k the three bad men that they would go to the main
land, from whence the wild men came, and try if they could not seize
some of them, and bring them home as slaves, so as to make them do the
hard part of their work for them. The chief gave them all the arms and
stores that they could want, and a large boat to go in, but when they
bade them "God speed," no one thought that they would find their way
back to the isle. But lo! in three weeks and a day, they did in truth
come back. One of the two good men was the first to catch sight of them,
and tell the news to his friends.

The men said that they had found the land in two days, and that the wild
men gave them roots and fish to eat, and were so kind as to bring down
eight slaves to take back with them, three of whom were men and five
were girls. So they gave their good hosts an axe, an old key, and a
knife, and brought off the slaves in their boat to the isle. As the
chief and his friends did not care to wed the young girls, the five men
who had been the crew of Paul's ship drew lots for choice, so that each
had a wife, and the three men slaves were set to work for the two good
men, though there was not much for them to do.

But one of them ran off to the woods, and they could not hear of him
more. They had good cause to think that he found his way home, as in
three or four weeks some wild men came to the isle, and when they
had had their feast and dance, they went off in two days' time. So my
friends might well fear that if this slave got safe home, he would be
sure to tell the wild men that they were in the isle, and in what part
of it they might be found. And so it came to pass, for in less than two
months, six boats of wild men, with eight or ten men in each boat, came
to the north side of the isle, where they had not been known to come up
to that time.

The foe had brought their boats to land, not more than a mile from the
tent of the two good men, and it was there that the slave who had run
off had been kept. These men had the good luck to see the boats when
they were a long way off, so that it took them quite an hour from that
time to reach the shore.

My friends now had to think how that hour was to be spent. The first
thing they did was to bind the two slaves that were left, and to take
their wives, and as much of their stores as they could, to some dark
place in the woods. They then sent a third slave to the chief and his
men, to tell them the news, and to as