My two guards looked upon me with some anxiety, when they saw me laughing in this manner, and spoke together in a low voice; after which the one of them got up softly and went away. Something perturbed, I questioned the other man, by signs, that being our only method of converse, whither it was he went; who answered, similarly, that he was gone to see if the king were yet awake, and ready to administer justice in my cause. I should have sought to learn more, had I not chanced to observe upon one of the ships that lay by the wharf, a flag hauling up, at which sight I was filled with an excessive joy; for it was the English flag; and the ship, when I had more particularly noted her, one of our Turkey Company's merchant vessels, namely, the _Happy Adventure_, seventy tons burden and very sound craft. Leaping to my feet, I made signs to my Moor that these were friends of mine who would speak for my general probity, and at the same time offered him three or four pieces of silver (all I had) the better to enforce my request. Never have I seen a man so metamorphosed as he, who, expecting at the utmost to receive his legal two-pence, had suddenly thrust upon him a handful of crowns. From a petty evader of duties, I became in his eyes a fountain of generosity, and prince of swimmers. He fell prone on his face before me in the sand, and covered my shoes with kisses, naming me in his language his eternal benefactor, the light of his life, the supporter of his age (or if not these then what you shall please, for I understood nothing of it all save his cringing and kissing of my toe). Now while he was thus engaged, his companion returned together with him they called their king, but was only an ordinary Moor to see to, extremely fat (which is perhaps a sign of pre-eminence in these parts) and abominably filthy. He had two curved swords stuck in his waist, and wore a patched green cloak.