"That's right," said the stranger. "You must know, then, that we have here men of various nations. Many of them are Spaniards. They and other foreigners have lately been growing more and more jealous of our captain. He has done two or three things lately to offend their prejudices, certainly. The consequence is, that they have hatched a conspiracy, which has just been discovered, to murder him and all the English in the place; you all will be among the first victims. In asking you to fight for us, I invite you to fight for your own lives. To show that I trust you, I have brought you some pistols and ammunition, and a bundle of swords done up in this sail. The villains have fixed on an hour before daybreak to begin the attack on us. Arm yourselves, and be ready to sally forth at a moment's notice. They will sound a trumpet as a signal to their party to begin the work of slaughter. I will try to be here before then. If I am not, make your way to Captain Ralph's quarters. He will have, before that, released your captain, who will put himself at your head. You will also be joined by four or five men, who, like me, will be glad to get away from this den, and regain our liberty at any cost. I must stay no longer, or I may be missed. Be prompt and firm, and we may come off conquerors. Remember, however, it is victory or death for all of us!" These words came like a thunder-clap among us. We could scarcely believe our ears. Mr Gale, however, at once replied, that we would undertake exactly to follow the stranger's directions, as we clearly understood the dangerous predicament in which we all stood. The instant he received our reply, he hurried from the loft, and we could see his figure from our loophole proceeding to the upper part of the settlement. Our first care was to examine the package, which we found contained the arms he had promised. We immediately loaded the pistols, and buckled on the cutlasses, and then stood ready to descend at the expected signal. To men long shut up as we had been, any excitement is acceptable; so that, far from feeling any alarm at what we had heard, scarcely anything could have contributed so much to raise our spirits. I truly believe that we valued the prospect of obtaining our liberty much more from the chance of having to fight for it. We were only eager for the fray to begin. We could not tell exactly how we were to find out our enemies; but Mr Gale charged us not to attack anyone till we were attacked, unless we received directions from Captain Helfrich, or the stranger who had just visited us.