ATTACK BY INDIANS.

But rumours soon reached the Adelantado of a projected attack on the
settlement by the natives, and he took measures to seize Quibia in his own
palace. The Indians, dismayed at the capture of their cacique, offered
large quantities of gold for his ransom, but the Adelantado preferred to
keep him as a hostage for peace. However, as he was being conveyed down
the river, on board one of the boats, he managed, although bound hand and
foot, and in the custody of one of the most powerful of the Spaniards, to
spring overboard and to make his escape, swimming under water to the
shore. Henceforward, as might have been expected, there was war to the
knife between the natives and the settlers. An attempt was made to burn
down the village by means of blazing arrows. A boat's crew of eleven
Spaniards, who had proceeded some distance up the river, were attacked by
savages in canoes, and only one man escaped to carry to the settlement the
news of the massacre of his companions.


SETTLEMENT ABANDONED.

The admiral, with three of the caravels, was in the offing, awaiting a
wind favourable for his departure, but the dry weather had made the river
so shallow that it was impossible for the caravel left with the settlers
to cross the bar, and as they had no boat strong enough to weather the
surf, it seemed impossible for them to carry to him tidings of their
condition. They were in despair; for if they were left, they knew that
they were left to perish. The admiral, on his part, had become uneasy, not
knowing that their failure to communicate with him was owing to the fact