We were carried into Lisbon, and there my master, the only friend I had
in the world, dying of his wounds, I was left starving in a foreign
country where I knew nobody, and could not speak a word of the language.

However, an old pilot found me, and, speaking in broken English, asked
me if I would go with him.

"Yes," said I, "with all my heart."

For two years I lived with him, and then he got to be master under Don
Garcia de Carravallas, captain of a Portuguese galleon, which was bound
to Goa in the East Indies. On this voyage I began to get a smattering of
the Portuguese tongue and a superficial knowledge of navigation. I also
learnt to be an arrant thief and a bad sailor.

I was reputed as mighty diligent and faithful to my master, but I was
very far from honest.

Indeed, I had no sense of virtue or religion in me, never having heard
much of either, and was growing up apace to be as wicked as anybody
could be.

Thieving, lying, swearing, forswearing, joined to the most abominable
lewdness, was the stated practice of the ship's crew; adding to it that,
with the most insufferable boasts of their own courage, they were,
generally speaking, the most complete cowards that I ever met with. And
I was exactly fitted for their society.

According to the English proverb, he that is shipped with the devil must