Wondering
much at this "judgment of God," Dickenson went to work. Indeed, to do
him justice, he seems to have been always ready enough to use his burly
strength and small wit, trusting to them to carry him through the world
wherein his soul was beleaguered by many inscrutable judgments of God
and the universal treachery of his brother-man.
The crew abandoned the ship in a heavy storm. A fire was kindled in the
bight of a sand-hill and protected as well as might be with sails and
palmetto branches; and to this, Dickenson, with "Great trembling and
Pain of Hartt," carried his baby in his own arms and laid it in its
mother's breast. Its little body was pitiful to see from leanness, and a
great fever was upon it. Robert Barrow, the crippled captain, and a sick
passenger shared the child's shelter. "Whereupon two Canibals appeared,
naked, but for a breech-cloth of plaited straw, with Countenances bloody
and furious, and foaming at the Mouth"; but on being given tobacco,
retreated inland to alarm the tribe. The ship's company gathered
together and sat down to wait their return, expecting cruelty, says
Dickenson, and dreadful death. Christianity was now to be brought face
to face with heathenness, which fact our author seems to have recognized
under all his terror. "We began by putting our trust in the Lord, hoping
for no Mercy from these bloody-minded Creatures; having too few guns to
use except to enrage them, a Motion arose among us to deceive them by
calling ourselves Spaniards, that Nation having some influence over
them"; to which lie all consented, except Robert Barrow.
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