ey were met by a number of soldiers,
with three or four officers, who surrounded them fiercely as though they
were a most formidable enemy instead of the four poor helpless creatures
left of the fifteen men that had set out from Wager's Island.

Though they had had much better food since they had been with the kindly
Indians, they were so weak that they could hardly walk up the hill to
the shed in which they were to be lodged.

Numbers of people came to look at them in this place, as though they
were wild beasts or curiosities; and when they heard they had been
starved for more than a year, they brought quantities of chicken and all
kinds of good things for them to eat.

John Byron then began to feel more comfortable. He was always ready to
make a meal, and used to carry food in his pockets so that he need not
wait a second for it if he felt hungry. Even the captain owned that he
ate so much that he felt quite ashamed of himself.

In a little time an old Jesuit priest came to see them. He did not come
because he was sorry for them, but because he had heard from the Indian
Cacique that they had things of great value about them. The priest began
by producing a bottle of brandy, and gave them all some to open their
hearts.

Captain Cheap told him he had nothing, not remembering that Martini had
seen his gold repeater watch; but at the same time he said that Mr.
Campbell had a silver watch, which he at once ordered him to make a
present of to the priest.

Soon after the Spanish governor sent for them to be brought to Chaco,
where they were very well treated by the people. Whilst here John Byron
was asked to marry the niece of a very rich old priest.

The lady made the suggestion through her uncle, saying that first she
wished him to be converted, and then he might marry her.

When the old priest made the offer, he took John Byron into a room where
there were several large chests full of clothes. Taking from one of them
a large piece of linen, he told him it should be made up into shirts for
him at once if he would marry the lady.

The thought of new shirts was a great temptation to John Byron, as he
had only the one in which he had lived ever since he had been wrecked.

However, he denied himself this luxury, and excused himself for not
being able to accept the honour of the lady's hand.

On _this_ occasion he managed to speak Spanish sufficiently well to make
himself understood.

In January 1742 they were sen