le! Spaniards have but to lift voice and they flee!"

He received from his following acquiescent sound. Spoke Pedro Gutierrez.
"Guacanagari wishes to bottle us here; that is the whole of it. Why play
his game? I never saw a safer land! Only La Navidad is not safe!"

Those two had half and perhaps more than half of the garrison. Arana
cried, "Don Roderigo de Escobedo and Don Pedro Gutierrez, you serve the
Queen ill!"

"You, Senor," answered Gutierrez, "serve my Lady Idle Fear and my Lord
Incapacity!"

Whereupon Arana put him in arrest and he lay that night in prison. The
cloud was black over La Navidad.

CHAPTER XXV

IT did not lighten. Escobedo waited two days, then in the dark night,
corrupting the watch, broke gaol for Pedro Gutierrez and with him and
nine men quitted La Navidad. Beltran the cook it was who heard and
procured a great smoking torch, and sent out against them a voice like
a bull of Bashan's. Arana sprang up, and the rest of us who slept. They
were eleven men, armed and alert. There were shouts, blows, a clutching
and a throwing off, a detaining and repelling. In the east showed long
ghost fingers, the rain held away. They were at the gate when we ran
upon them; they burst it open and went forth, leaving one of their own
number dead, and two of them who stayed with Arana desperately hurt. We
followed them down the path, through the wood, but they had the start.
They did not go to Guarico, but they seized the boat of the _Santa
Maria_ which the Admiral had left with us and went up the river. We
heard the dash of their oars, then the rain came down, with a weeping of
every cloud.

The dead man they left behind was Fernando. I had seen Pedro in the
gate, going forth.

Fourteen men, two of whom were ill and two wounded, stayed at La
Navidad. Arana said with passion, "Honest men and a garrison at one!
There is some gain!"

That could not be denied. Gain here, but how about it yonder?

It was May. And now the rain fell in a great copious flood, huge-dropped
and warm, and now it was restrained for a little, and there shone a sun
confused and fierce. Earth and forest dripped and streamed and smoked.
We were Andalusians, but the heat drained us. But we held, we fourteen
men. Arana did well at La Navidad. We all did what we could to live like
true not false Castilians, true not false Christians. And I name Beltran
the cook as hero and mighty encourager of hearts.

We went back and forth between L