seem
likely to do much good in their new office.

However, the little company set sail at last, the three monks in one
ship, Las Casas,--who had been given the official title of "Protector of
the Indians," with charge and authority to look after all that concerned
them,--in another, and Zuaco, a lawyer, appointed to help and advise
them, followed a little later.

CHAPTER V

DISAPPOINTMENTS

"The best laid plans o' mice and men gang aft agley." So it was in this
case.

When the Jeronimite fathers arrived in Hispaniola they failed to do what
was expected of them. They did _something_, it is true; for they took
from those officers of the court, who were not living in the Indies, all
their Indian slaves and tried to give them to others who would treat
them kindly; but they did not set them free, neither did they bring the
judges to trial for their evil deeds.

The clerico was of course very indignant with them, and we may be sure
that he never gave them any peace, so that they must have learned to
dread the very sight of him. He preached constantly, in the pulpit and
on the streets, wherever he went, that the Indians must be free; and
when Zuaco came, the two brought charges against the judges, causing
them to be tried; but we do not know whether or not they were punished.
Probably not.

We must not be too hard upon the monks, however. It was no easy task
they had been asked to perform. What Las Casas wanted them to do, and
what the law required also, was to take away all the Indians from the
Spaniards and set them free. This meant to ruin the owners, since all
they had came through the forced labor of the natives. The monks were
not men of the determined character necessary for such an act, nor were
they endowed with the courage to face the storm it would have brought
about their ears. Few men are like the clerico, who was afraid of
nobody.

Just after Las Casas reached the Indies a man named Juan Bono, a
shipmaster, arrived there with a shipload of Indians, whom he had
kidnaped in the island of Trinidad. He himself told the clerico how it
was done.

He had gone to the island with sixty men and told the Indians that they
had come to live with them. The Indians received them kindly, brought
them food, and, as Bono said himself, treated them like brothers. Bono
told them that the white men would like a large house to live in, and
the Indians at once went to work to build it for them. When it was
nearly