and afterward they carried
them to the habitation of the two Englishmen. Here they were set to
work, though it was not much they had for them to do; and whether it was
by negligence in guarding them, or that they thought the fellows could
not mend themselves, I know not, but one of them ran away, and, taking to
the woods, they could never hear of him any more. They had good reason
to believe he got home again soon after in some other boats or canoes of
savages who came on shore three or four weeks afterwards, and who,
carrying on their revels as usual, went off in two days' time. This
thought terrified them exceedingly; for they concluded, and that not
without good cause indeed, that if this fellow came home safe among his
comrades, he would certainly give them an account that there were people
in the island, and also how few and weak they were; for this savage, as
observed before, had never been told, and it was very happy he had not,
how many there were or where they lived; nor had he ever seen or heard
the fire of any of their guns, much less had they shown him any of their
other retired places; such as the cave in the valley, or the new retreat
which the two Englishmen had made, and the like.

The first testimony they had that this fellow had given intelligence of
them was, that about two mouths after this six canoes of savages, with
about seven, eight, or ten men in a canoe, came rowing along the north
side of the island, where they never used to come before, and landed,
about an hour after sunrise, at a convenient place, about a mile from the
habitation of the two Englishmen, where this escaped man had been kept.
As the chief Spaniard said, had they been all there the damage would not
have been so much, for not a man of them would have escaped; but the case
differed now very much, for two men to fifty was too much odds. The two
men had the happiness to discover them about a league off, so that it was
above an hour before they landed; and as they landed a mile from their
huts, it was some time before they could come at them. Now, having great
reason to believe that they were betrayed, the first thing they did was
to bind the two slaves which were left, and cause two of the three men
whom they brought with the women (who, it seems, proved very faithful to
them) to lead them, with their two wives, and whatever they could carry
away with them, to their retired places in the woods, which I have spoken
of above, an