their ancestors, that he found it necessary to add commands to
persuasions, and then threats to commands; and having expressed in the
strongest terms his abhorrence of so cowardly and brutal a practice, he
told them, that the first man he saw attempt to touch the flesh of a
prisoner to devour it, he would instantly put the offender to death.

Shortly after this warning, a fray took place between the natives of his
father-in-law's dominions, and their enemies from a hostile island. A
number of captives were taken; and all under his command held his former
orders in such reverence, that none, excepting two (and they had before
shown refractory dispositions,) presumed to disobey his edict of mercy.
But these men, in derision of his lenity, particularly to the female
sex, selected a woman prisoner to be their victim; and slaying her, as
they would have done a beast, they commenced their horrible repast upon
her body. Laonce descried the scene at a distance just as they had
prepared their hideous banquet, and, going resolutely towards them,
levelled his musket at the cannibals. One of the wretches was killed
with the horrid morsel in his mouth, and a second shot, brought down his
voracious accomplice in the act. This bold example so awed all within
ken of the fact, that from that hour, until the day he quitted the
island, a period of fourteen years, no captive ever met with the
interdicted fate. Though the old sovereign continued in life, he
consigned the power to his new son, and Laonce became virtually king of
the place. Indeed, so reconciled was he and his friend the north Briton
(who also married) to the spot which had first sheltered them, and then
adopted them even as its legitimate offspring, that although many ships
of different nations touched there, no inducements could prevail on them
to quit their sea-girt home of simple nature, for all the blandishments
which civilized life could produce. Yet Laonce took a hospitable delight
in showing every act of friendship in his power to the captains of the