been taken prisoner, and had just been to be killed, as his two enemies
were. I beckoned him again to come to me, and gave him all the signs of
encouragement that I could think of; and he came nearer and nearer,
kneeling down every ten or twelve steps, in token of acknowledgment for
saving his life. I smiled at him, and looked pleasantly, and beckoned to
him to come still nearer. At length he came close to me, and then he
kneeled down again, kissed the ground, and laid his head upon the
ground, and taking me by the foot, set my foot upon his head. This, it
seems, was in token of swearing to be my slave for ever. I took him up,
and made much of him, and encouraged him all I could. But there was more
work to do yet; for I perceived the savage, whom I knocked down, was not
killed, but stunned with the blow, and began to come to himself: so I
pointed to him, and showed him the savage, that he was not dead: upon
this he spoke some words to me; and though I could not understand them,
yet I thought they were pleasant to hear, for they were the first sound
of a man's voice that I had heard, my own excepted, for above
five-and-twenty years. But there was no time for such reflections now:
the savage, who was knocked down, recovered himself so far as to sit up
upon the ground; and I perceived that my savage began to be afraid; but
when I saw that, I presented my other piece at the man, as if I would
shoot him: upon this my savage, for so I call him now, made a motion to
me to lend him my sword, which hung naked in a belt by my side: so I
did: he no sooner had it, but he runs to his enemy, and at one blow cut
off his head so cleverly, no executioner in Germany could have done it
sooner or better; which I thought very strange for one, who, I had
reason to believe, never saw a sword in his life before, except their
own wooden swords: however, it seems, as I learnt afterwards, they make
their wooden swords so sharp, so heavy, and the wood is so hard, that
they will cut off heads even with them, nay, and arms, and that at one
blow too. When he had done this, he comes laughing to me in sign of