to face them, they went off again; and we resolved not to stir for
that night.

We slept little, but spent the most part of the night in strengthening
our situation, and barricading the entrances into the wood, and keeping a
strict watch. We waited for daylight, and when it came, it gave us a
very unwelcome discovery indeed; for the enemy, who we thought were
discouraged with the reception they met with, were now greatly increased,
and had set up eleven or twelve huts or tents, as if they were resolved
to besiege us; and this little camp they had pitched upon the open plain,
about three-quarters of a mile from us. I confess I now gave myself over
for lost, and all that I had; the loss of my effects did not lie so near
me, though very considerable, as the thoughts of falling into the hands
of such barbarians at the latter end of my journey, after so many
difficulties and hazards as I had gone through, and even in sight of our
port, where we expected safety and deliverance. As to my partner, he was
raging, and declared that to lose his goods would be his ruin, and that
he would rather die than be starved, and he was for fighting to the last
drop.

The young lord, a most gallant youth, was for fighting to the last also;
and my old pilot was of opinion that we were able to resist them all in
the situation we were then in. Thus we spent the day in debates of what
we should do; but towards evening we found that the number of our enemies
still increased, and we did not know but by the morning they might still
be a greater number: so I began to inquire of those people we had brought
from Tobolski if there were no private ways by which we might avoid them
in the night, and perhaps retreat to some town, or get help to guard us
over the desert. The young lord's Siberian servant told us, if we
designed to avoid them, and not fight, he would engage to carry us off in
the night, to a way that went north, towards the river Petruz, by which
he made no question but we might get away, and the Tartars never discover
it; but, he said, his lord had told him he would not retreat, but would
rather choose to fight. I told him he mistook his lord: for that he was
too wise a man to love fighting for the sake of it; that I knew he was
brave enough by what he had showed already; but that he knew better than
to desire seventeen or eighteen men to fight five hundred, unless an
unavoidable necessity forced them to it; and that if he thought it