But in this unhappy plight I was not left without a friend. One midday, when I was resting from my toil in the fields, there came to me a spare and sallow boy, somewhat younger than myself, and spoke courteously to me in a kind of French, the which I, being by no means without my rudiments, made shift to understand. I soon perceived that we had a something in common, namely, a heavy and grievous grudge against Don Alfonso de Silva de Marabona, the which became a bond of unity betwixt us. Antonio (so was he named) was nephew to the admiral, and dependent on him—though his father had been a rich man,—by him, moreover, treated with great rigour. Ere long I was well acquainted with Antonio’s doleful case. It was eleven years since his father the elder Antonio had sailed away for Spain, being summoned thither about some question of law concerning his estates in Castile. He took with him, in the galleon _San Felipe_, a store of treasure belonging to his brother the admiral, together with a yet costlier freight for behoof of his Catholic Majesty of Spain. And there was Antonio, a motherless infant of four years, left in his uncle’s charge, his father purposing to return for him in the following summer, by the which time he hoped to have set his affairs in order. The stormy season of the year was at hand when he departed, and divers of his friends had warned him against the perils of the long voyage. But Don Antonio feared the elements less than the French and English rovers who then infested the seas, and he had indeed chosen this time advisedly, for that it was little likely to tempt the pirates from their lairs. It fell out, however, that he had not left port above three days when a great tempest arose, suddenly, as the manner is in those regions, and to the wonted terrors of the tornado was added an earthquake, with fierce rumblings and vast upheavals of the soil, so that the admiral made great lament about his brother and the wealth he had in charge. Don Antonio came no more to Hispaniola; the galleon _San Felipe_ was heard of never more; and his son had remained under the austere governance of Don Alfonso, who showed him no kindness, but ever seemed to look upon him as a burthen. When Antonio came to the age of twelve, he inquired of his uncle whether the estates of his late father would not one day be his; but the admiral made answer that he had long since purchased the property from his brother, who had purposed sometime to quit the island and spend the remnant of his days in Spain.