ount
how they had passed their time since their arriving in the island,
especially after they had the misfortune to find that I was gone: he
told me he could not but have some satisfaction in my good fortune, when
he heard that I was gone in a good ship, and to my satisfaction; and
that he had oftentimes a strong persuasion that one time or other he
should see me again: but nothing that ever befel him in his life, he
said, was so surprising and afflicting to him at first, as the
disappointment he was under when he came back to the island, and found I
was not there.

As to the three barbarians (so he called them) that were left behind,
and of whom he said he had a long story to tell me; the Spaniards all
thought themselves much better among the savages, only that their number
was so small. "And," says he, "had they been strong enough, we had been
all long ago in purgatory and with that he crossed himself upon the
breast. But, Sir," says he, "I hope you will not be displeased, when I
shall tell you how, forced by necessity, we were obliged, for our own
preservation, to disarm them, and making them our subjects, who would
not be content with being moderately our masters, but would be our
murderers." I answered, I was heartily afraid of it when I left them
there; and nothing troubled me at my parting from the island, but that
they were not come back, that I might have put them in possession of
every thing first, and left the other in a state of subjection, as they
deserved; but if they had reduced them to it, I was very glad, and
should be very far from finding any fault with it; for I knew they were
a parcel of refractory, ungovernable villains, and were fit for any
manner of mischief.

While I was saying this came the man whom he had sent back, and with
him eleven men more: in the dress they were in, it was impossible to
guess what nation they were of; but he made all clear both to them and
to me. First he turned to me, and pointing to them, said, "These, Sir,
are some of the gentlemen who owe their lives to you;" and then turning
to them, and pointing to me, he let them know who I was; upon which they
all came up one by one, not as if they had been sailors, and ordinary
fellows, and I the like, but really as if they had been ambassadors or
noblemen, and I a monarch or a great conqueror: their behaviour was to
the last degree obliging and courteous, and yet mixed with a manly
majestic gravity, which very well became the