I ordered him publicly to keep the money on board which he had, and to
buy up with it a quantity of ammunition, if he could get it, and so to
furnish us for new exploits; and, in the meantime, I resolved to get a
quantity of gold and some jewels, which I had on board the great ship,
and place them so that I might carry them off without notice as soon as
he came back; and so, according to William's directions, I left him
to go the voyage, and I went on board the great ship, in which we had
indeed an immense treasure.
We waited no less than two months for William's return, and indeed
I began to be very uneasy about William, sometimes thinking he had
abandoned me, and that he might have used the same artifice to have
engaged the other men to comply with him, and so they were gone away
together; and it was but three days before his return that I was just
upon the point of resolving to go away to Madagascar, and give him over;
but the old surgeon, who mimicked the Quaker and passed for the master
of the sloop at Surat, persuaded me against that, for which good advice
and apparent faithfulness in what he had been trusted with, I made him a
party to my design, and he proved very honest.
At length William came back, to our inexpressible joy, and brought a
great many necessary things with him; as, particularly, he brought sixty
barrels of powder, some iron shot, and about thirty ton of lead; also
he brought a great deal of provisions; and, in a word, William gave me
a public account of his voyage, in the hearing of whoever happened to be
upon the quarter-deck, that no suspicions might be found about us.
After all was done, William moved that he might go up again, and that
I would go with him; named several things which we had on board that he
could not sell there; and, particularly, told us he had been obliged to
leave several things there, the caravans being not come in; and that he
had engaged to come back again with goods.
This was what I wanted. The men were eager for his going, and
particularly because he told them they might load the sloop back with
rice and provisions; but I seemed backward to going, when the old
surgeon stood up and persuaded me to go, and with many arguments pressed
me to it; as, particularly, if I did not go, there would be no order,
and several of the men might drop away, and perhaps betray all the rest;
and that they should not think it safe for the sloop to go again if I
did not go; and to urge me to it, he offered himself to go with me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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