But this is a digression: I return to my landing. It would be needless
to take notice of all the ceremonies and civilities that the Spaniards
received me with. The first Spaniard, whom, as I said, I knew very well,
was he whose life I had saved. He came towards the boat, attended by one
more, carrying a flag of truce also; and he not only did not know me at
first, but he had no thoughts, no notion of its being me that was come,
till I spoke to him. "Seignior," said I, in Portuguese, "do you not know
me?" At which he spoke not a word, but giving his musket to the man that
was with him, threw his arms abroad, saying something in Spanish that I
did not perfectly hear, came forward and embraced me, telling me he was
inexcusable not to know that face again that he had once seen, as of an
angel from heaven sent to save his life; he said abundance of very
handsome things, as a well-bred Spaniard always knows how, and then,
beckoning to the person that attended him, bade him go and call out his
comrades. He then asked me if I would walk to my old habitation, where
he would give me possession of my own house again, and where I should see
they had made but mean improvements. I walked along with him, but, alas!
I could no more find the place than if I had never been there; for they
had planted so many trees, and placed them in such a position, so thick
and close to one another, and in ten years' time they were grown so big,
that the place was inaccessible, except by such windings and blind ways
as they themselves only, who made them, could find.
I asked them what put them upon all these fortifications; he told me I
would say there was need enough of it when they had given me an account
how they had passed their time since their arriving in the island,
especially after they had the misfortune to find that I was gone. He
told me he could not but have some pleasure in my good fortune, when he
heard that I was gone in a good ship, and to my satisfaction; and that he
had oftentimes a strong persuasion that one time or other he should see
me again, but nothing that ever befell him in his life, he said, was so
surprising and afflicting to him at first as the disappointment he was
under when he came back to the island and found I was not there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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