unhappy man who was speaking to us. But he, reading something of our
thoughts in our eyes, turned to his fellows for confirmation, and
confirmation they readily gave. Cornelys Jensen was alive. Cornelys
Jensen was on the island. Cornelys Jensen was the instigator of the
massacre, the bloodiest actor in the bloody work.

Here was indeed amazing tidings, and we cried to know more, but the men
had no more to tell. They had no knowledge of how Cornelys Jensen made
his appearance upon the island; all they knew was that he did appear,
and that his appearance was the signal for a display of weapons on the
part of the sailors on his side and the massacre of all the unhappy
wretches who were not inclined to his piratical purposes. The colonists
seemed to have made no sort of stand for their lives. Indeed, it would
appear that they were taken quite unawares, and that the most were
struck down before they had time to act in their own defence. As for the
miserable wretches who told us this tale, they had fled to the woods
when the wicked business began, and the murderers either lost count of
them or imagined that they must perish miserably of famine in the
forest. Indeed, they must have so perished if it had not occurred to one
of them, who had his wits a little more about him than the others, to
suggest the manufacture of a raft, whereby they might make the attempt
to reach the island, where, as they guessed, we, with our well-armed
fellows, were safely settled. 'For,' as the man argued, 'we risk death
either way. If we stop here we must either perish among these trees for
lack of sustenance or must creep back to the piratical camp with little
other hope than a stroke from a hanger, or tempt the seas in the hope of
friends and safety.' So they fashioned a raft as well as they could out
of a number of fallen trees, which they fastened together with natural
ropes made of the long creeping plants that abounded, and that were as
tough and as endurable as ever was rope that was weaved out of honest
hemp. They found enough timber for their craft among the fallen tree
trunks, and they had the less difficulty in their work that one of
their number was Janes, who had his saw in his belt at the moment of
their flight to the woods.

Long before they finished telling their tale our men, who were scattered
abroad in the woods, came tumbling down to us at the sound of the horn,
that Lancelot wound to summon them, and gathered in horror around