ve us believe), starts off
with it, accompanied by his boatswain, a good-natured kind of
lick-spittle, who never failed to back up his captain's assertions,
which again was to our great advantage; for Simon would thus learn our
story from his lips, and find no room to doubt its veracity.

As soon as these two were out of the house, Dawson, who had been carried
from the ship and laid in bed, though as hale since we passed the
Godwins as ever he was in his life before, sprang up, and declared he
would go to bed no more, for all the fortunes in the world, till he had
supped on roast pork and onions,--this being a dish he greatly loved,
but not to be had at Elche, because the Moors by their religion forbid
the use of swine's flesh,--and seeing him very determined on this head,
Don Sanchez ordered a leg of pork to be served in our chamber, whereof
Dawson did eat such a prodigious quantity, and drank therewith such a
vast quantity of strong ale (which he protested was the only liquor an
Englishman could drink with any satisfaction), that in the night he was
seized with most severe cramp in his stomach. This gave us the occasion
to send for a doctor in the morning, who, learning that Jack had been
ill ever since we left Barbary, and not understanding his present
complaint, pulled a very long face, and, declaring his case was very
critical, bled him copiously, forbade him to leave his bed for another
fortnight, and sent him in half a dozen bottles of physic. About midday
he returns, and, finding his patient no better, administers a bolus; and
while we are all standing about the bed, and Dawson the colour of death,
and groaning, betwixt the nausea of the drug he had swallowed and the
cramp in his inwards, in comes our Captain Ballcock and the little
steward.

"There!" cries he, turning on Simon, "did not I tell you that my old
friend Evans lay at death's door with the treatment he hath received of
these Barbary pirates? Now will you be putting us off with your doubts
and your questionings? Shall I have up my ship's company to testify to
the truth of my history? Look you, Madam," (to Moll), "we had all the
trouble in the world to make this steward of yours do your bidding; but
he should have come though we had to bring him by the neck and heels,
and a pox to him--saving your presence."

"But this is not Simon," says Moll, with a pretty air of innocence. "I
seem to remember Simon a bigger man than he."

"You must consider, Mad