id they did not know; but it seems they wandered about the
country part of the night; and then lying down in the place which I
used to call my bower, they were weary, and overslept themselves. The
case was this: they had resolved to stay till midnight, and so to take
the poor men when they were asleep; and they acknowledged it afterwards,
intending to set fire to their huts while they were in them, and either
burn them in them, or murder them as they came out: and, as malice
seldom sleeps very sound, it was very strange they should not have been
kept waking.

However, as the two men had also a design upon them, as I have said,
though a much fairer one than that of burning and murdering, it
happened, and very luckily for them all, that they were up, and gone
abroad, before the bloody-minded rogues came to their huts.

When they came thither, and found the men gone, Atkins, who it seems was
the forwardest man, called out to his comrades, "Ha! Jack, here's the
nest; but d--n them, the birds are flown." They mused awhile to think
what should be the occasion of their being gone abroad so soon, and
suggested presently, that the Spaniards had given them notice of it; and
with that they shook hands, and swore to one another, that they would be
revenged of the Spaniards. As soon as they had made this bloody bargain,
they fell to work with the poor men's habitation; they did not set fire
indeed to any thing, but they pulled down both their houses, and pulled
them so limb from limb, that they left not the least stick standing, or
scarce any sign on the ground where they stood; they tore all their
little collected household-stuff in pieces, and threw every thing about
in such a manner, that the poor men found, afterwards, some of their
things a mile off from their habitation.

When they had done this, they pulled up all the young trees which the
poor men had planted; pulled up the enclosure they had made to secure
their cattle and their corn; and, in a word, sacked and plundered every
thing, as completely as a herd of Tartars would have done.

The two men were at this juncture gone to find them out, and had
resolved to fight them wherever they had been, though they were but two
to three; so that, had they met, there certainly would have been
bloodshed among them; for they were all very stout, resolute fellows, to
give them their due.

But Providence took more care to keep them asunder, than they themselves
could do to meet; fo