowed to accompany the party on
shore.

According to his account, the company from the fleet roamed over much
of the land during the day, finding fair meadows and goodly trees, with
streams of fresh water here and there bespeaking fish in abundance.

Nothing was seen or heard to disturb our people until the signal had
been given for all to go on board the boats, that they might return to
the ships, and then it was that a number of naked, brown men, creeping
upon their hands and knees like animals, with bows and arrows held
between their teeth, came out suddenly from amid the foliage to the
number, as Nathaniel declared, of not less than an hundred.

While the white men stood dismayed, awaiting some order from those who
chose to call themselves leaders, the savages shot a multitude of arrows
int