find true immortality.

CHAPTER VII

THE THIRD VOYAGE-(continued)

It may perhaps be wearisome to the reader to return to the tangled and
depressing situation in Espanola, but it cannot be half so wearisome as
it was for Columbus, whom we left enveloped in that dark cloud of error
and surrender in which he sacrificed his dignity and good faith to the
impudent demands of a mutinous servant. To his other troubles in San
Domingo the presence of this Roldan was now added; and the reinstated
Alcalde was not long in making use of the victory he had gained. He bore
himself with intolerable arrogance and insolence, discharging one of
Columbus's personal bodyguard on the ground that no one should hold any
office on the island except with his consent. He demanded grants of land
for himself and his followers, which Columbus held himself obliged to
concede; and the Admiral, further to pacify him, invented a very
disastrous system of repartimientos, under which certain chiefs were
relieved from paying tribute on condition of furnishing feudal service to
the settlers--a system which rapidly developed into the most cruel and
oppressive kind of slavery. The Admiral at this time also, in despair of
keeping things quiet by his old methods of peace and conciliation,
created a kind of police force which roamed about the island, exacting
tribute and meting out summary punishment to all defaulters. Among other
concessions weakly made to Roldan at this time was the gift of the Crown
estate of Esperanza, situated in the Vega Real, whither he betook himself
and embarked on what was nothing more nor less than a despotic reign,
entirely ignoring the regulations and prerogatives of the Admiral, and
taking prisoners and administering punishment just as he pleased. The
Admiral was helpless, and thought of going back to Spain, but the
condition of the island was such that he did not dare to leave it.
Instead, he wrote a long letter to the Sovereigns, full of complaints
against other people and justifications of himself, in the course of
which he set forth those quibbling excuses for his capitulation to Roldan
which we have already heard. And there was a pathetic request at the end
of the letter that his son Diego might be sent out to him. As I have
said, Columbus was by this time a prematurely old man, and feeling the
clouds gathering about him, and the loneliness and friendlessness of his
position at Espanola, he instinctively looke