Ojeda was asking Juan de la Cosa about the nature of the country. It
seemed to him the ideal field for a man of spirit and high heart. How
glorious a conquest would it be to abolish the vile superstitions of the
barbarians and set up the altars of the true faith!

The pilot was a little amused and somewhat doubtful; he knew something
of savages, and Ojeda and the priests on board did not. It was not, he
suggested, always easy to convert stubborn heathen. A pig was a small
animal, but Ojeda would remember that to the Moslem it was as great an
object of aversion as a lion.

"Ho!" said Ojeda superbly, "that is quite--" He was interrupted by a
blow that knocked his legs out from under him and landed him on the
ground in a sitting position with his hat over his eyes.

"Who did that?" he cried, leaping to his feet, hand on sword.

"Only a pig, my lord," the sailor answered choking with half-swallowed
laughter. It was a pig, which the sailors had goaded to such a state of
desperation that it had bolted straight into the group as a pig will,
and was now galloping away, pursued by a great variety of maledictions
and persons. "They have got the creature now," he added, "You are not
hurt?" for Ojeda was actually pale with indignation and disgust.

"No," sputtered the youth, "but that pig--that p-pig--" He looked around
him with an eye which seemed to challenge any beholder of whatever
condition, to laugh and be instantly run through. Fortunately most of
those on the wharf had been too much occupied to see Ojeda fall before
the pig, and just then the trumpets blew, and all hastened to get back