Presently
after, licence came that we should go on shore, and I pressed to be
gone with the first; howbeit, the master came unto me and said,
"Sirrah, you must go with me to Seville by water." I knew his meaning
well enough, and that he meant there to offer me up as a sacrifice to
the Holy House. For the ignorant zeal of a number of these
superstitious Spaniards is such that they think that they have done God
good service when they have brought a Lutheran heretic to the fire to
be burnt; for so they do account of us. Well, I perceiving all this,
took upon me not to suspect anything, but was still jocund and merry,
howbeit I knew it stood me upon to shift for myself. And so waiting my
time when the master was in his cabin asleep, I conveyed myself
secretly down by the shrouds into the ship boat, and made no stay, but
cut the rope wherewithal she was moored, and so by the cable hailed on
shore, where I leapt on land, and let the boat go whither it would.
Thus by the help of God I escaped that day, and then never stayed at
St. Lucar, but went all night by the way which I had seen others take
towards Seville. So that the next morning I came to Seville, and
sought me out a workmaster, that I might fall to my science, which was
weaving of taffaetas, and being entertained I set myself close to my
work, and durst not for my life once to stir abroad, for fear of being
known, and being thus at my work, within four days after I heard one of
my fellows say that he heard there was great inquiry made for an
Englishman that came home in the fleet.
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