name
Columbus had given to the Isthmian coast below Honduras; while Ojeda
crept along the shore seeking a convenient {14} spot to plant his
colony. Finally he established himself at a place which he named San
Sebastian. One of his ships was wrecked and many of his men were lost.
Another was sent back to Santo Domingo with what little treasure they
had gathered and with an appeal to Encisco to hurry up.

They made a rude fort on the shore, from which to prosecute their
search for gold and slaves. The Indians, who also belonged to the
poisoned-arrow fraternity, kept the fort in constant anxiety. Many
were the conflicts between the Spaniards and the savages, and terrible
were the losses inflicted by the invaders; but there seemed to be no
limit to the number of Indians, while every Spaniard killed was a
serious drain upon the little party. Man after man succumbed to the
effects of the dreadful poison. Ojeda, who never spared himself in any
way, never received a wound.

From their constant fighting, the savages got to recognize him as the
leader and they used all their skill to compass destruction. Finally,
they succeeded in decoying him into an ambush where four of their best
men had been posted. Recklessly exposing themselves, the Indians at
close range opened fire upon their prisoner with arrows. Three of the
arrows he caught on his buckler, but the fourth pierced his thigh. It
is surmised that Ojeda attended to the four Indians before taking
cognizance of his wound. The arrow, of course, was poisoned, and
unless something could be done, it meant death.

He resorted to a truly heroic expedient. He caused two iron plates to
be heated white-hot and then directed the surgeon to apply the plates
to the wound, one at the entrance and the other at the exit of the
arrow. {15} The surgeon, appalled by the idea of such torture, refused
to do so, and it was not until Ojeda threatened to hang him with his
own hands that he consented. Ojeda bore the frightful agony without a
murmur or a quiver, such was his extraordinary endurance. It was the
custom in that day to bind patients who were operated upon surgically,
that their involuntary movements might not disconcert the doctors and
cause them to wound where they hoped to cure. Ojeda refused even to be
bound. The remedy was efficacious, although the heat of the iron, in
the language of the ancient chronicler, so entered his system that they
used a barrel of vinegar