“For all that day and the next we wandered in great misery, the lady weeping continually, and calling for Mr. Oxenham most piteously, and the little maid likewise, till with much ado we found the track of our comrades, and went up that as best we might:  but at nightfall, by good hap, we met the whole crew coming back, and with them 200 negroes or more, with bows and arrows.  At which sight was great joy and embracing, and it was a strange thing, sirs, to see the lady; for before that she was altogether desperate:  and yet she was now a very lioness, as soon as she had got her love again; and prayed him earnestly not to care for that gold, but to go forward to the North Sea, vowing to him in my hearing that she cared no more for poverty than she had cared for her good name, and then—­they being a little apart from the rest—­pointed round to the green forest, and said in Spanish—­which I suppose they knew not that I understood,—­’See, all round us is Paradise.  Were it not enough for you and me to stay here forever, and let them take the gold or leave it as they will?’

“To which Mr. Oxenham—­’Those who lived in Paradise had not sinned as we have, and would never have grown old or sick, as we shall.’

“And she—­’If we do that, there are poisons enough in these woods, by which we may die in each other’s arms, as would to Heaven we had died seven years agone!’

“But he—­’No, no, my life.  It stands upon my honor both to fulfil my bond with these men, whom I have brought hither, and to take home to England at least something of my prize as a proof of my own valor.’

“Then she smiling—­’Am I not prize enough, and proof enough?’ But he would not be so tempted, and turning to us offered us the half of that treasure, if we would go back with him, and rescue it from the Spaniard.  At which the lady wept and wailed much; but I took upon myself to comfort her, though I was but a simple mariner, telling her that it stood upon Mr. Oxenham’s honor; and that in England nothing was esteemed so foul as cowardice, or breaking word and troth betwixt man and man; and that better was it for him to die seven times by the Spaniards, than to face at home the scorn of all who sailed the seas.  So, after much ado, back they went again; I and Penberthy, and the three Plymouth men which escaped from the pinnace, keeping the lady as before.

“Well, sirs, we waited five days, having made houses of boughs as before, without hearing aught; and on the sixth we saw coming afar off Mr. Oxenham, and with him fifteen or twenty men, who seemed very weary and wounded; and when we looked for the rest to be behind them, behold there were no more; at which, sirs, as you may well think, our hearts sank within us.

“And Mr. O., coming nearer, cried out afar off, ‘All is lost!’ and so walked into the camp without a word, and sat himself down at the foot of a great tree with his head between his hands, speaking neither to the lady or to any one, till she very pitifully kneeling before him, cursing herself for the cause of all his mischief, and praying him to avenge himself upon that her tender body, won him hardly to look once upon her, after which (as is the way of vain and unstable man) all between them was as before.