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第2章 威逼诱拐

ons I did not think fit to let them know anything of the sloopI had framed, and which I thought of setting up among them; for Ifound, at least at my first coming, such seeds of division amongthem, that I saw plainly, had I set up the sloop, and left it amongthem, they would, upon every light disgust, have separated, andgone away from one another; or perhaps have turned pirates, and somade the island a den of thieves, instead of a plantation of soberand religious people, as I intended it; nor did I leave the twopieces of brass cannon that I had on board, or the extra twoquarter-deck guns that my nephew had provided, for the same reason.I thought it was enough to qualify them for a defensive war againstany that should invade them, but not to set them up for anoffensive war, or to go abroad to attack others; which, in the end,would only bring ruin and destruction upon them. I reserved thesloop, therefore, and the guns, for their service another way, as Ishall observe in its place.

　　Had Will Atkins and his men retired immediately, as soon as theyhad fired, as they were ordered to do, or had the rest of the bodybeen at hand to have poured in their shot continually, the savageshad been effectually routed; for the terror that was among themcame principally from this, that they were killed by the gods withthunder and lightning, and could see nobody that hurt them. ButWill Atkins, staying to load again, discovered the cheat: some ofthe savages who were at a distance spying them, came upon thembehind; and though Atkins and his men fired at them also, two orthree times, and killed above twenty, retiring as fast as theycould, yet they wounded Atkins himself, and killed one of hisfellow-Englishmen with their arrows, as they did afterwards oneSpaniard, and one of the Indian slaves who came with the women.This slave was a most gallant fellow, and fought most desperately,killing five of them with his own hand, having no weapon but one ofthe armed staves and a hatchet.

　　I can neither tell how many we killed nor how many we wounded atthis broadside, but sure such a fright and hurry never were seenamong such a multitude; there were thirteen or fourteen of theircanoes split and overset in all, and the men all set a-swimming:the rest, frightened out of their wits, scoured away as fast asthey could, taking but little care to save those whose boats weresplit or spoiled with our shot; so I suppose that many of them werelost; and our men took up one poor fellow swimming for his life,above an hour after they were all gone. The small shot from ourcannon must needs kill and wound a great many; but, in short, wenever knew how it went with them, for they fled so fast, that inthree hours or thereabouts we could not see above three or fourstraggling canoes, nor did we ever see the rest any more; for abreeze of wind springing up the same evening, we weighed and setsail for the Brazils.

　　I paused a while at his words, and looking steadily at him, "Whatdevil," said I, "sent you on this unlucky errand?" My nephewstared as if he had been frightened at first; but perceiving that Iwas not much displeased at the proposal, he recovered himself. "Ihope it may not be an unlucky proposal, sir," says he. "I daresayyou would be pleased to see your new colony there, where you oncereigned with more felicity than most of your brother monarchs inthe world." In a word, the scheme hit so exactly with my temper,that is to say, the prepossession I was under, and of which I havesaid so much, that I told him, in a few words, if he agreed withthe merchants, I would go with him; but I told him I would notpromise to go any further than my own island. "Why, sir," says he,"you don't want to be left there again, I hope?" "But," said I,"can you not take me up again on your return?" He told me it wouldnot be possible to do so; that the merchants would never allow himto come that way with a laden ship of such valu

　　He was a very generous, open-hearted man, although he began, likeme, with little at first. Though he knew not that I had the leastdesign of giving him anything, he sent me on board a present offresh provisions, wine, and sweetmeats, worth about thirtymoidores, including some tobacco, and three or four fine medals ofgold: but I was even with him in my present, which, as I havesaid, consisted of fine broadcloth, English stuffs, lace, and fineholland; also, I delivered him about the value of one hundredpounds sterling in the same goods, for other uses; and I obligedhim to set up the sloop, which I had brought with me from England,as I have said, for the use of my colony, in order to send therefreshments I intended to my plantation.

allthe space between your poles and theirs is allowed like a marketfor free converse, traffic, and commerce. When you go there youmust not carry your weapons with you; and if they come into thatspace they stick up their javelins and lances all at the firstpoles, and come on unarmed; but if any violence is offered them,and the truce thereby broken, away they run to the poles, and layhold of their weapons, and the truce is at an end.

　　Immediately we halted, and though it was at a great distance, wefired, and sent them leaden bullets for wooden arrows, followingour shot full gallop, to fall in among them sword in hand - for soour bold Scot that led us directed. He was, indeed, but amerchant, but he behaved with such vigour and bravery on thisoccasion, and yet with such cool courage too, that I never saw anyman in action fitter for command. As soon as we came up to them wefired our pistols in their faces and then drew; but they fled inthe greatest confusion imaginable. The only stand any of them madewas on our right, where three of them stood, and, by signs, calledthe rest to come back to them, having a kind of scimitar in theirhands, and their bows hanging to their backs. Our brave commander,without asking anybody to follow him, gallops up close to them, andwith his fusee knocks one of them off his horse, killed the secondwith his pistol, and the third ran away. Thus ended our fight; butwe had this misfortune attending it, that all o

　　In five days more we came to Veussima, upon the river Witzogda, andrunning into the Dwina: we were there, very happily, near the endof our travels by land, that river being navigable, in seven days'passage, to Archangel. From hence we came to Lawremskoy, the 3rdof July; and providing ourselves with two luggage boats, and abarge for our own convenience, we embarked the 7th, and arrived allsafe at Archangel the 18th; having been a year, five months, andthree days on the journey, including our stay of about eight monthsat Tobolski.

　　But I now come to a scene different from all that had happenedbefore, either to them or to me; and the origin of the story wasthis: Early one morning there came on shore five or six canoes ofIndians or savages, call them which you please, and there is noroom to doubt they came upon the old errand of feeding upon theirslaves; but that part was now so familiar to the Spaniards, and toour men too, that they did not concern themselves about it, as Idid: but having been made sensible, by their experience, thattheir only business was to lie concealed, and that if they were notseen by any of the savages they would go off again quietly, whentheir business was done, having as yet not the least notion ofthere being any inhabitants in the island; I say, having been madesensible of this, they had nothing to do but to give notice to allthe three plantations to keep within doors, and not showthemselves, only placing a scout in a proper place, to give noticewhen the boats went to sea again.