should be answerable for the consequences. The wary alcayde again required
time to reply, and a copy of the letters; saying that he held the fortress
for the king, by the command of the admiral, his lord, who had gained
these territories and islands, and that when the latter arrived, he should
obey his orders. [72]

The whole spirit of Bobadilla was roused within him at the refusal of the
alcayde. Assembling all the people he had brought from Spain, together
with the sailors of the ships, and the rabble of the place, he exhorted
them to aid him in getting possession of the prisoners, but to harm no one
unless in case of resistance. The mob shouted assent, for Bobadilla was
already the idol of the multitude. About the hour of vespers he set out,
at the head of this motley army, to storm a fortress destitute of a
garrison, and formidable only in name, being calculated to withstand only
a naked and slightly-armed people. The accounts of this transaction have
something in them bordering on the ludicrous, and give it the air of
absurd rhodomontade. Bobadilla assailed the portal with great impetuosity,
the frail bolts and locks of which gave way at the first shock, and
allowed him easy admission. In the meantime, however, his zealous
myrmidons applied ladders to the walls, as if about to carry the place by
assault, and to experience a desperate defence. The alcayde, Miguel Diaz,
and Don Diego de Alvarado, alone appeared on the battlements; they had
drawn swords, but offered no resistance. Bobadilla entered the fortress in
triumph, and without molestation. The prisoners were found in a chamber in
irons. He ordered that they should be brought up to him to the top of the
fortress, where, having put a few questions to them, as a matter of form,
he gave them in charge to an alguazil named Juan de Espinosa. [73]

Such was the arrogant and precipitate entrance into office of Francisco de
Bobadilla. He had reversed the order of his written instructions; having