Am I not prize enough, and proof enough?' But he
would not be so tempted, and turning to us offered us the half of that
treasure, if we would go back with him, and rescue it from the Spaniard.
At which the lady wept and wailed much; but I took upon myself to
comfort her, though I was but a simple mariner, telling her that it
stood upon Mr. Oxenham's honor; and that in England nothing was esteemed
so foul as cowardice, or breaking word and troth betwixt man and man;
and that better was it for him to die seven times by the Spaniards, than
to face at home the scorn of all who sailed the seas. So, after much
ado, back they went again; I and Penberthy, and the three Plymouth men
which escaped from the pinnace, keeping the lady as before.

"Well, sirs, we waited five days, having made houses of boughs as
before, without hearing aught; and on the sixth we saw coming afar off
Mr. Oxenham, and with him fifteen or twenty men, who seemed very weary
and wounded; and when we looked for the rest to be behind them, behold
there were no more; at which, sirs, as you may well think, our hearts
sank within us.

"And Mr. O., coming nearer, cried out afar off, 'All is lost!' and so
walked into the camp without a word, and sat himself down at the foot
of a great tree with his head between his hands, speaking neither to the
lady or to any one, till she very pitifully kneeling before him, cursing
herself for the cause of all his mischief, and praying him to avenge
himself upon that her tender body, won him hardly to look once upon her,
after which (as is the way of vain and unstable man) all between them
was as before.

"But the men were full of curses against the negroes, for their
cowardice and treachery; yea, and against high Heaven itself, which had
put the most part of their ammunition into the Spaniards' hands; and
told me, and I believe truly, how they forced the enemy awaiting them in
a little copse of great trees, well fortified with barricades of boughs,
and having with them our two falcons, which they had taken out of the
pinnace. And how Mr. Oxenham divided both the English and the negroes
into two bands, that one might attack the enemy in front, and the
other in the rear, and so set upon them with great fury, and would have
utterly driven them out, but that the negroes, who had come on with much
howling, like very wild beasts, being suddenly scared with the shot and
noise of the ordnance, turned and fled, leaving the Englishmen