“The Master called to me, who came out of my cabbin as well as I could, to the hatch way to speake with him:  where, on my knees, I besought them, for the love of God, to remember themselves, and to doe as they would be done unto.  They bade me keepe myselfe well, and get me into my cabbin; not suffering the Master to speake with me.  But when I came into my cabbin againe, hee called to me at the horne which gave light into my cabbin, and told me that Juet would overthrow us all; nay (said I) it is that villaine Henrie Greene, and I spake it not softly.  Now was the Carpenter at libertie, who asked them if they would bee hanged when they came home:  and, as for himselfe, hee said, hee would not stay in the ship unless they would force him.  They bade him goe then, for they would not stay him....

“Now were all the poore men in the shallop, whose names are as followeth:  Henrie Hudson, John Hudson, Arnold Lodlo, Sidrack Faner, Philip Staffe, Thomas Woodhouse or Wydhouse, Adam Moore, Henrie [sic] King, Michael Bute.  The Carpenter got of them a peece, and powder, and shot, and some pikes, an iron pot, with some meale, and other things.  They stood out of the ice, the shallop being fast to the sterne of the shippe, and so (when they were nigh out, for I cannot say they were cleane out) they cut her head fast from the sterne of our ship, then out with their top sayles, and toward the east they stood in a cleere sea.

“In the end they took in their top sayles, righted their helme, and lay under their fore sayle till they had ransacked and searched all places in the ship.  In the hold they found one of the vessels of meale whole, and the other halfe spent, for wee had but two; wee found also two firkins of batter, some twentie seven pieces of porke, halfe a bushell of pease; but in the Masters cabbin we found two hundred of bisket cakes, a pecke of meale, of beere to the quantitie of a butt, one with another.  Now it was said that the shallop was come within sight, they let fall the main sayle, and out with their top sayles, and fly as from an enemy.  Then I prayed them yet to remember themselves; but William Wilson (more than the rest) would heare of no such matter.  Comming nigh the east shore they cast about, and stood to the west and came to an iland and anchored....  Heere we lay that night, and the best part of the next day, in all which time we saw not the shallop, or ever after.”

That is the story of Hudson’s murder as we get it from his murderers; and even from Prickett’s biased narrative so complete a case is made out against the mutineers that there is comfort in knowing that some of them, and the worst of them, came quickly to their just reward.

XIII

A month later, July 28, a halt was made in the mouth of Hudson’s Strait to search for “fowle” for food on the homeward voyage.  There “savages” were encountered, seemingly of so friendly a nature that on the day following the first meeting with them a boat’s crew—­of which Prickett was one—­went ashore unarmed.  Then came a sudden attack.  Prickett himself was set upon in the boat—­of which, “being lame,” he had been left keeper—­by a savage whom he managed to kill.  What happened to the others he thus tells: