The enemy thus disposed off, finally as they hoped, Roger and Harry went
off to attend to the captain.

They found him sitting up. He averred that his hurt was only a flesh
wound; and after asking for, and obtaining, a draught of water, the
gallant fellow got on his feet and went off to survey the scene of
carnage.

Over a hundred of the natives lay dead on the sands; and a number of
wounded were seen crawling towards the brush, endeavouring to escape.
They were allowed to go, as the English could not be burdened with
wounded savages, and were indisposed to slay them in cold blood. There
were twenty-three of the Englishmen who would never again answer the
roll-call; and over forty wounded, who were conveyed on board the _Good
Adventure_ and the _Elizabeth_, afloat in the bay. The dead, both black
and white, were, for health's sake, immediately buried in the sand where
they lay.

Cavendish, after having had his wound bound up, ordered a stockade to be
at once built, and loopholed for guns and muskets, for their future
defence, in the improbable event of the savages not having already
received a severe enough lesson.

The seamen were now divided into two parties. One half of them were to
continue the work of repairs and overhauling on the two vessels then
careened, the _Stag Royal_ and the _Tiger_, and the remaining half were
to work upon the stockade.

Then, this matter arranged, Cavendish called Roger to him, and, first
thanking him for his timely rescue and the saving of his life, he put
the lad in command of the party who were to build the stockade.

Roger was also publicly thanked, in the presence of officers and men,
for the warning he had given, which enabled the party to make their
hasty preparations for the reception of the natives, without which the
whole party on shore would most likely have been cut off to a man. And
if the ships in the bay had not likewise been warned, it was quite
within the bounds of possibility that they would have been boarded
before the guns could have been loaded and brought to bear on the
canoes; in which case there could be little doubt that the savages would
have captured the vessels through sheer weight of numbers, for there
were several hundred men in the canoes.

It ought to be mentioned that when Cavendish gave Roger the command of
the company to be employed in building the stockade, he also endowed him
with full power to use his own discretion as to how the work s