A third repetition of the offense, and he was sold into slavery; and if he ran away from his master, he was liable to be put to death by the first person who met him.

The theft of any article above the value of three shillings was punishable by death, and a similar code of punishment prevailed for all kinds of offenses Human life was then held in such slight regard that we must remember that, terrible as the doings of the Inquisition were, they were not so utterly foreign, to the age in which they were perpetrated, as would appear to us, living in these days of moderate punishment and general humanity.
By the boys, however, brought up in England, which at that time was bitterly and even fiercely anti-Catholic--a state of things which naturally followed the doings in the reign of Queen Mary, and the threatening aspect maintained by Spain towards this country--popery was held in utter abhorrence, and the Inquisition was the bugbear with which mothers frightened their children, when disobedient.
The thought, therefore, of falling into the hands of this dreaded tribunal was very terrible to the boys.

They debated, between themselves, whether it would not be better for them to leave Arica secretly, to make for the mountains, and to take up their lot, for life, among the natives of the plains, who had so hospitably received them.

They had, indeed, almost arrived at the conclusion that this would be their best plan of procedure.
They lingered, however, in the hope, daily becoming fainter, of the arrival of Drake's fleet; but it seemed that, by this time, it must have failed in its object of doubling the Horn.

Nearly six months had elapsed, since they had been left on the eastern coast; and, according to their calculation of distance, two months should have amply sufficed to enable them to make the circuit of Southern America.
They could not tell that the fleet had been delayed by extraordinary accidents.