the Enemy both of our Country and Religion I told them 't was to him that both their Priest and I owed our safety that he kill'd the Man who hurt my Father and with a great deal of care dressed his Wound I desired therefore that for our sakes they would give me his Life These words perswaded them to leave him to me as soon as they were gone I went out to see how things went and brought him word that a great Party from the Mountains was come to our assistance and that all who set foot on our Land were killed And Madam said he shall I be the only man who goes home and carries the news of so great a defeat Or shall it be said that ever a Spaniard let a Woman beg his Life of an Indian Not of one Indian said I for you were over-powered by numbers No one but you said he should have given Astolfo his Life but since I receive it from you I 'll make that use of it I should by serving you and revenging my self of my Enemies for this loss and disgrace I have suffered I told him that since he confessed his Life was mine and that I had preserved it it was not generous to use that Life against my Country however I left him to his liberty and promised him that at Night I would send him over in a Canoe to the other side When Night came I was as good as my word and calling two trusty Men I ordered them to row the Stranger over the River telling them that his presence would be enough to secure them from the danger of their Enemies At our parting he expressed himself very thankful to me for my generous usage of him and told me that e're long he would make me a return in the mean he desired me to wear that about my Neck pulling a Gold Medal with a Chain of the same Metal I who had heard of the Spanish Covetousness gave him a large Golden Wedge and desiring him never to be my Country's Enemy or put himself into the like danger I took my leave and left him to his Fortune the Men came back before morning and brought me word that they had set him safe on shore and that all the other side of the River was covered with Men This news which they told about the Town alarm'd us and that Party which came down from the Mountains to our assistance waited to receive them some of our Scouts who rowed as near the other side as they durst brought us word that they had abundance of Canoes fill'd with Men which made us think they design'd to Land by force where the others had by Night but this was but to amuse and draw our Men that way for they had provided a great number of Planks about 20 mile higher and having lighted on a place where the River ran between two Hills and therefore could not extend it self a quarter of a Mile they made a floating Bridge and on that they passed over some Men before ours knew any thing of it they took such care to surprize the Natives that no one came to bring us Intelligence of their being Landed till some of the Planks which came floating down the River made us suspect something we sent some Scouts up the River to discover what was the matter and they brought word that the Enmy was on this side of the River Ours marched towards them as fast as they could to fight them before any more came over and having joyned Battel the first news we heard was of a great Victory we had gained over them and a great many Prisoners brought us as the proof of its being true The Indian Prisoners were kept up to feed our Gods but some few Spaniards that were taken as being the Nobler Captives were to be feasted on as it was our Custom to tye our choice Prisoners to a Tree and a great Fire being made just by the Priest was to cut off Slices from the more fleshy parts of them and distribute them about to the People to broil and eat If the Captive shewed any signs of pain or groaned at his Sufferings we counted him of a base Spirit and after burning his Body we scattered his Ashes in the Wind but if he endured bravely to see his Flesh eaten we dryed the Sinews and Bones and hanging them upon the Mountains we deify'd them and went Pilgrimages to them There were ten Spaniards brought to my Father and two or 300 Indians who were all tyed and secured by a Guard set over them the Indians to be a Prey to the Bellies of our Gods and the Spaniards to those of our Souldiers As soon as they were brought in my Curiosity prompted me to see them but very little to my satisfaction for the first I set my Eyes on was he whom I had set at liberty before I was both concerned and amazed to see him there and uncertain whether I should do any thing in his favour or no therefore I pretended not to know him till he making as low a bow as his being tyed would permit asked me did I not know him whose Life I had saved Are you he said I whom I set free but a few days ago I thought your good usage might have made you our Friend or at least your dangerous escape might have been a fair warning to you but since you are the second time come amongst our Enemies and are still plotting my destruction you shall suffer for your ingratitude and to shew how little I pity you I will go to see you Sacrificed and eat the first bit of you my self As for the danger of coming again answered he a Spaniard fears none but I was so far from plotting your destrustion that I hung that Medal about your Neck for my Souldiers to know you by I had indeed a design upon your Countrey but for you my greatest desire was by saving you and your Family to shew how much I aimed to ingratiate my self into your favour These are all but Wheedles said I to save your Life but they shall not serve No they shall not said he for since you can entertain such mean thoughts as these of me I scorn to take my Life all the repentance my attempt has brought upon me is that it has displeased you I thought to have requited you for giving me liberty and to have made you amends for the loss of your Country by bringing you to a better but since this ill success has prevented me all that I desire is to dye in your favour The way to do that reply'd I is to dye undaunted for then you shall be one of our Gods I will do so said he be you there and shew but the least sign of pity at my death and I 'll go off with such a Courage that him whom you slighted whilst he was alive you shall adore when he is dead Though in a Man's mouth who was at liberty this would have looked like
gentilely drest and thinking 't was his Landlord's Daughter interposed his Authority and ordering the Door to be shut commanded Celadon to be calmer till he enquired into the matter and asked the Stranger whether she knew what was the reason of his Anger The Maid desiring that his Highness would hear her and then judge between them began thus I perceive by this Gentleman's Anger that he has been grosly abused that I have been in some sort the cause I am sorry but to shew you I am a very innocent one I 'll give you a relation of some passages of my life which though publickly known yet never should have been told you by me were it not on such an important account as this the allaying this Gentleman's rage against me and the hindering him from noising any thing abroad which might be to the prejudice of my Reputation My Father is a Country Gentleman descended from a good Family but his Ancestors were so improvident as to spend most of their Estate and leave him but a small remainder to maintain a great many Children I am the youngest of all the Favourite both of Father and Mother whose greatest care has been to Match me so that they may live to see me happy I had choice enough for these three or four years I have had little rest from Suitors who from all parts of the Country sollicited me My Fortune I believe they did not court me for because I saw several who had far greater were neglected People flatter'd me indeed with the title of a Beauty and Fame who is most commonly a great Lyar did list my Name among her wonders whether she was in the wrong or no I could wish she were for it has put me to more trouble than a good Face is worth to bear with the several impertinencies of my young Country Servants though to have seen their several humours would have been as good as a Comedy to me had I been meerly a Spectator but I lost the pleasure because I was an Actress in it my self Every one of them had a particular behaviour yet every one something of the Harlequin in it and their Courtship was different according to their diversity of humours One had Confidence and thought that would gain me and he 'd be the most troublesome because he 'd touze me and hale me about and I had much ado to defend my self from his rudeness him I avoided as I would the Devil Another would think to gain me by his over-civility and he 'd come a great way just to ask me how I did and how my Father and Mother did ask me what a Clock it was and what time of the Moon and where I was at Church last Sunday and after some such wise discourse he 'd take a kiss and be gone he was my Chip in Porridge I neither shunn'd his Company nor cared for it A third pufft up with the good success of having gotten his Father's Maid or Tenant's Daughter with Child believed the same Methods would conquer me and therefore thought to entertain me with immodest discourse my Vertue made me deaf to all he could say and for my Reputation sake I avoided him Then a Widower came a Cousen addressed to me desiring to be nearer a-kin and thought to touch my heart but indeavoured it after so rude a manner as if he forgot that 't was a Maid not a Widow he was Courting But it appeared for all his long practising Merchandise that he did not understand how to Purchase for all that he had in the World could not buy my consent to give him mine A fifth was opinionative of his rustick valour and he 'd aim at conquering his Mistress the same way as Knights Errant did of old by quarrelling and beating every one he came near But I thought such an over-boyling Courage which would still expose me to fears for him was fitter for a Bravo than a Husband The sixth was my true Country Courtier who was all Innocence he had scarce Courage enough to keep him from swooning when he came into my Company unless his Spirits had been raised before-hand by a dram of the Bottle or a belly full of strong drink then he 'd say his Mother sent him to ask me whether I 'd have him and tell me a long story of his Ground his Dairy and his Cattle I despised this Milk-sop and thought it a hard bargain to give my self in subjection to the chief Beast only to be Mistress of the rest This was my condition when a young Gentleman a Stranger came down into our Country to some Friends he had there and no sooner saw me than he encreased the number of my Captives and professed himself my Servant but when he first old it me 't was with all the Rhetorick which an ingenious passion could invent his Eyes his Actions and every gesture so gracefully seconded his Story that the Lover's part which the others acted so ridiculously became him so well as if he were only made for Love When he paid a visit if any of the rest chanced to come at the same time the Breeding which he brought from Dublin elevated him so far above them in his Discourse his Carriage and all he did that they did look like our wild Irish to him but when alone he talked to me of Love the Musick of his Tongue was so enchanting I could have staid and listen'd for ever to him Sir I will say no more in his commendation for methinks Lovers are so much a part of our selves that their praises look fulsome where they come from one another I will only tell your Highness that we were but too happy in one another till Fortune who is never constantly kind contrived a way to part us asunder But why should we curse our ill Fortune or lay the fault on the Devil when any mischance does befall us Whereas poor Beelzebub is wrong'd for he could not do us half the mischiefs we receive unless we helped him against one another and of all people I think the Envious are his principal Agents of which this is a remarkable instance There lived in the same House with him one Capella a stale Maid of a good Family but a decayed Fortune and she it seems hearing of our Amour envied the happiness of it I can't say 't was out of any violent Love to him for her being pretty far advanced in years and sickly besides do make me think her Loving time was past at least I 'm sure it should have been for her grey Hairs her Dwarfishness her Sickliness her Pale Ill-favoured Face and her want of a Fortune to gild all these Imperfections might have hindered her from thinking of Marriage if she had any Wit to consider them but she will repent the want of it when the foolish desire of Intriguing in her old Age has rendered her ridiculous to all the Gentlemen and after wasting her Youth in Pride and Disdain of those that more
Stature but a Soul sufficiently Great and which disdain'd to think that the littleness of his Body made him inferior to any one either in open Valour in the Field or the management of an Intrigue at home And certainly never was any ones Humour more equally divided between Love and War than his He was an exact Volunteer in both and as he would hazard his Person any time and fight for him that would give him the best Promotion so was he no less a Souldier of Fortune in Love than War would change his side often offer his Service to every Lady that would accept of it and still was most hers who was readiest to reward him He was the Younger Brother of a good Family and having gone into Forreign Camps for a Livelihood he had by his Courage Wit and Good Fortune raised himself so high into the Prince's favour as to be made his Gentleman of Horse he being to speak in his turn told the Prince That since they had left him a deciding Vote he was for trying each of them by turns and if they would begin with the Musick first he would add to it one of his own most delighting Divertisements the Company of Women and to that purpose if the Prince pleased to be that Night at the Ball he would take care to invite all the young Gentry of the Town to it The Prince told him he was the same he always thought him that Celadon that took Love to be as important an Affair of Life as either Eating or Drinking and accordingly provided for it as carefully this raillery brought on other discourse which lasted while Celadon went to make preparations for the Ball at last he came back and told them that all things were ready and the Company invited On one side of the Town stood a large Country House which though not built after the Dorick Order or the exacter neatness of Courtly Lodgings yet its largeness gave liberty to guess at the Magnificence and Hospitality of the Owner It belonged to the Great Moracho famous all over the Kingdom for his Riches particularly in his flocks of Sheep as numerous as those of the mighty Scythian whose Son was the Terror of the World or that Rich Man of the East whom the Turkish Chronicles make Steward to Alexander the Great All his Ground far and near was thick covered with his fleecy Wealth You would hare thought by their bleatings that you were in Arcadia and Shepherdism coming in fashion again 'T was this House which was pitched upon for the Ball and what place so fit for Dancing and innocent Mirth as a spacious Hall whose Building Size and Furniture altogether rustical imprinted such lively Idea's of Country Freedom and Country Innocence Hither Celadon conducted our Prince and his Martial Company their Musick was as good as the Town could afford and their Reception suitable to the Riches and Hospitality of him that entertain'd them The Prince who went thither rather to shun his former thoughts than out of any inclination to the Company or the Dancing sat by a Looker-on Some of the Officers who were not so seriously bent took out those whose Face Meen or Shape pleased them the best and in their several Dances either shewed their Skill or at least pleased themselves with the conceit that they did so Celadon who always employed such a time as this well was not idle now but gazed on one talked to another bowed to the third and left none of the Ladies unregarded and as a cunning Hound when he comes among a Herd of Deer singles out the best and never changes Scent till he runs him down so our skillful Hunter who knew all the Mazes Turnings and Doublings in the course of Love ranged through all the Company of the fairer Sex till he lighted on the handsomest He would not leave her till he had prevailed with her to be his Partner in a Country Dance and tho' till she was drawn out few observed her because either Chance or her own Modesty had placed her in a dark part of the Room yet when she came into the light she alone drew the admiration of all the Men as she did the envy of the Women Her face was oval and somewhat thin as if grief had but newly left it yet her looks were as chearful as if it had not left the least impression on her mind some signs of the Small-pox were just perceivable yet they and her thinness instead of lessening served rather to increase the repute of her Beauty while they shew'd how it had triumphed over those two great destroyers of the handsomest Faces Her Forehead was high and smooth as if no Frown had ever deformed it to a wrinkle and as much beyond the whiteness of the rest of her Sex as theirs is beyond the browner Complexion of ours her Neck and all the parts of her Face were equally Snowy except her Cheeks but they as if they received their colour from the Rays which her Eyes darted down on them were of such a lively Carnation as if that and the rest of her Face were at a strife which of those two Colours were the best Her Eyes were of the same azure of the clearest Summer Skyes and like them too so shining that it would dazle you to look on them and her Brows which grew over them in an exact Arch were inclining to a light colour as if they got it from the brightness of those Beams which shone from beneath them Her Stature was neither so low as that Sex usually is nor so till as to seem too masculine her Shape was curiously slender and all her Limbs after a feminine delicacy but she had withall a Deportment so Great and so Majestick that the comeliness of the stronger Sex was mixed with the graces of the weaker And that the stateliness of her Carriage seemed to command that Love and Adoration which the sweetness of her Face did invite to I will not describe how she was drest let those Ladies be set off with such helps who like Peacocks owe their Price to their Feathers hers were no part of her Beauty they were put on for Modesty not for Ornament and served her as Clouds do the Sun to screen her more glorious Beauties from the Eyes of weak Mankind who would else be as infallibly ruined by the sight of the one as by the excessive heat of the other The Prince who sate looking on the Dance no sooner saw her but he knew her to be the same whom he had seen in the Window and whom he so much longed to come acquainted with he was overjoy'd that he had gotten an opportunity he so little expected he was so eager to speak to her and so impatient till the Dance was over that any one who had observed him might easily have perceived it As soon as the Dance was ended he call'd to Celadon and telling him that he could not but be weary proffered to supply his
all that day and the next night with the Stream Though the first day we got away we were very chearful yet now wanting Provisions and being driven down we knew not whither dampt the Joy we should otherwise have taken in our Love and Liberty I began to reflect on my former actions and to think this a just punishment for my undutiful leaving my Father and my Country I began to grow faint with hunger and he was so troubled to see me in that condition that in the greatest danger of his Life I never saw him shew so much sorrow The farther we Sailed the River still grew wider and wider on one side we could not Land because the Wind would not let us on the other side we durst not because 't was inhabited by those Nations who are mortal Enemies to the Spaniards We were now come down a great way and the River had turned so that the Wind which before was against us now was for us we made towards the Land with the greatest haste that a violent Hunger could make as we came near the Shore we discovered a Boat lying under a Rock we made towards it and saw only one Man in it and he was asleep so that we were upon him before he awaked he would have resisted but finding it in vain for one Man to fight with eleven he yielded up himself and his Boat in it we found store of Victuals the richest prize we could have wished for at that time and you may think we fell on to some purpose We examined the Fellow and he said he belonged to a Ship which lay about sixty Leagues lower that they sent twenty Men up the River in quest of a Prize which they were to take by plundering a little Town thereabouts he told us that there were about so many more left in the Ship but that the greatest part of them lay sick of the Wounds they had received in a late Engagement We stept into his Boat and going down the River in eight days time we came within sight of the Ship then having got out of the Man what intelligence we thought necessary we threw him over-board and made up to the side of the Pinnace it being duskish and they knowing their own Boat again they mistook us for their own Men so that half the Spaniards entered and had killed all that were above Deck before they mistrusted any thing the rest they took Prisoners and throwing all the Wounded Men into the Sea because we had not Provisions sufficient to last us all they set their Prisoners on Shore and so came down the River merrily in a Ship of our own The Spaniards fell to searching and found some Bullion in her besides a vast deal of ready money which after a just division between us ten we computed would amount to near 30000 Ducats a piece so that with a general consent we Sail'd streight for Spain intending to Land at the first Port of that Kingdom which we came to Now we were happy enough we had escaped our Enemies the Indians and Famine which had like to have proved a more fatal Enemy than they besides the Prize which enriched us beyond our expectation and came in good time to help my needy Fortune who in that hurry of leaving home had not remembered to bring any thing of value with me besides a few Pearl which I always wore about me My Servant came and took me in his Arms congratulating my escape out of the several dangers we had been in and thanking me a thousand times for the kindness I had shewed in saving his Life and more for leaving a Father to run the same Fortune with him In fine he promised that he would requite all my kindnesses by having me Christened and marrying me as soon as we came to Spain And I was so well pleased with the alteration of my Condition so much for the better that I think that Night was one of the pleasantest of my Life The next Morning we spy'd a Sail making up to us and as soon as it came within reach it sent a great Shot to command us to strike Sail we saw by the bulk that it was a Man of War too strong for us to resist We much against our wills staid for it and received some of them on board in searching our Ship they found divers Colours as Pyrats usually have our Vessel it seems had been one and for their Faults who had owned her we were all seiz'd our Vessel made a Prize and our Men taken Prisoners The Man of War being a Spaniard the Captain said he would reserve Astolfo and his eight Country-men to be tryed on Shore and condemned to the Gallies My two Indians notwithstanding all my intreaties for their Lives he hanged on the Ropes before my Face But taking compassion on me he said he would keep me to wait on his Wife Accordingly when we came upon the Coasts of Spain he sent the nine Spaniards Prisoners to Sevil and though I begg'd him to let me accompany Astolfo he kept me at Sea a few days more and then Landed me at Aveiro and gave me a present to a Wife he had there It would be tedious for me to tell you how ill I bore this worst change of my Fortune I raged I grieved till my Sighs and Tears grew so thick upon one another that no one could know which was the most plentiful of their two Fountains my Heart or my Eyes My Mistress who was a good natur'd Gentlewoman interessed her self in my Sorrows and would often enquire what was the reason of my grieving till at last her Importunities drew from me the whole Relation which I have now made to you she bade me be comforted and think no more of him I told her I could not be satisfied without him That opinion says she is I hope a false one you must be comforted either without him or not at all for you must never expect to see him again for supposing he should escape being condemned to the Gallies yet how is it likely that you who are a Stranger should find out a single Man and one of no note in such a large City as Sevill or one who perhaps before you could get thither would be gone to some other part of the World I told her I had an Art by which I could do more than that and thus much I knew that if I were at my liberty and had a little travelling Money I should not be a year e're I found him She asked what Art that was 'T is what I learned from my Father said I and is very common among us She desired to see the effects of it I told her I would shew it in resolving whatever question she would ask me She bade me tell her where her Husband was at that time and when he would come home I told her she must buy me a small Drum which had never been used before and I would then tell her