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wall or fence, like one that felt not the ground, or the steps he set his feet on; and before I had time to speak to him, he cries out to me, O master! O master! O sorrow! O bad!"- "What's the matter, Friday?" says I. "O yonder, there," says he, "one, two, three, canoe; one, two, three!" By this way of speaking, I concluded there were six; but, on inquiry, I found it was but three."6 Well, Friday," says I, "do not be frightened." So I heartened him up as well as I could: however, I saw the poor fellow was most terribly scared; for nothing ran in his head but that they were come to look for him, and would cut him in pieces, and eat him; and the poor fellow trembled so, that I scarce knew what to do with him. I comforted him as well as I could, and told him I was in as much danger as he, and that they would eat me as well as him. 66 But," says I, Friday, we must resolve to fight them. Can you fight, Friday?"-"Me shoot," says he; "but there come many great number."—" No matter for that," said I, again; our guns will fright them that we do not kill." So I asked him whether, if I resolved to defend him, he would defend me, and stand by me, and do just as I bid him. He said, "Me die, when you bid die, Master." So I went and fetched a good dram of rum and gave him; for I had been so good a husband of my rum that I had a great deal left. When he drank it, I made him take the two fowling-pieces, which we always carried, and loaded them with large swan-shot, as big as small pistol-bullets: then I took four muskets, and loaded them with two slugs, and five small bullets each; and my two pistols I loaded with a brace of bullets each: I hung my great sword, as usual, naked by my side, and gave Friday his hatchet. When I had thus prepared myself, I took my perspective-glass, and went up to the side of the hill, to see what I could discover; and I found quickly, by my glass, that there were one-andtwenty savages, three prisoners, and three canoes;

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and that their whole business seemed to be the triumphant banquet on these three human bodies; a barbarous feast indeed! but nothing more than, as I had observed, was usual with them. I observed also that they were landed, not where they had done when Friday made his escape, but nearer to my creek: where the shore was low, and where a thick wood came almost close down to the sea. This, with the abhorrence of the inhuman errand these wretches came about, filled me with such indignation, that I came down again to Friday, and told him I was resolved to go down to them, and kill them all; and asked him if he would stand by me. He had now got over his fright, and his spirits being a little raised with the dram I had given him, he was very cheerful, and told me, as before, he would die when I bid die.

In this fit of fury, I took and divided the arms which I had charged, as before, between us: I gave Friday one pistol to stick in his girdle, and three guns on his shoulder; and I took one pistol and the other three guns myself; and in this posture we marched out. I took a small bottle of rum in my pocket, and gave Friday a large bag with more powder and bullets; and, as to orders, I charged him to keep close behind me, and not to stir, or shoot, or do any thing, till I bid him; and, in the mean time, not to speak a word. In this posture, I fetched a compass to my right hand of near a mile, as well to get over the creek as to get into the wood, so that I might come within shot of them before I should be discovered, which I had seen by my glass it was easy to do.

While I was making this march, my former thoughts returning, I began to abate my resolution : I do not mean that I entertained any fear of their number; for, as they were naked, unarmed wretches, it is certain I was superior to them; nay, though I had been alone. But it occurred to my thoughts, what call, what occasion, much less what necessity I

was in, to go and dip my hands in blood, to attack people who had neither done nor intended me any wrong; who, as to me, were innocent, and whose barbarous customs were their own disaster; being, in them, a token indeed of God's having left them, with the other nations of that part of the world, to such stupidity, and to such inhuman courses; but did not call me to take on me to be a judge of their actions, much less an executioner of his justice; that, whenever he thought fit, he would take the cause into his own hands, and by national vengeance punish them, as a people, for national crimes; but that, in the mean time, it was none of my business; that, it was true, Friday might justify it, because he was a declared enemy, and in a state of war with those very particular people, and it was lawful for him to attack them ; but I could not say the same with respect to myself. These things were so warmly pressed on my thoughts all the way as I went, that I resolved I would only go and place myself near them, that I might observe their barbarous feast, and that I would act then as God should direct; but that, unless something offered that was more a call to me than yet I knew of, I would not meddle with them.

With this resolution I entered the wood; and, with all possible wariness and silence, Friday following close at my heels, I marched till I came to the skirt of the wood, on the side which was next to them, only that one corner of the wood lay between me and them. Here I called softly to Friday, and showing him a great tree, which was just at the corner of the wood, I bade him go to the tree, and bring me word if he could see there plainly what they were doing. He did so; and came immediately back to me, and told me they might be plainly viewed there; that they were all about their fire, eating the flesh of one of their prisoners, and that another lay bound on the sand, a little from them, which, he said, they

would kill next, and which fired the very soul within me. He told me it was not one of their nation, but one of the bearded men he had told me of, that came to their country in the boat. I was filled with horror at the very naming the white-bearded man; and, going to the tree, I saw plainly, by my glass, a white man, who lay on the beach of the sea, with his hands and his feet tied with flags, or things like rushes, and that he was an European, and had clothes on.

There was another tree, and a little thicket beyond it, about fifty yards nearer to them than the place where I was, which, by going a little way about, I saw I might come at undiscovered, and that then I should be within half a shot of them: so I withheld my passion, though I was indeed enraged to the highest degree; and going back about twenty paces, I got behind some bushes, which held all the way till I came to the other tree; and then came to a little rising ground, which gave me a full view of them, at the distance of about eighty yards.

I had now not a moment to lose, for nineteen of the dreadful wretches sat on the ground, all close huddled together, and had just sent the other two to butcher the poor Christian, and bring him, perhaps, limb by limb to their fire; and they were stooping down to untie the bands at his feet. I turned to Friday" Now, Friday," said I, " do as I bid thee." Friday said he would. "Then, Friday," says I, "do exactly as you see me do; fail in nothing." So I set down one of the muskets and the fowling-piece on the ground, and Friday did the like by his; and with the other musket I took my aim at the savages, bidding him to do the like: then asking him if he was ready, he said, "Yes." "Then fire at them," said I; and the same moment I fired also.

Friday took his aim so much better than I, that on the side that he shot, he killed two of them, and wounded three more; and on my side, I killed one,