Page:The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse.pdf/197

me. And the ship proceeded on her course, perhaps they fancied I was dead. God knows what my feelings were when I saw the ship sail away! They said among themselves We have the right man, they already send ships after him.

And I every day expected the others who, as stated above, were away, and were preparing for me. Thereupon one day I heard a howling in the huts of the king who was absent. I became alarmed, and I thought they had come back, (for it is the custom of the savages, that when one of them returns, after having been away no longer than four days, his friends shout with joy). Shortly after the shouting, one of them came to me and said, "thy part-owner has come and says, that the others have fallen very sick." Then I rejoiced and thought, "Hero God desires to do something." A little while thereafter my part-owner's brother, entering the hut wherein I was, sat down by me and began to cry, and said that his brother, his mother, and his brother's children had all fallen sick together, and his brother had sent him to me and he was to tell me : that I should intercede with my God, so that they might become sound again. He also said: "My brother imagines that thy God must be angry." I replied, "Yes, my God in angry, because he wants to eat me, and he has gone to Mambukabe and he is making ready there." And quoth I to him, "You declare that I am a Portuguese and yet I am none;" and I said to him: "Go hence to thy brother, let him return to his huts," (adding) that I would then pray to my God for his recovery.