began to run short, and rations were doled out in pittances which grew
scantier and scantier until all the admiral's authority was needed to
prevent his ravenous shipmates from killing and eating the Caribs who were
on board,--in retribution, so ran the grim jest, for their cannibalism. At
last, when famine was imminent, after a voyage of three months' duration,
the two caravels entered the Bay of Cadiz on the 11th of June, 1496.


RECEPTION AT COURT.

After about a month's delay, Columbus received a summons to proceed to the
Court, which was then at Burgos. In the course of his journey thither he
adopted the same means of dazzling the eyes of the populace, by the
display of gold and the exhibition of his captives, as on his return from
his first voyage; but so many unsuccessful colonists had returned, sick at
heart and ruined in health, to tell the tale of failure to their
countrymen, that this triumphal procession was very unlike the last as
regards the welcome accorded by the public. However the Sovereigns seem to
have given the admiral a kind reception, and instead of placing him on his
defence against the charges which had been brought forward by Father Buil,
they listened with sympathy to his story of the difficulties which had
beset him, and heard with sanguine satisfaction of the recent discovery of
the mines from which it was said that the natives procured most of the
gold that had been found in their possession, and which promised an
incalculably rich harvest. Presently, in apparent confirmation of this
belief, one Pedro Nino, a captain of the admiral's, announced his arrival
at Cadiz, with a quantity of "gold in bars" on board his ship. It was not
until great expectations had been raised at Court, and the wildest ideas
conceived of the magnitude of this supposed first instalment of the riches
of the newly found gold mines, that it turned out that this Nino was