TWO AGAINST THREE, 403

 

“ THEY PULLED UP AN ENCLOSURE THEY HAD MADE,”

plundered everything as completely as a hoard 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 tovk more care to keep them asunder than they
themselves could do to mect; for, as if they had dogged 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 different
conduct presently. When the three came back, like furious
creatures, flushed with the rage which the work they had been
about had 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