Sickness. Quarrels. Idleness, vanity, dissensions and accusations. Heat,
more sickness, wild quarrels.

Tidings from Margarite at St. Thomas. The Indians would no longer bring
food. Caonabo was threatening from the higher mountains. The Viceroy
wrote to Margarite. Compel the Indians to bring food, but as it were to
compel them gently!

Quarrels--quarrels at Isabella. Two main parties and all the lesser
ones. Disease and scarcity. Fray Geronimo arrived from St. Thomas.
He had stories. The Viceroy grew dark red, his eyes lightened. Yet he
believed that what was told pertained to men of Margarite, not to
that cavalier himself. He wrote to Margarite--I do not know what. But
presently a plan arose in his mind and was announced. Don Alonso de
Ojeda was to command St. Thomas. Don Pedro Margarite should have a
moving force of several hundred Castilians, mainly for exploration, but
at need for other things. Going here and there about the country, it
might impress upon Caonabo that the Spaniard though gentle by nature,
was dangerous when aroused.

Alonso de Ojeda, three hundred men behind him, went forth on his black
horse, to trumpet and drum, very gay and ready to go. In a week he
sent into Isabella six Indians in chains. These had set upon three of
Margarite's men coming with a letter to the Viceroy and had robbed them,
though without doing them bodily injury. Alonso de Ojeda had cut off
their ears and sent them all in heavily chained. The Viceroy condemned
them to be beheaded, but when they were on their knees before the block
reprieved them, one by one. He kept them chained for a time for all
visiting Indians to see, then formally pardoned them and let them go.

Matters quieted. Sickness again sank, a flood retiring, leaving pools.
Alonso de Ojeda and Pedro Margarite reported peace in Hispaniola. The
Admiral came forth from his house one day and said quietly to this one
and that one that now he meant again to take up Discovery.

He gave authority in Isabella to Don Diego, and made him a council where
sat Father Buil, Caravajal, Coronel and Juan de Luxan. Then out of five
ships we took the _Cordera_, the _Santa Clara_ and the _San Juan_, and
we set sail on April the twenty-fourth.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE island, we learned, was named Jamaica. The Admiral called it
Santiago, but it also rests Jamaica.

Of all these lands, outside of the low, small islands to which we came
first, Cuba seemed to us the peaceable la