set sail from the isle, a feud sprang up on board our ship, which we
could not put down, till we had laid two of the men in chains. The next
day, these two men stole each of them a gun and some small arms, and
took the ship's boat, and ran off with it to join the three bad men on
shore.
As soon as I found this out, I sent the long-boat on shore, with twelve
men and the mate, and off they went to seek the two who had left the
ship. But their search was in vain, nor could they find one of the rest,
for they had all fled to the woods when they saw the boat. We had now
lost five of the crew, but the three first were so much worse than the
last two, that in a few days they sent them out of doors, and would have
no more to do with them, nor would they for a long while give them food
to eat.
So the two poor men had to live as well as they could by hard work, and
they set up their tents on the north shore of the isle, to be out of the
way of the wild men, who were wont to land on the east side. Here they
built them two huts, one to lodge in, and one to lay up their stores
in; and the men from Spain gave them some corn for seed, as well as some
peas which I had left them. They soon learned to dig, and plant, and
hedge in their land, in the mode which I had set for them, and in short,
to lead good lives, so that I shall now call them the "two good men."
But when the three bad men saw, this, they were full of spite, and came
one day to tease and vex them. They told them that the isle was their
own, and that no one else had a right to build on it, if they did not
pay rent. The two good men thought at first that they were in jest, and
told them to come and sit down, and see what fine homes they had built,
and say what rent they would ask.
But one of the three said they should soon see that they were not in
jest, and took a torch in his hand, and put it to the roof of the but,
and would have set it on fire, had not one of the two good men trod the
fire out with his feet. The bad man was in such a rage at this, that he
ran at him with a pole he had in his hand, and this brought on a fight,
the end of which was that the three men had to stand off. But in a short
time they came back, and trod down the corn, and shot the goats and
young kids, which the poor men had got to bring up tame for their store.
One day when the two men were out, they came to their home, and said,
"Ha! there's the nest, but the birds are flown." They th
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