OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 827

they stood; they tore all their little collected household stuff in pieces,
and threw every thing about in such a manner that the poor men found,
afterwards, some of their things a mile off from their habitation.

When they had done this, they pulled up all the young trees which
the poor men had planted; pulled up the enclosure they had made to
secure their cattle and their corn; and, in a word, sacked and plundered
every thing, as completely as a herd of Tartars would have done.

The two men were at this juncture gone to find them out, and had
resolved to fight them wherever they had been, though they were but
two to three: so that, had they met, there certainly would have been
bloodshed among them; for they were all very stout, resolute fellows,
to give them their due.

But Providence took more care to keep them asunder than they them-
selves could do to meet: for, as they had dodged one another, when
the three were gone thither, the two were here; and afterwards, when
the two went back to find them, the three were come to the old habitation
again: we shall see their differing conduct presently. When the three
came back like furious creatures, flushed with the rage which the work
they had been about put them into, they came up to the Spaniards, and
told them what they had done, by way of scoff and bravado; and one
of them stepping up to one of the Spaniards, as if they had been a
couple of boys at play, takes hold of his hat, as it was upon his head,
and giving ita twirl about, fleering in his face, says he tohim, “ And you,
Scignior Jack Spaniard, shall have the same sauce, if you do not mend

 

 

your manners.” The Spaniard, who, though quite a civil man, was as
brave as a man could desire to be, and withal a strong well-made man,
looked steadily at him for a good while; and then, having no weapon
in his hand, stepped gravely up to him, and with one blow of his fist
knocked him down, as an ox is felled with a pole-axe; at which one of
the rogues, insolent as the first, fired his pistol at the Spaniard imme-
diately: he missed his body indeed, for the bullets went through his
hair, but one of them touched the tip of his ear, and he bled pretty
much. The blood made the Spaniard believe he was more hurt than
he really was, and that put him into some heat, for before he acted all
in a perfect calm; but now resolving to go through with his work, he
stooped and took the fellow’s musket whom he had knocked down, and
was just going to shoot the man who had fired at him, when the rest of
the Spaniards being in the cave, came out, and calling to him not .to
shoot, they stepped in, secured the other two, and took their arms from
them.

When they were thus disarmed, and found they had made all the
Spanio~ds their enemies, as well as their own countrymen; they began