t without war; the maxim _Cede, non cedam_, has always prevailed
amongst mortal men.

The following day the Admiral sent to Guaccanarillo a Sevillan called
Melchior, who had once been sent by the King and the Queen to the
sovereign Pontiff when they captured Malaga. Melchior found him
in bed, feigning illness, and surrounded by the beds of his seven
concubines. Upon removing the bandage [from his leg] Melchior
discovered no trace of any wound, and this caused him to suspect that
Guaccanarillo was the murderer of our compatriots. He concealed his
suspicions, however, and obtained the king's assurance that he would
come the following day to see the Admiral on board his ship, which he
did. As soon as he came on board, and after saluting the Spaniards and
distributing some gold among the officers, he turned to the women whom
we had rescued from the cannibals and, glancing with half-opened eyes
at one of them whom we called Catherine, he spoke to her very softly;
after which, with the Admiral's permission, which he asked with great
politeness and urbanity, he inspected the horses and other things he
had never before seen, and then left.

Some persons advised Columbus to hold Guaccanarillo prisoner, to
make him expiate in case it was proven that our compatriots had been
assassinated by his orders; but the Admiral, deeming it inopportune to
irritate the islanders, allowed him to depart.

The day after the morrow, the brother of the king, acting in his own
name or in that of Guaccanarillo, came on board and won over the
women, for the following night Catherine, in order to recover her own
liberty and that of all her companions, yielded to the solicitation of
Guaccanarillo or his brother, and accomplished a feat more heroic than
that of the Roman Clelia, when she liberated the other virgins who had
served with her as hostages, swam the Tiber and thus escaped from the
power of Lars Porsena. Clelia crossed the river on a horse, while
Catherine and several other women trusted only to their arms and swam
for a distance of three miles in a sea by no means calm; for that,
according to every one's opinion, was the distance between the ships
and the coast. The sailors pursued them in light boats, guided by the
same light from the shore which served for the women, of whom they
captured three. It is believed that Catherine and four others escaped
to Guaccanarillo, for at daybreak, men sent out by the Admiral
announced that he and the w