One of the Englishmen returned very briskly, “What had they to do there?  That they came on shore without leave, and that they should not plant or build upon the island; it was none of their ground.”—­“Why,” says the Spaniard, very calmly, “Seignior Inglese, they must not starve.”  The Englishman replied, like a true rough-hewn tarpaulin, “they might starve and be d—­ed, they should not plant nor build in that place.”—­“But what must they do then, Seignior?” says the Spaniard.  Another of the brutes returned, “Do! d—­n them, they should be servants, and work for them.”—­“But how can you expect that of them?  They are not bought with your money; you have no right to make them servants.”  The Englishman answered, “The island was theirs, the governor had given it to them, and no man had any thing to do there but themselves;” and with that swore by his Maker, that he would go and burn all their new huts; they should build none upon their land.

“Why, Seignior,” says the Spaniard, “by the same rule, we must be your servants too.”—­“Ay,” says the bold dog, “and so you shall too, before we have done with you;” mixing two or three G—­d d—­mme’s in the proper intervals of his speech.  The Spaniard only smiled at that, and made him no answer.  However, this little discourse had heated them; and starting up, one says to the other, I think it was he they called Will Atkins, “Come, Jack, let us go and have the other brush with them; we will demolish their castle, I will warrant you; they shall plant no colony in our dominions.”

Upon this they were all trooping away, with every man a gun, a pistol, and a sword, and muttered some insolent things among themselves, of what they would do to the Spaniards too, when opportunity offered; but the Spaniards, it seems, did not so perfectly understand them as to know all the particulars; only that, in general, they threatened them hard for taking the two Englishmen’s part.

Whither they went, or how they bestowed their time that evening, the Spaniards said 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.