COUNTING THE DEAD, 528

how the game stood on the Indians’ side. I was careful to do it
in the dark, lest we should be attacked again; but I ought indeed
to have been sure that the men I went with had been under my
command before I engaged in a thing so hazardous and mis-
chievous as I was brought into by it without my knowledge or
design.

We took twenty stout fellows with us as any in the ship, besides
the supercargo and myself, and we landed two hours before mid-
night, at the same place where the Indians stood drawn up the
evening before. I landed here because my design, as I have said,
was chiefly to see if they had quitted the field, and if they had
left any marks behind them of the mischief we had done them.
And I thought if we could surprise one or two of them, perhaps
we might get our man again by way of exchange.

We landed without any noise, and divided our men into two
bodies, whereof the boatswain commanded one and I the other.
We neither saw nor heard anybody stir when we landed, and we
marched up one body at a distance from the other to the place ;
but at first could see nothing, it being very dark, till, by-and-by,
our boatswain, that led the first party, stumbled, and fell over a
dead body. This made them halt a while, for knowing by the
circumstance that they were at the place where the Indians had
stood, they waited for my coming up. Here we concluded to halt
till the moon began to rise, which we knew would be in less than
an hour, when we could easily discern the havoc we had made
among them. We told two and thirty bodies upon the ground,
whereof two were not quite dead. Some had an arm, and some a
leg shot off, and one his head; those that were wounded, we sup-
posed, they had carried away.

When we had made, as I thought, a full discovery of all we
could come at the knowledge of, I was resolved for going on board ;
but the boatswain and his party sent me word that they were re-
solved to make a visit to the Indian town, where these dogs, as
they called them, dwelt, and asked me to go along with them;
and if they could find them, as still they fancied they should, they
did not doubt getting a good booty, and it might be they might
find Thomas Jeffery there: that was the man’s name we had lost.