Yet why, we ask, should Columbus have been so astonished? Had he ever
known much else from those under him but incivility and rebellion?

Ever since Mendez left in August the men had been looking in vain for
his return. Autumn and winter and spring wore away, and as the natives
had grown tired of feeding them, the shipwrecked crew were now mere
skeletons. Of course they blamed the pain-racked Admiral because Mendez
had not returned with succor; and of course they were constantly
quarreling among themselves. One day the captain who had commanded the
vessel that went to pieces near Darien came into the cabin where the
sick Admiral lay, and grumbled and quarreled and said he was going to
seize canoes from the Indians and make his way to Haiti. It was
Francisco Porras, one of the two brothers foisted on Columbus by their
relative, the king's treasurer, who wanted to get rid of them.

Porras and forty-one of the discontented voyagers actually started for
Haiti, but a short time on the rough sea sent them back ashore. They
next formed themselves into a raiding party and outraged the natives in
every possible way, falsely saying that they did so by order of the
Admiral. This so angered the Indians that they marched down to Don
Christopher's Cove, surrounded the beached ships, and threatened to kill
every Spaniard there.

It so happened that there was to be an eclipse of the moon that night,
and Columbus suddenly recalled it and turned the fact to good use. He
told the angry natives that the power that had made the moon and the
stars was very displeased with them and would prove it that very night
by darkening the moon. The childish creatures decided to wait before
attacking and see if the Admiral spoke the truth. When the eclipse