As they sat in the hut, in the warmth of the blaze, that rainy May day, Lionel Wafer met with an accident. He was sitting on the ground, beside one of the pirates, who was drying his powder, little by little, half a pound at a time, in a great silver dish, part of the plunder of the cruise. "A careless Fellow passed by with his Pipe lighted," and dropped some burning crumb of tobacco on to the powder, which at once blew up. It scorched Wafer's knee very terribly, tearing off the flesh from the bone, and burning his leg from the knee to the thigh. Wafer, who was the surgeon of the party, had a bag full of salves and medicines. He managed to dress his wounds, and to pass a fairly comfortable night, "and being unwilling to be left behind by my Companions, I made hard shift to jog on, and bear them Company," when camp was broken at daybreak. Lame as he was, he kept up with his mates all that day, fording rivers "several times," and crossing country which would tax the strongest man, in good condition. "The last time we forded the River, it was so deep, that our tallest Men stood in the deepest place, and handed the sick, weak and short Men"; by which act of comradeship "we all got over safe." Two of the pirates, "Robert Spratlin and William Bowman," could get no farther, and were left behind at the river. Dampier notes that his "Joint of Bambo, which I stopt at both Ends, closing it with Wax, so as to keep out any Water," preserved his "Journal and other Writings from being wet," though he had often to swim for it. Drenched and tired, they pitched their huts by the river-bank, poor Wafer in torment from his knee, and the rest of them hungry and cold. They had hardly finished their huts, when the river came down in a great wall of water, some sudden flood, due to a cloud-burst higher up. The flood sucked away their huts, and forced them to run to higher ground. They passed that night "straggling in the Woods, some under one Tree, some under another," with the thunder roaring overhead, and the lightning making a livid brightness all about them. The rain fell in torrents, and the pirates were far too wretched to keep watch. "So our Slaves, taking Opportunity, went away in the Night; all but one, who was hid in some hole, and knew nothing of their design, or else fell asleep." Among these slaves was a black man, Lionel Wafer's assistant, who carried the salves and medicaments. He took these with him when he slunk away, nor did he forget the "Chirurgeon's Gun and all his Money." He left poor Wafer destitute there, in the forest, "depriv'd of wherewithal to dress my sore."