The Spaniards told them with great kindness, that if they were resolved to go, they should not go like naked men, and be in no condition to defend themselves, and that though they could ill spare their fire-arms, having not enough for themselves, yet they would let them have two muskets, a pistol, and a cutlass, and each man a hatchet, which they thought sufficient for them.

In a word, they accepted the offer, and having baked them bread enough to serve them a month, and given them as much goat’s flesh as they could eat while it was sweet, and a great basket full of dried grapes, a pot full of fresh water, and a young kid alive to kill, they boldly set out in a canoe for a voyage over the sea, where it was at least forty miles broad.

The boat was indeed a large one, and would have very well carried fifteen or twenty men, and therefore was rather too big for them to manage; but as they had a fair breeze and the flood-tide with them, they did well enough; they had made a mast of a long pole, and a sail of four large goat-skins dried, which they had sewed or laced together; and away they went merrily enough; the Spaniards called after them, “Bon veajo;” and no man ever thought of seeing them any more.

The Spaniards would often say to one another, and the two honest Englishmen who remained behind, how quietly and comfortably they lived now those three turbulent fellows were gone; as for their ever coming again, that was the remotest thing from their thoughts could be imagined; when, behold, after twenty-two days absence, one of the Englishmen being abroad upon his planting work, sees three strange men coming towards him at a distance, two of them with guns upon their shoulders.

Away runs the Englishman, as if he was bewitched, and became frighted and amazed, to the governor Spaniard, and tells him they were all undone, for there were strangers landed upon the island, he could not tell who.  The Spaniard pausing a while, says to him, “How do you mean, you cannot tell who?  They are savages to be sure.”—­“No, no,” says the Englishman, “they are men in clothes, with arms.”—­“Nay then,” says the Spaniard, “why are you concerned?  If they are not savages, they must be friends; for there is no Christian nation upon earth but will do us good rather than harm.”

While they were debating thus, came the three Englishmen, and standing without the wood which was new-planted, hallooed to them; they presently knew their voices, and so all the wonder of that kind ceased.  But now the admiration was turned upon another question, viz.  What could be the matter, and what made them come back again?