I asked them, what put them upon all these fortifications?  He told me, I would say there was need enough of it, when they had given an account how they had passed their time since their arriving in the island, especially after they had the misfortune to find that I was gone:  he told me he could not but have some satisfaction in my good fortune, when he heard that I was gone in a good ship, and to my satisfaction; and that he had oftentimes a strong persuasion that one time or other he should see me again:  but nothing that ever befel him in his life, he said, was so surprising and afflicting to him at first, as the disappointment he was under when he came back to the island, and found I was not there.

As to the three barbarians (so he called them) that were left behind, and of whom he said he had a long story to tell me; the Spaniards all thought themselves much better among the savages, only that their number was so small.  “And,” says he, “had they been strong enough, we had been all long ago in purgatory and with that he crossed himself upon the breast.  But, Sir,” says he, “I hope you will not be displeased, when I shall tell you how, forced by necessity, we were obliged, for our own preservation, to disarm them, and making them our subjects, who would not be content with being moderately our masters, but would be our murderers.”  I answered, I was heartily afraid of it when I left them there; and nothing troubled me at my parting from the island, but that they were not come back, that I might have put them in possession of every thing first, and left the other in a state of subjection, as they deserved; but if they had reduced them to it, I was very glad, and should be very far from finding any fault with it; for I knew they were a parcel of refractory, ungovernable villains, and were fit for any manner of mischief.

While I was saying this came the man whom he had sent back, and with him eleven men more:  in the dress they were in, it was impossible to guess what nation they were of; but he made all clear both to them and to me.  First he turned to me, and pointing to them, said, “These, Sir, are some of the gentlemen who owe their lives to you;” and then turning to them, and pointing to me, he let them know who I was; upon which they all came up one by one, not as if they had been sailors, and ordinary fellows, and I the like, but really as if they had been ambassadors or noblemen, and I a monarch or a great conqueror:  their behaviour was to the last degree obliging and courteous, and yet mixed with a manly majestic gravity, which very well became them; and, in short, they had so much more manners than I, that I scarce knew how to receive their civilities, much less how to return them in kind.

The history of their coming to, and conduct in the island after my going away, is so remarkable, and has so many incidents, which the former part of my relation will help to understand, and which will, in most of the particulars, refer to that account I have already given, that I cannot but commit them with great delight to the reading of those that come after me.