I left him in tears on the boat and travel'd back away from the water. I was in process of storing my cloathes in the tree again, but not my good linen shirt, which I had abandoned upon finding it soiled and foul, and had not yet removed my breeches when the sun set and the nature of the beast came over me. I did try to fight it off, for the binding of cloathes angers the beast, but it was too eager to be free in the high country again. Through the smok'd lens I watched it struggle and fight with the breeches, and become more and more savage by their simple constrictions.
The beast kill'd many creatures that night, and in my dreams were the dim memories of a dreadful monster that it fought with for close on an hour afore it fell to the inhuman power of the beast's claws and teeth.
I woke in the shade, and the first thought was I was not in the high country, for there was white sand beneath me. I still wore my breeches, though they were rent and torn to be all but useless to me. They too had been soiled, as was my good linen shirt, though these by the beast.
I started at once, for next to me on the sand was a terrible great lion, on its side as if still asleep in the morning sun. I felt great fear for a moment but then saw it was dead and could not hurt me. Indeed, one leg was torn right off as one would tear apart a roast fowl, and much of the meat of its stomach was gone. The claw marks and teeth marks were most familiar to me, and left me with no question that the beast had dispatched this great lion.
I stood up and now saw the lion had been felled and lay between myself and the coast, and there was my boat just off shore, and there was little Xury staring with wide eyes and trembling with a great fear in him. He stood upon our boat's little deck holding in his hands our biggest gun, which was almost musket-bore. He stair'd at me as one does at awful things, and I knew in his eyes his kind and goodly master now was an awful thing, for I could but suppose what he had seen in the night and now come the morning.
I waved to him and spoke kind words and told him to be not afraid, but still he shivered and held the fuzee. At last, I order'd him to shore and to bring the hatchet from the cabin. This firm tone help'd calm him and, taking the little hatchet in one hand, he swam to shore with the other hand, coming close to me, though still his eyes were wide.
I bethought myself that perhaps the skin of the lion might one way or other be of some value to us. I resolv’d to take off his skin if I could. Xury and I went to work with him, but Xury was much the better workman at it, for I knew very ill how to do it. Indeed it took us both up the whole day, but at last we got off the hide of him, and spreading it on the top of our cabin, the sun dried it in two days' time. It afterwards served me to lie upon. Xury would no longer sleep near me, nor did he smile or talk.
I made forward for about three days more, without offering to go near the shore, till I saw the land run out a great length into the sea, at about the distance of four or five leagues before me. The sea being very calm, I kept a large offing, to make this point. At length, doubling the point, at about two leagues from the land, I saw plainly land on the other side to seaward. I concluded, as it was most certain indeed, this was the Cape de Verd and those the islands called, from thence, Cape de Verd Islands. However, they were at a great distance and I could not well tell what I had best to do, for if I should be taken with a gale of wind I might neither reach one nor the other.
In this dilemma, as I was very pensive, I stepped into the cabin and sat me down, Xury having the helm. On a sudden, the boy cried out, "Master, master, a ship with a sail!" The foolish boy was frightened out of his wits, thinking it must be some of his master's ships sent to pursue us, when I knew we were gotten far enough out of their reach. I jumped out of the cabin and saw it was a Portuguese ship, and was bound to the coast of Guinea for Negroes. But when I observ’d the course she steered, I was soon convinced they were bound some other way and did not design to come any nearer to the shore.
With all the sail I could make, I found I should not be able to come in their way. They would be gone by before I could make any signal to them. But after I had crowded to the utmost and began to despair, they saw me by the help of their perspective glasses. So they shortened sail to let me come up. I was encouraged with this, and as I had my patron's ensign on board, I made a waft of it to them for a signal of distress and fired a gun, both which they saw. Upon these signals they very kindly brought to and lay by for me.
In about three hours' time I came up with them. They asked me what I was in Portuguese, and in Spanish, and in French, but I understood little of them. At last, a Scotch sailor who was on board called to me and I answered him and told him I was an Englishman, and I had made my escape out of slavery from the Moors at Sallee. They then bade me come on board and took me in and all my goods.