Part 17 (1/2)

_D_. You put a thought in my head that I will speak to you about to-morrow.

Thus they went away, and William came on board, and gave us a full account of his parley with the old Dutchman, which was very diverting, and to me instructing; for I had abundance of reason to acknowledge William had made a better judgment of things than I.

It was our good fortune to get our s.h.i.+p off that very night, and to bring her to an anchor at about a mile and a half farther out, and in deep water, to our great satisfaction; so that we had no need to fear the Dutchman's king, with his hundred thousand men; and indeed we had some sport with them the next day, when they came down, a vast prodigious mult.i.tude of them, very few less in number, in our imagination, than a hundred thousand, with some elephants; though, if it had been an army of elephants, they could have done us no harm; for we were fairly at our anchor now, and out of their reach. And indeed we thought ourselves more out of their reach than we really were; and it was ten thousand to one that we had not been fast aground again, for the wind blowing off sh.o.r.e, though it made the water smooth where we lay, yet it blew the ebb farther out than usual, and we could easily perceive the sand, which we touched upon before, lay in the shape of a half-moon, and surrounded us with two horns of it, so that we lay in the middle or centre of it, as in a round bay, safe just as we were, and in deep water, but present death, as it were, on the right hand and on the left, for the two horns or points of the sand reached out beyond where our s.h.i.+p lay near two miles.

On that part of the sand which lay on our east side, this misguided mult.i.tude extended themselves; and being, most of them, not above their knees, or most of them not above ankle-deep in the water, they as it were surrounded us on that side, and on the side of the mainland, and a little way on the other side of the sand, standing in a half-circle, or rather three-fifths of a circle, for about six miles in length. The other horn, or point of the sand, which lay on our west side, being not quite so shallow, they could not extend themselves upon it so far.

They little thought what service they had done us, and how unwittingly, and by the greatest ignorance, they had made themselves pilots to us, while we, having not sounded the place, might have been lost before we were aware. It is true we might have sounded our new harbour before we had ventured out, but I cannot say for certain whether we should or not; for I, for my part, had not the least suspicion of what our real case was; however, I say, perhaps, before we had weighed, we should have looked about us a little. I am sure we ought to have done it; for, besides these armies of human furies, we had a very leaky s.h.i.+p, and all our pumps could hardly keep the water from growing upon us, and our carpenters were overboard, working to find out and stop the wounds we had received, heeling her first on the one side, and then on the other; and it was very diverting to see how, when our men heeled the s.h.i.+p over to the side next the wild army that stood on the east horn of the sand, they were so amazed, between fright and joy, that it put them into a kind of confusion, calling to one another, hallooing and skreeking, in a manner that it is impossible to describe.

While we were doing this, for we were in a great hurry you may be sure, and all hands at work, as well at the stopping our leaks as repairing our rigging and sails, which had received a great deal of damage, and also in rigging a new main-top-mast and the like;--I say, while we were doing all this, we perceived a body of men, of near a thousand, move from that part of the army of the barbarians that lay at the bottom of the sandy bay, and came all along the water's edge, round the sand, till they stood just on our broadside east, and were within about half-a-mile of us. Then we saw the Dutchman come forward nearer to us, and all alone, with his white flag and all his motions, just as before, and there he stood.

Our men had but just brought the s.h.i.+p to rights again as they came up to our broadside, and we had very happily found out and stopped the worst and most dangerous leak that we had, to our very great satisfaction; so I ordered the boats to be hauled up and manned as they were the day before, and William to go as plenipotentiary. I would have gone myself if I had understood Dutch, but as I did not, it was to no purpose, for I should be able to know nothing of what was said but from him at second-hand, which might be done as well afterwards. All the instructions I pretended to give William was, if possible, to get the old Dutchman away, and, if he could, to make him come on board.

Well, William went just as before, and when he came within about sixty or seventy yards of the sh.o.r.e, he held up his white flag as the Dutchman did, and turning the boat's broadside to the sh.o.r.e, and his men lying upon their oars, the parley or dialogue began again thus:--

_William_. Well, friend, what dost thou say to us now?

_Dutchman_. I come of the same mild errand as I did yesterday.

_W_. What! dost thou pretend to come of a mild errand with all these people at thy back, and all the foolish weapons of war they bring with them? Prithee, what dost thou mean?

_D_. The king hastens us to invite the captain and all his men to come on sh.o.r.e, and has ordered all his men to show them all the civility they can.

_W_. Well, and are all those men come to invite us ash.o.r.e?

D. They will do you no hurt, if you will come on sh.o.r.e peaceably.

W. Well, and what dost thou think they can do to us, if we will not?

D. I would not have them do you any hurt then, neither.

W. But prithee, friend, do not make thyself fool and knave too. Dost not thou know that we are out of fear of all thy army, and out of danger of all that they can do? What makes thee act so simply as well as so knavishly?

D. Why, you may think yourselves safer than you are; you do not know what they may do to you. I can a.s.sure you they are able to do you a great deal of harm, and perhaps burn your s.h.i.+p.

W. Suppose that were true, as I am sure it is false; you see we have more s.h.i.+ps to carry us off (pointing to the sloop).

[N.B.--Just at this time we discovered the sloop standing towards us from the east, along the sh.o.r.e, at about the distance of two leagues, which was to our particular satisfaction, she having been missing thirteen days.]

D. We do not value that; if you had ten s.h.i.+ps, you dare not come on sh.o.r.e, with all the men you have, in a hostile way; we are too many for you.

W. Thou dost not, even in that, speak as thou meanest; and we may give thee a trial of our hands when our friends come up to us, for thou hearest they have discovered us.

[Just then the sloop fired five guns, which was to get news of us, for they did not see us.]

D. Yes, I hear they fire; but I hope your s.h.i.+p will not fire again; for, if they do, our general will take it for breaking the truce, and will make the army let fly a shower of arrows at you in the boat.

W. Thou mayest be sure the s.h.i.+p will fire that the other s.h.i.+p may hear them, but not with ball. If thy general knows no better, he may begin when he will; but thou mayest be sure we will return it to his cost.

D. What must I do, then?