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Page 19
"Yup, So-Jeer," says he, "Christian George King sar berry glad So-
Jeer a prisoner. Christian George King been waiting for So-Jeer
sech long time. Yup, yup!"
What could I do, with five-and-twenty of them on me, but be tied
hand and foot? So, I was tied hand and foot. It was all over now--
boats not come back--all lost! When I was fast bound and was put up
against the wall, the one-eyed English convict came up with the
Portuguese Captain, to have a look at me.
"See!" says he. "Here's the determined man! If you had slept
sounder, last night, you'd have slept your soundest last night, my
determined man."
The Portuguese Captain laughed in a cool way, and with the flat of
his cutlass, hit me crosswise, as if I was the bough of a tree that
he played with: first on the face, and then across the chest and
the wounded arm. I looked him steady in the face without tumbling
while he looked at me, I am happy to say; but, when they went away,
I fell, and lay there.
The sun was up, when I was roused and told to come down to the beach
and be embarked. I was full of aches and pains, and could not at
first remember; but, I remembered quite soon enough. The killed
were lying about all over the place, and the Pirates were burying
their dead, and taking away their wounded on hastily-made litters,
to the back of the Island. As for us prisoners, some of their boats
had come round to the usual harbour, to carry us off. We looked a
wretched few, I thought, when I got down there; still, it was
another sign that we had fought well, and made the enemy suffer.
The Portuguese Captain had all the women already embarked in the
boat he himself commanded, which was just putting off when I got
down. Miss Maryon sat on one side of him, and gave me a moment's
look, as full of quiet courage, and pity, and confidence, as if it
had been an hour long. On the other side of him was poor little
Mrs. Fisher, weeping for her child and her mother. I was shoved
into the same boat with Drooce and Packer, and the remainder of our
party of marines: of whom we had lost two privates, besides
Charker, my poor, brave comrade. We all made a melancholy passage,
under the hot sun over to the mainland. There, we landed in a
solitary place, and were mustered on the sea sand. Mr. and Mrs.
Macey and their children were amongst us, Mr. and Mrs. Pordage, Mr.
Kitten, Mr. Fisher, and Mrs. Belltott. We mustered only fourteen
men, fifteen women, and seven children. Those were all that
remained of the English who had lain down to sleep last night,
unsuspecting and happy, on the Island of Silver-Store.
CHAPTER III {1}--THE RAFTS ON THE RIVER
We contrived to keep afloat all that night, and, the stream running
strong with us, to glide a long way down the river. But, we found
the night to be a dangerous time for such navigation, on account of
the eddies and rapids, and it was therefore settled next day that in
future we would bring-to at sunset, and encamp on the shore. As we
knew of no boats that the Pirates possessed, up at the Prison in the
Woods, we settled always to encamp on the opposite side of the
stream, so as to have the breadth of the river between our sleep and
them. Our opinion was, that if they were acquainted with any near
way by land to the mouth of this river, they would come up it in
force, and retake us or kill us, according as they could; but that
if that was not the case, and if the river ran by none of their
secret stations, we might escape.
When I say we settled this or that, I do not mean that we planned
anything with any confidence as to what might happen an hour hence.
So much had happened in one night, and such great changes had been
violently and suddenly made in the fortunes of many among us, that
we had got better used to uncertainty, in a little while, than I
dare say most people do in the course of their lives.
The difficulties we soon got into, through the off-settings and
point-currents of the stream, made the likelihood of our being
drowned, alone,--to say nothing of our being retaken--as broad and
plain as the sun at noonday to all of us. But, we all worked hard
at managing the rafts, under the direction of the seamen (of our own
skill, I think we never could have prevented them from oversetting),
and we also worked hard at making good the defects in their first
hasty construction--which the water soon found out. While we humbly
resigned ourselves to going down, if it was the will of Our Father
that was in Heaven, we humbly made up our minds, that we would all
do the best that was in us.
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