with them), and no
sooner was it christened than, catching the babe by the heels, he dashed
out its brains,--oh! gentlemen, gentlemen!--against the ground, as if it
had been a kitten; and so did they to several more innocents that night,
after they had christened them; saying it was best for them to go to
heaven while they were still sure thereof; and so marched us all for
slaves, leaving the old folk and the wounded to die at leisure. But when
morning came, and they knew by my skin that I was no Indian, and by my
speech that I was no Spaniard, they began threatening me with torments,
till I confessed that I was an Englishman, and one of Oxenham's crew.
At that says the leader, 'Then you shall to Lima, to hang by the side of
your captain the pirate;' by which I first knew that my poor captain was
certainly gone; but alas for me! the priest steps in and claims me for
his booty, calling me Lutheran, heretic, and enemy of God; and so, to
make short a sad story, to the Inquisition at Cartagena I went, where
what I suffered, gentlemen, were as disgustful for you to hear, as
unmanly for me to complain of; but so it was, that being twice racked,
and having endured the water-torment as best I could, I was put to the
scarpines, whereof I am, as you see, somewhat lame of one leg to this
day. At which I could abide no more, and so, wretch that I am! denied my
God, in hope to save my life; which indeed I did, but little it profited
me; for though I had turned to their superstition, I must have two
hundred stripes in the public place, and then go to the galleys for
seven years. And there, gentlemen, ofttimes I thought that it had been
better for me to have been burned at once and for all: but you know
as well as I what a floating hell of heat and cold, hunger and thirst,
stripes and toil, is every one of those accursed craft. In which hell,
nevertheless, gentlemen, I found the road to heaven,--I had almost said
heaven itself. For it fell out, by God's mercy, that my next comrade was
an Englishman like myself, a young man of Bristol, who, as he told me,
had been some manner of factor on board poor Captain Barker's ship, and
had been a preacher among the Anabaptists here in England. And, oh! Sir
Richard Grenville, if that man had done for you what he did for me, you
would never say a word against those who serve the same Lord, because
they don't altogether hold with you. For from time to time, sir, seeing
me altogether despairing and f