venty who had followed the
rash commander in his headlong attack. What had become of Ojeda
himself none of the survivors could tell, for several days passed
without news of him. His body was not to be found among the slain, and
no one who knew him believed that the Indians could have captured him
alive. He had fought like a tiger to reach and defend his friend La
Cosa, but had been borne back by the thronging savages, and since
then nothing had been heard of him. The woods and shore were searched
by scouts, and he was finally found extended on some mangrove roots on
the borders of the forest. He was in such an exhausted state that he
could not speak, but, intrepid to the last, still clung to his
buckler, and in his right hand grasped the good sword with which he
had cut his way through the savage hordes.

Although famished, and so weak that he could not stand, it was
discovered that he had not received a single wound; but on his shield
were seen the dents made by more than three hundred arrows. His rescue
had scarcely been effected before the ships of his deadly rival,
Nicuesa, sailed into the harbor; but, instead of taking advantage of
Ojeda's defenceless condition, the high-minded hidalgo offered to join
with him in an attack upon the savages, in order to avenge his defeat.
Combining their forces, the two erstwhile enemies fell upon the
Indians while they were asleep, slaughtered an immense number, and
then, after plundering their dwellings set them on fire.

Thus the unfortunate pilot and his comrades were avenged, and the
ships sailed on, leaving behind hundreds of mangled corpses and huts
reduced to ashes. It was not strange, then, that the surviving savages
should ceaselessly attack the settlement soon after founded by Ojeda
on their coast, and with such persistency that finally it had to be
abandoned. It was in one of these attacks that Ojeda received his
first wound. He had hitherto considered himself invulnerable, but,
falling into an Indian ambush, a poisoned arrow pierced his thigh.
After wrenching it from the wound, he ordered his surgeon, on pain of
death for refusal, to burn out the venom with red-hot irons, and by
this means, though his life was saved, he received injuries that made
him permanently lame.

At last conditions in the settlement became so desperate that Ojeda
seized the occasion of a pirate ship touching there to depart for
Hispaniola in search of assistance. Leaving his company in charge