r of hurting our three
men sent wide the ball. We looked for terror always from the flame, the
smoke and great noise, and so there was terror here for a moment and a
bearing back in which Juan and Gonzalo got loose and made a little
way up path. But a barbarian was here who could not long be terrified.
Caonabo sent half his horde against Guarico, but himself had come to La
Navidad. That painted army rallied and overtook the fleeing men.

Shouting, making his swung sword dazzle in light, Diego de Arana raced
down path, and Diego Minas and Beltran the cook and Juan Lepe with
him. Many a time since then, in this island, have I seen half a dozen
Christians with their arms and the superstitious terror that surrounded
them put to flight twenty times their number. But this was early, and
the spirit of these naked men not broken, and Caonabo faced us. It was
he himself who, when three or four had been wounded by Arana, suddenly
rushed upon the commandant. With his stone-headed club he struck the
sword away, and he plunged his knife into Arana's breast. He died, a
brave man who had done his best at La Navidad.

Juan Morcillo and Gonzalo Fernandez and Diego Minas were slain. I saw a
lifted club and swerved, but too late.

Blackness and neither care nor delight. Then, far off, a little beating
of surf on shore, very far and nothing to do with anything. Then a clue
of pain that it seemed I must follow or that must follow me, and at
first it was a little thin thread, but then a cable and all my care was
to thin it again. It passed into an ache and throb that filled my being
like the rain clouds the sky. Then suddenly there were yet heavy clouds
but the sky around and behind. I opened my eyes and sat up, but found
that my arms were bound to my sides.

"We aren't dead, and that's some comfort, Doctor, as the cock said to
the other cock in the market pannier!" It was Beltran the cook who
spoke and he was bound like me. Around us lay the five dead. A score of
Indians warded us, mighty strangers in bonds, and we heard the rest up
at the fort where they were searching and pillaging.

Guarico, and the men there?

We found that out when at last they were done with La Navidad and they
and we were put on the march. We came to where had been Guarico, and
truly for long we had smelled the burning of it, as we had heard the
crying and shouting. It was all down, the frail houses. I made out in
the loud talking that followed the blending of