Whereon, like grown-up babies, they all burst out laughing too, shook hands with all the English, and then with each other; being, after all, as glad as any bishops to prorogue the convocation, and let unpleasant questions stand over till the next session.  The Piache relented, like a prudent man; Ayacanora returned to her hut to sulk; and Amyas to his island, to long for Cary’s return, for he felt himself on dangerous ground.

At last Will returned, safe and sound, and as merry as ever, not having lost a man (though he had had a smart brush with the Guahibas).  He brought back three of the wounded men, now pretty nigh cured; the other two, who had lost a leg apiece, had refused to come.  They had Indian wives; more than they could eat; and tobacco without end:  and if it were not for the gnats (of which Cary said that there were more mosquitoes than there was air), they should be the happiest men alive.  Amyas could hardly blame the poor fellows; for the chance of their getting home through the forest with one leg each was very small, and, after all, they were making the best of a bad matter.  And a very bad matter it seemed to him, to be left in a heathen land; and a still worse matter, when he overheard some of the men talking about their comrades’ lonely fate, as if, after all, they were not so much to be pitied.  He said nothing about it then, for he made a rule never to take notice of any facts which he got at by eavesdropping, however unintentional; but he longed that one of them would say as much to him, and he would “give them a piece of his mind.”  And a piece of his mind he had to give within the week; for while he was on a hunting party, two of his men were missing, and were not heard of for some days; at the end of which time the old cacique come to tell him that he believed they had taken to the forest, each with an Indian girl.

Amyas was very wroth at the news.  First, because it had never happened before:  he could say with honest pride, as Raleigh did afterwards when he returned from his Guiana voyage, that no Indian woman had ever been the worse for any man of his.  He had preached on this point month after month, and practised what he preached; and now his pride was sorely hurt.

Moreover, he dreaded offence to the Indians themselves:  but on this score the cacique soon comforted him, telling him that the girls, as far as he could find, had gone off of their own free will; intimating that he thought it somewhat an honor to the tribe that they had found favor in the eyes of the bearded men; and moreover, that late wars had so thinned the ranks of their men, that they were glad enough to find husbands for their maidens, and had been driven of late years to kill many of their female infants.  This sad story, common perhaps to every American tribe, and one of the chief causes of their extermination, reassured Amyas somewhat:  but he could not stomach either the loss of his men, or their breach of discipline;