Such was Antonio’s story, as he told it to me. He called his uncle a fiend; as for me, I called him, in the English manner, Old Marrow-bones; we both signified one and the same thing—that we held him in loathing and abhorrence. This was our bond of union, and soon it became our custom to meet daily and rehearse our woes in consort. Antonio was ever careful to keep these our meetings secret, since he knew that, coming perchance to the admiral’s ears, they would be deemed a cause of offence, and be punished, beyond doubt, with many stripes. But to dub your enemy with opprobrious names brings you no contentment, and does him no hurt. In no great while I began to consider of some means whereby I might contrive to slip the leash of my illustrious master. Having made Antonio swear by all his saints that he would not betray me, I took counsel with him; indeed, I essayed to persuade the boy to put all to the hazard, and make his escape with me. But Antonio could not screw his resolution to this pitch. He was content to throw himself with right good-will into the perfecting of my plans. And so it came to pass that one fine day, about sunset, I took French leave (as the saying is) and set off on my lonely way to liberty. I had nothing upon me save my garments, and a long machete (so their knives are called) given me by Antonio; but as Samson slew countless Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, and David laid Goliath low with a pebble from the brook; so I, though I did not liken myself to those heroes of old, yet knew myself to be a fellow-countryman with Francis Drake, and needed no doughtier ensample to inspire me. Following Antonio’s wise and prudent counsel I set my face towards the north-west angle of the island, for the reason that, parted from it by only a narrow strip of sea, there lay the smaller island of Tortuga, where it was possible that some countrymen of my own might be. Tortuga had been at some time a settlement of the Spaniards, but they had now abandoned it, and if an English ship should chance to have put in to water there, or to burn the barnacles off its hull, I might light upon the crew and join myself to them, and so bring my tribulations to an end. And after near a week’s trudging—with herbs for my meat and water from the streams for my drink—I came one day to the further shore of Hispaniola, and with great gladness beheld the strange hump-backed island, like a monstrous tortoise floating on the sea, for which cause it was named Tortuga.