up into the country to look for
their fellows. This was a great disappointment to us, for now we were at
a loss what to do, as our seizing those seven men on shore would be no
advantage to us if we let the boat escape; because they would row away to
the ship, and then the rest of them would be sure to weigh and set sail,
and so our recovering the ship would be lost. However we had no remedy
but to wait and see what the issue of things might present. The seven
men came on shore, and the three who remained in the boat put her off to
a good distance from the shore, and came to an anchor to wait for them;
so that it was impossible for us to come at them in the boat. Those that
came on shore kept close together, marching towards the top of the little
hill under which my habitation lay; and we could see them plainly, though
they could not perceive us. We should have been very glad if they would
have come nearer us, so that we might have fired at them, or that they
would have gone farther off, that we might come abroad. But when they
were come to the brow of the hill where they could see a great way into
the valleys and woods, which lay towards the north-east part, and where
the island lay lowest, they shouted and hallooed till they were weary;
and not caring, it seems, to venture far from the shore, nor far from one
another, they sat down together under a tree to consider it. Had they
thought fit to have gone to sleep there, as the other part of them had
done, they had done the job for us; but they were too full of
apprehensions of danger to venture to go to sleep, though they could not
tell what the danger was they had to fear.

The captain made a very just proposal to me upon this consultation of
theirs, viz. that perhaps they would all fire a volley again, to
endeavour to make their fellows hear, and that we should all sally upon
them just at the juncture when their pieces were all discharged, and they
would certainly yield, and we should have them without bloodshed. I
liked this proposal, provided it was done while we were near enough to
come up to them before they could load their pieces again. But this
event did not happen; and we lay still a long time, very irresolute what
course to take. At length I told them there would be nothing done, in my
opinion, till night; and then, if they did not return to the boat,
perhaps we might find a way to get between them and the shore, and so
might use some stratagem with t