"What can it mean?" the sailors asked of one another as we got into the open, while, for myself, I was as lost in wonderment as it was possible to be. Naturally, my first thought was that the _Furie_ had been attacked by either the Spanish or the French, the first from St. Dominic, or the latter from Aittii. Yet I knew not either how this could be, since the sound we had heard was that of our own cannon, which I knew well enough, we having practised all of them considerably on our voyage out. Moreover, two cannon shots, and that from one side only, do not make a battle, so I was sorely puzzled as I stood at the tiller of the galliot. Yet when we had rounded the point, 'twas pretty easy to perceive what had happened. For in the rays of the waning moon we did see that the Provydence ship had got away from the _Furie_, and that, with all her sails filled, she was shaping her course to the south-east. And in another moment also did we see that the Snow's trysail mast was shotted away--broken off clean down, leaving but a short stump, and with the sail itself all a-dragging in the water. And now from us, as we headed for the _Furie_, arose a babble of talk and questionings as to what this must mean, while all of us decided that, at least in some way, these scoundrels had managed to steal some of the sows of silver, or the bars or bags, and to get away from our bark in the night. But ere long we knew how much far worse than these things were; we knew that we had been robbed of a terrible deal of what was ours. And soon, too, we knew it. For when our course was still set dead for the _Furie_, we did see coming towards us with great swiftness one of the cotton-wood canoes we had made--under Phips' direction and partly with his own hands--and in it three of our men, who instantly signalled to us that we should come about and pick them up, for, calls out one to me-- "You must away, sir, at once after those villains, and we are to go with you to help. For they have robbed us, the thieves, oh! treacherously! They are, after all, but buccaneers from the Provydence in the Gulf." So, much startled, we did bring ourselves to, putting our foremast aback, and throwing off a line to the canoe, and so had them all soon aboard, and then, losing no time, away after the Snow we went, while from the _Furie_ we saw Phips standing on the poop a-waving of his hands as though in encouragement or farewell, and from her there did, come a ringing English cheer. And now we were to hear a story indeed of treachery unequalled, of villainy extreme. For it appeared, as I did gather from our bos'un, who had come to join us with the other two, that these scoundrels had all along been a-planning of their scheme; and thus it happened.