ck of his musket, and that before the
other two could come to help him; and then seeing the rest come at them,
they stood together, and presenting the other ends of their pieces to
them, bade them stand off.

The others had fire-arms with them too; but one of the two honest men,
bolder than his comrade, and made desperate by his danger, told them if
they offered to move hand or foot they were all dead men, and boldly
commanded them to lay down their arms. They did not indeed lay down
their arms; but seeing him resolute, it brought them to a parley, and
they consented to take their wounded man with them, and be gone; and,
indeed, it seems the fellow was wounded sufficiently with the blow:
however, they were much in the wrong, since they had the advantage, that
they did not disarm them effectually, as they might have done, and have
gone immediately to the Spaniards, and given them an account how the
rogues treated them; for the three villains studied nothing but
revenge, and every day gave them some intimation that they did so.

But not to crowd this part with an account of the lesser part of their
rogueries, such as treading down their corn, shooting three young kids
and a she-goat, which the poor men had got to breed up tame for their
store; and in a word, plaguing them night and day in this manner, it
forced the two men to such a desperation, that they resolved to fight
them all three the first time they had a fair opportunity. In order to
this they resolved to go to the castle, as they called it, that was my
old dwelling, where the three rogues and the Spaniards all lived
together at that time, intending to have a fair battle, and the
Spaniards should stand by to see fair play. So they got up in the
morning before day, and came to the place, and called the Englishmen by
their names, telling a Spaniard that answered, that they wanted to speak
with them.

It happened that the day before two of the Spaniards, having been in the
woods, had seen one of the two Englishmen, whom, for distinction, I call
the honest men; and he had made a sad complaint to the Spaniards, of the
barbarous usage they had met with from their three countrymen, and how
they had ruined their plantation, and destroyed their corn, that they
had laboured so hard to bring forward, and killed the milch-goat, and
their three kids, which was all they had provided for their sustenance;
and that if he and his friends, meaning the Spaniards, did not assist