lied busily. They said that the Admiral was merely laying a trap in
order to get them into his power, and that he would send them home to
Spain in chains; and they even went so far as to assure their
fellow-rebels that the story of a caravel having arrived was not really
true; but that Columbus, who was an adept in the arts of necromancy, had
really made his people believe that they had seen a caravel in the dusk;
and that if one had really arrived it would not have gone away so
suddenly, nor would the Admiral and his brother and son have failed to
take their passage in it.

To consolidate the effect of these remarkable statements on the still
wavering mutineers, the Porras brothers decided to commit them to an open
act of violence which would successfully alienate them from the Admiral.
They formed them, therefore, into an armed expedition, with the idea of
seizing the stores remaining on the wreck and taking the Admiral
personally. Columbus fortunately got news of this, as he nearly always
did when there was treachery in the wind; and he sent Bartholomew to try
to persuade them once more to return to their duty--a vain and foolish
mission, the vanity and folly of which were fully apparent to
Bartholomew. He duly set out upon it; but instead of mild words he took
with him fifty armed men--the whole available able-bodied force, in
fact--and drew near to the position occupied by the rebels.


The exhortation of the Porras brothers had meanwhile produced its effect,
and it was decided that six of the strongest men among the mutineers
should make for Bartholomew himself and try to capture or kill him. The
fierce Adelantado, finding himself surrounded by six assailants, who
seemed to be directing their whole effort against his life, swung his
sword in a berserk rage and slashed about him, to such good purpose that