WHO ARE THE STRANGERS ? 421

spare their firearms, having not enough for themselves, yet they
would let them have two muskets, a pistol, and a cutlass, and each
mana hatchet, which they thought was sufficient for them.

Tn 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 basketful of
dried grapes, a potful 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 Veyajo;” and no man ever
thought of seeing them any more.

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

Away runs the Englishman, as if he was bewitched, comes
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 he to
him, “How do you mean, you cannot tell who? They are the
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, comes the three Englishmen,
and standing without the wood, which was new planted, hallooed