I was ashamed to accept such an offer as this, but he pressed it earnestly, and importuned the doctor to move me to accept it, telling him that he should not be easy if I did not; so that, in short, the doctor advised me to agree to it, and, accordingly, he hired a messenger and a mule, and sent away for his two sons to come to him; and such expedition the messenger made, that in six days he returned with the two sons and three servants, all on horseback. His two sons were very pretty, well-behaved youths, who appeared to be gentlemen in their very countenances; the eldest was about thirteen years old, and the other about eleven. I treated them on board, as I had done their father, with all possible respect; and, having entertained them two days, left orders that they should be treated in the same manner when I was gone; and to this I added aloud, that their father might hear it, that whenever they had a mind to go away, they should let them go. But their father laid a great many solemn charges upon them that they should not stir out of the ship till I came back safe, and that I gave them leave, and he made them promise they would not; and the young gentlemen kept their word so punctually, that, when our supercargo, whom I left in command, offered to let them go on shore several times, to divert them with shooting and hunting, they would not stir out of the ship, and did not till I came back again. Having gone this length, and made everything ready for my adventure, we set out, viz., Captain Merlotte, the Spanish doctor, the old mutineer who had been my second mate, but who was now captain of the Madagascar ship, and myself, with two midshipmen, whom he took as servants, but whom I resolved to make the directors of the main enterprise. As to the number, I found my Spaniard made no scruple of that, if it had been half my ship's company. We set out, some on horses and some on mules, as we could get them, but the Spaniard and myself rode on two very good horses, being the same that his two sons came on. We arrived at a noble country-seat, about a league short of the town, where, at first, I thought we had been only to put in for refreshment, but I soon found that it was really his dwelling-house, and where his family and servants resided. Here we were received like princes, and with as much ceremony as if he had been a prince that entertained us. The major-domo, or steward of his house, received us, took in our baggage, and ordered our servants to be taken care of.