When the Spaniards came, the two Englishmen were so encouraged,

  that they could not satisfy themselves to stay any longer there;

  but taking five of the Spaniards, and themselves, with four muskets

  and a pistol among them, and two stout quarter-staves, away they

  went in quest of the savages. And first they came to the tree

  where the men lay that had been killed; but it was easy to see that

  some more of the savages had been there, for they had attempted to

  carry their dead men away, and had dragged two of them a good way,

  but had given it over. From thence they advanced to the first

  rising ground, where they had stood and seen their camp destroyed,

  and where they had the mortification still to see some of the

  smoke; but neither could they here see any of the savages. They

  then resolved, though with all possible caution, to go forward

  towards their ruined plantation; but, a little before they came

  thither, coming in sight of the sea-shore, they saw plainly the

  savages all embarked again in their canoes, in order to be gone.

  They seemed sorry at first that there was no way to come at them,

  to give them a parting blow; but, upon the whole, they were very

  well satisfied to be rid of them.

  The poor Englishmen being now twice ruined, and all their

  improvements destroyed, the rest all agreed to come and help them

  to rebuild, and assist them with needful supplies. Their three

  countrymen, who were not yet noted for having the least inclination

  to do any good, yet as soon as they heard of it (for they, living

  remote eastward, knew nothing of the matter till all was over),

  came and offered their help and assistance, and did, very friendly,

  work for several days to restore their habitation and make

  necessaries for them. And thus in a little time they were set upon

  their legs again.

  About two days after this they had the farther satisfaction of

  seeing three of the savages' canoes come driving on shore, and, at

  some distance from them, two drowned men, by which they had reason

  to believe that they had met with a storm at sea, which had overset

  some of them; for it had blown very hard the night after they went

  off. However, as some might miscarry, so, on the other hand,

  enough of them escaped to inform the rest, as well of what they had

  done as of what had happened to them; and to whet them on to

  another enterprise of the same nature, which they, it seems,

  resolved to attempt, with sufficient force to carry all before

  them; for except what the first man had told them of inhabitants,

  they could say little of it of their own knowledge, for they never

  saw one man; and the fellow being killed that had affirmed it, they

  had no other witness to confirm it to, them.

  CHAPTER V--A GREAT VICTORY

  It was five or six months after this before they heard any more of

  the savages, in which time our men were in hopes they had either

  forgot their former bad luck, or given over hopes of better; when,

  on a sudden, they were invaded with a most formidable fleet of no

  less than eight-and-twenty canoes, full of savages, armed with bows

  and arrows, great clubs, wooden swords, and such like engines of

  war; and they brought such numbers with them, that, in short, it

  put all our people into the utmost consternation.

  As they came on shore in the evening, and at the easternmost side

  of the island, our men had that night to consult and consider what

  to do. In the first place, knowing that their being entirely

  concealed was their only safety before and would be much more so

  now, while the number of their enemies would be so great, they

  resolved, first of all, to take down the huts which were built for

  the two Englishmen, and drive away their goats to the old cave;

  because they supposed the savages would go directly thither, as

  soon as it was day, to play the old game over again, though they

  did not now land within two leagues of it. In the next place, they

  drove away all the flocks of goats they had at the old bower, as I

  called it, which belonged to the Spaniards; and, in short, left as

  little appearance of inhabitants anywhere as was possible; and the

  next morning early they posted themselves, with all their force, at

  the plantation of the two men, to wait for their coming. As they

  guessed, so it happened: these new invaders, leaving their canoes

  at the east end of the island, came ranging along the shore,

  directly towards the place, to the number of two hundred and fifty,

  as near as our men could judge. Our army was but small indeed;

  but, that which was worse, they had not arms for all their number.

  The whole account, it seems, stood thus: first, as to men,

  seventeen Spaniards, five Englishmen, old Friday, the three slaves

  taken with the women, who proved very faithful, and three other

  slaves, who lived with the Spaniards. To arm these, they had

  eleven muskets, five pistols, three fowling-pieces, five muskets or

  fowling-pieces which were taken by me from the mutinous seamen whom

  I reduced, two swords, and three old halberds.

  To their slaves they did not give either musket or fusee; but they

  had each a halberd, or a long staff, like a quarter-staff, with a

  great spike of iron fastened into each end of it, and by his side a

  hatchet; also every one of our men had a hatchet. Two of the women

  could not be prevailed upon but they would come into the fight, and

  they had bows and arrows, which the Spaniards had taken from the

  savages when the first action happened, which I have spoken of,

  where the Indians fought with one another; and the women had

  hatchets too.

  The chief Spaniard, whom I described so often, commanded the whole;

  and Will Atkins, who, though a dreadful fellow for wickedness, was

  a most daring, bold fellow, commanded under him. The savages came

  forward like lions; and our men, which was the worst of their fate,

  had no advantage in their situation; only that Will Atkins, who now

  proved a most useful fellow, with six men, was planted just behind

  a small thicket of bushes as an advanced guard, with orders to let

  the first of them pass by and then fire into the middle of them,

  and as soon as he had fired, to make his retreat as nimbly as he

  could round a part of the wood, and so come in behind the

  Spaniards, where they stood, having a thicket of trees before them.

  When the savages came on, they ran straggling about every way in

  heaps, out of all manner of order, and Will Atkins let about fifty

  of them pass by him; then seeing the rest come in a very thick

  throng, he orders three of his men to fire, having loaded their

  muskets with six or seven bullets apiece, about as big as large

  pistol-bullets. How many they killed or wounded they knew not, but

  the consternation and surprise was inexpressible among the savages;

  they were frightened to the last degree to hear such a dreadful

  noise, and see their men killed, and others hurt, but see nobody

  that did it; when, in the middle of their fright, Will Atkins and

 
his other three let fly again among the thickest of them; and in

  less than a minute the first three, being loaded again, gave them a

  third volley.

  Had Will Atkins and his men retired immediately, as soon as they

  had fired, as they were ordered to do, or had the rest of the body

  been at hand to have poured in their shot continually, the savages

  had been effectually routed; for the terror that was among them

  came principally from this, that they were killed by the gods with

  thunder and lightning, and could see nobody that hurt them. But

  Will Atkins, staying to load again, discovered the cheat: some of

  the savages who were at a distance spying them, came upon them

  behind; and though Atkins and his men fired at them also, two or

  three times, and killed above twenty, retiring as fast as they

  could, yet they wounded Atkins himself, and killed one of his

  fellow-Englishmen with their arrows, as they did afterwards one

  Spaniard, 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 of

  the armed staves and a hatchet.

  Our men being thus hard laid at, Atkins wounded, and two other men

  killed, retreated to a rising ground in the wood; and the

  Spaniards, after firing three volleys upon them, retreated also;

  for their number was so great, and they were so desperate, that

  though above fifty of them were killed, and more than as many

  wounded, yet they came on in the teeth of our men, fearless of

  danger, and shot their arrows like a cloud; and it was observed

  that their wounded men, who were not quite disabled, were made

  outrageous by their wounds, and fought like madmen.

  When our men retreated, they left the Spaniard and the Englishman

  that were killed behind them: and the savages, when they came up

  to them, killed them over again in a wretched manner, breaking

  their arms, legs, and heads, with their clubs and wooden swords,

  like true savages; but finding our men were gone, they did not seem

  inclined to pursue them, but drew themselves up in a ring, which

  is, it seems, their custom, and shouted twice, in token of their

  victory; after which, they had the mortification to see several of

  their wounded men fall, dying with the mere loss of blood.

  The Spaniard governor having drawn his little body up together upon

  a rising ground, Atkins, though he was wounded, would have had them

  march and charge again all together at once: but the Spaniard

  replied, "Seignior Atkins, you see how their wounded men fight; let

  them alone till morning; all the wounded men will be stiff and sore

  with their wounds, and faint with the loss of blood; and so we

  shall have the fewer to engage." This advice was good: but Will

  Atkins replied merrily, "That is true, seignior, and so shall I

  too; and that is the reason I would go on while I am warm." "Well,

  Seignior Atkins," says the Spaniard, "you have behaved gallantly,

  and done your part; we will fight for you if you cannot come on;

  but I think it best to stay till morning:" so they waited.

  But as it was a clear moonlight night, and they found the savages

  in great disorder about their dead and wounded men, and a great

  noise and hurry among them where they lay, they afterwards resolved

  to fall upon them in the night, especially if they could come to

  give them but one volley before they were discovered, which they

  had a fair opportunity to do; for one of the Englishmen in whose

  quarter it was where the fight began, led them round between the

  woods and the seaside westward, and then turning short south, they

  came so near where the thickest of them lay, that before they were

  seen or heard eight of them fired in among them, and did dreadful

  execution upon them; in half a minute more eight others fired after

  them, pouring in their small shot in such a quantity that abundance

  were killed and wounded; and all this while they were not able to

  see who hurt them, or which way to fly.

  The Spaniards charged again with the utmost expedition, and then

  divided themselves into three bodies, and resolved to fall in among

  them all together. They had in each body eight persons, that is to

  say, twenty-two men and the two women, who, by the way, fought

  desperately. They divided the firearms equally in each party, as

  well as the halberds and staves. They would have had the women

  kept back, but they said they were resolved to die with their

  husbands. Having thus formed their little army, they marched out

  from among the trees, and came up to the teeth of the enemy,

  shouting and hallooing as loud as they could; the savages stood all

  together, but were in the utmost confusion, hearing the noise of

  our men shouting from three quarters together. They would have

  fought if they had seen us; for as soon as we came near enough to

  be seen, some arrows were shot, and poor old Friday was wounded,

  though not dangerously. But our men gave them no time, but running

  up to them, fired among them three ways, and then fell in with the

  butt-ends of their muskets, their swords, armed staves, and

  hatchets, and laid about them so well that, in a word, they set up

  a dismal screaming and howling, flying to save their lives which

  way soever they could.

  Our men were tired with the execution, and killed or mortally

  wounded in the two fights about one hundred and eighty of them; the

  rest, being frightened out of their wits, scoured through the woods

  and over the hills, with all the speed that fear and nimble feet

  could help them to; and as we did not trouble ourselves much to

  pursue them, they got all together to the seaside, where they

  landed, and where their canoes lay. But their disaster was not at

  an end yet; for it blew a terrible storm of wind that evening from

  the sea, so that it was impossible for them to go off; nay, the

  storm continuing all night, when the tide came up their canoes were

  most of them driven by the surge of the sea so high upon the shore

  that it required infinite toil to get them off; and some of them

  were even dashed to pieces against the beach. Our men, though glad

  of their victory, yet got little rest that night; but having

  refreshed themselves as well as they could, they resolved to march

  to that part of the island where the savages were fled, and see

  what posture they were in. This necessarily led them over the

  place where the fight had been, and where they found several of the

  poor creatures not quite dead, and yet past recovering life; a

  sight disagreeable enough to generous minds, for a truly great man

  though obliged by the law of battle to destroy his enemy, takes no

  delight in his misery. However, there was no need to give any

  orders in this case; for their own savages, who were their

  servants, despatched these poor creatures with their hatchets.

  At length they came in view of the place where the more miserable

  remains of the savages' army lay, where there appeared about a

&
nbsp; hundred still; their posture was generally sitting upon the ground,

  with their knees up towards their mouth, and the head put between

  the two hands, leaning down upon the knees. When our men came

  within two musket-shots of them, the Spaniard governor ordered two

  muskets to be fired without ball, to alarm them; this he did, that

  by their countenance he might know what to expect, whether they

  were still in heart to fight, or were so heartily beaten as to be

  discouraged, and so he might manage accordingly. This stratagem

  took: for as soon as the savages heard the first gun, and saw the

  flash of the second, they started up upon their feet in the

  greatest consternation imaginable; and as our men advanced swiftly

  towards them, they all ran screaming and yelling away, with a kind

  of howling noise, which our men did not understand, and had never

  heard before; and thus they ran up the hills into the country.

  At first our men had much rather the weather had been calm, and

  they had all gone away to sea: but they did not then consider that

  this might probably have been the occasion of their coming again in

  such multitudes as not to be resisted, or, at least, to come so

  many and so often as would quite desolate the island, and starve

  them. Will Atkins, therefore, who notwithstanding his wound kept

  always with them, proved the best counsellor in this case: his

  advice was, to take the advantage that offered, and step in between

  them and their boats, and so deprive them of the capacity of ever

  returning any more to plague the island. They consulted long about

  this; and some were against it for fear of making the wretches fly

  to the woods and live there desperate, and so they should have them

  to hunt like wild beasts, be afraid to stir out about their

  business, and have their plantations continually rifled, all their

  tame goats destroyed, and, in short, be reduced to a life of

  continual distress.

  Will Atkins told them they had better have to do with a hundred men

  than with a hundred nations; that, as they must destroy their

  boats, so they must destroy the men, or be all of them destroyed

  themselves. In a word, he showed them the necessity of it so

  plainly that they all came into it; so they went to work

  immediately with the boats, and getting some dry wood together from

  a dead tree, they tried to set some of them on fire, but they were

  so wet that they would not burn; however, the fire so burned the

  upper part that it soon made them unfit for use at sea.

  When the Indians saw what they were about, some of them came

  running out of the woods, and coming as near as they could to our

  men, kneeled down and cried, "Oa, Oa, Waramokoa," and some other

  words of their language, which none of the others understood

  anything of; but as they made pitiful gestures and strange noises,

  it was easy to understand they begged to have their boats spared,

  and that they would be gone, and never come there again. But our

  men were now satisfied that they had no way to preserve themselves,

  or to save their colony, but effectually to prevent any of these

  people from ever going home again; depending upon this, that if

  even so much as one of them got back into their country to tell the

  story, the colony was undone; so that, letting them know that they

  should not have any mercy, they fell to work with their canoes, and

  destroyed every one that the storm had not destroyed before; at the

  sight of which, the savages raised a hideous cry in the woods,

  which our people heard plain enough, after which they ran about the

  island like distracted men, so that, in a word, our men did not

  really know what at first to do with them. Nor did the Spaniards,

  with all their prudence, consider that while they made those people

  thus desperate, they ought to have kept a good guard at the same

  time upon their plantations; for though it is true they had driven

  away their cattle, and the Indians did not find out their main

  retreat, I mean my old castle at the hill, nor the cave in the