South American Fights and Fighters | Page 7

ships of Nicuesa hove in sight. Mindful of their
previous quarrels, Ojeda decided to stay ashore until he found out what
were Nicuesa's intentions toward him. Cautiously his men broke the
news to Nicuesa. With magnanimity and courtesy delightful to
contemplate, he at once declared that he had forgotten the quarrel and
offered every assistance to Ojeda to enable him to avenge himself.
Ojeda thereupon rejoined the squadron, and the two rivals embraced
with many protestations of friendship amid the acclaim of their
followers.
The next night, four hundred men were secretly assembled. They
landed and marched to the Indian town, surrounded it and put it to the
flames. The defenders fought with their usual resolution, and many of
the Spaniards were killed by the poisonous arrows, but to no avail. The
Indians were doomed, and the whole village perished then and there.
Nicuesa had landed some of his horses, and such was the terror inspired
by those remarkable and unknown animals that several of the women
who had escaped from the fire, when they caught sight of the frightful
monsters, rushed back into the flames, preferring this horrible death
rather than to meet the horses. The value of the plunder amounted to
eighteen thousand dollars in modern money, the most of which Nicuesa
took.
The two adventurers separated, Nicuesa bidding Ojeda farewell and
striking boldly across the Caribbean for Veragua, which was the name
Columbus had given to the Isthmian coast below Honduras; while
Ojeda crept along the shore seeking a convenient {14} spot to plant his
colony. Finally he established himself at a place which he named San
Sebastian. One of his ships was wrecked and many of his men were lost.
Another was sent back to Santo Domingo with what little treasure they
had gathered and with an appeal to Encisco to hurry up.

They made a rude fort on the shore, from which to prosecute their
search for gold and slaves. The Indians, who also belonged to the
poisoned-arrow fraternity, kept the fort in constant anxiety. Many were
the conflicts between the Spaniards and the savages, and terrible were
the losses inflicted by the invaders; but there seemed to be no limit to
the number of Indians, while every Spaniard killed was a serious drain
upon the little party. Man after man succumbed to the effects of the
dreadful poison. Ojeda, who never spared himself in any way, never
received a wound.
From their constant fighting, the savages got to recognize him as the
leader and they used all their skill to compass destruction. Finally, they
succeeded in decoying him into an ambush where four of their best
men had been posted. Recklessly exposing themselves, the Indians at
close range opened fire upon their prisoner with arrows. Three of the
arrows he caught on his buckler, but the fourth pierced his thigh. It is
surmised that Ojeda attended to the four Indians before taking
cognizance of his wound. The arrow, of course, was poisoned, and
unless something could be done, it meant death.
He resorted to a truly heroic expedient. He caused two iron plates to be
heated white-hot and then directed the surgeon to apply the plates to the
wound, one at the entrance and the other at the exit of the arrow. {15}
The surgeon, appalled by the idea of such torture, refused to do so, and
it was not until Ojeda threatened to hang him with his own hands that
he consented. Ojeda bore the frightful agony without a murmur or a
quiver, such was his extraordinary endurance. It was the custom in that
day to bind patients who were operated upon surgically, that their
involuntary movements might not disconcert the doctors and cause
them to wound where they hoped to cure. Ojeda refused even to be
bound. The remedy was efficacious, although the heat of the iron, in the
language of the ancient chronicler, so entered his system that they used
a barrel of vinegar to cool him off.
Ojeda was very much dejected by the fact that he had been wounded. It
seemed to him that the Virgin, his patron, had deserted him. The little
band, by this time reduced to less than one hundred people, was in

desperate straits. Starvation stared it in the face when fortunately
assistance came. One Bernardino de Talavera, with seventy congenial
cut-throats, absconding debtors and escaped criminals, from Hispaniola,
had seized a Genoese trading-ship loaded with provisions and had
luckily reached San Sebastian in her. They sold these provisions to
Ojeda and his men at exorbitant prices, for some of the hard-earned
treasure which they had amassed with their great expenditure of life
and health.
There was no place else for Talavera and his gang to go, so they stayed
at San Sebastian. The supply of provisions