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428 of Cuba, and suffered much apprehension on account of the numerous pirates with which the coast is infested. The captain, mate, and the whole of the crew had their separate stories to tell of the bloody deeds of those miscreants, as each new creek or table-land marked out the spot in which they had been perpetrated. The captain said that, on his way to Belize, he had been boarded by a small boat containing thirty men, who pretended they only wished to know if they had any Spaniards aboard: they told him it was useless to make any resistance, for that, on firing a shot, more boats would put off, and they should all be massacred: he escaped with no other injury than some plunder of the articles they wanted out of the cargo. "But what became of the Eliza?" said another, "Why she was skuttled off Yucatañ," answered a third," and Jem, who escaped up the country, afterwards saw all the bodies of his mess-mates on the beach without their heads."

This kind of conversation, a