When the dawn came, the harbor appeared desolate. Not a canoe was seen where so many sped about in the previous year. A boat was sent ashore, and found every sign that the fort had been sacked as well as destroyed. Fragments of clothing and bits of merchandise were scattered amid its blackened ruins. There were Indians lurking behind distant trees, but no one approached, and as the cacique had not kept the word which he had sent of coming himself in the morning, suspicions began to arise that the story of its destruction had not been honestly given. The new-comers passed a disturbed night with increasing mistrust, and the next morning Columbus landed and saw all for himself. He traveled farther away from the shore than those who landed on the preceding day, and gained some confirmation of the story in finding the village of the cacique a mass of blackened ruins. Cannon were again discharged, in the hopes that their reverberating echoes might reach the ears of those who were said to have abandoned the fort before the massacre. The well and ditch were cleaned out to see if any treasure had been cast into it, as Columbus had directed in case of disaster. Nothing was found, and this seemed to confirm the tale of the suddenness of the attack. Columbus and his men went still farther inland to a village; but its inmates had hurriedly fled, so that many articles of European make, stockings and a Moorish robe among them, had been left behind, spoils doubtless of the fort. Returning nearer the fort, they discovered the bodies of eleven men buried, with the grass growing above them, and enough remained of their clothing to show they were Europeans. This is Dr. Chanca's statement, who says the men had not been dead two months. Coma says that the bodies were unburied, and had lain for nearly three months in the open air; and that they were now given Christian burial.
Guacanagari and Caonabo.
Later in the day, a few of the natives were lured by friendly signs to come near enough to talk with the Lucayan interpreter. The story in much of its details was gradually drawn out, and Columbus finally possessed himself of a pretty clear conception of the course of the disastrous events. It was a tale of cruelty, avarice, and sensuality towards the natives on the part of the Spaniards, and of jealousy and brawls among themselves. No word of their governor had been sufficient to restrain their outbursts of passionate encounter, and no sense of insecurity could deter them from the most foolhardy risks while away from the fort's protection. Those who had been appointed to succeed Arana, if there were an occasion, revolted against him, and, being unsuccessful in overthrowing him, they went off with their adherents in search of the mines of Cibao. This carried them beyond the protection of Guacanagari, and into the territory of his enemy, Caonabo, a wandering Carib who had offered himself to the interior natives as their chieftain, and who had acquired a great ascendency in the island. This leader, who had learned of the dissensions among the Spaniards, was no sooner informed of the coming of these renegades within his reach than he caused them to be seized and killed. This emboldened him to join forces with another cacique, a neighbor of Guacanagari, and to attempt to drive the Spaniards from the island, since they had become a standing menace to his power, as he reasoned. The confederates marched stealthily, and stole into the vicinity of the fort in the night. Arana had but ten men within the stockade, and they kept no watch. Other Spaniards were quartered in the adjacent village. The onset was sudden and effective, and the dismal ruins of the fort and village were thought to confirm the story.
Doña Catalina.
Other confirmations followed. A caravel was sent to explore easterly, and was soon boarded by two Indians from the shore, who invited the captain, Maldonado, to visit the cacique, who lay ill at a neighboring village. The captain went, and found Guacanagari laid up with a bandaged leg. The savage told a story which agreed with the one just related, and on its being repeated to Columbus, the Admiral himself, with an imposing train, went to see the cacique. Guacanagari seemed anxious, in repeating the story, to convince the Admiral of his own loyalty to the Spaniards, and pointed to his wounds and to those of some of his people as proof. There was the usual interchange of presents, hawks' bells for gold, and similar reckonings. Before leaving, Columbus asked to have his surgeon examine the wound, which the cacique said had been occasioned by a stone striking the leg. To get more light, the chieftain went out-of-doors, leaning upon the Admiral's arm. When the bandage was removed, there was no external sign of hurt; but the cacique winced if the flesh was touched. Father Boyle, who was in the Admiral's train, thought the wound a pretense, and the story fabricated to conceal the perfidy of the cacique, and urged Columbus to make an instant example of the traitor. The Admiral was not so confident as the priest, and at all events he thought a course of pacification and procrastination was the better policy. The interview did not end, according to Coma, without some strange manifestations on the part of the cacique, which led the Spaniards for a moment to fear that a trial of arms was to come. The chief was not indisposed to try his legs enough to return with the Admiral to his ship that very evening. Here he saw the Carib prisoners, and the accounts tell us how he shuddered at the sight of them. He wondered at the horses and other strange creatures which were shown to him. Coma tells us that the Indians thought that the horses were fed on human flesh. The women who had been rescued from the Caribs attracted, perhaps, even more the attention of the savage, and particularly a lofty creature among them, whom the Spaniards had named Doña Catalina. Guacanagari was observed to talk with her more confidingly than he did with the others.
Father Boyle urged upon the Admiral that a duress similar to that of Catalina was none too good for the perfidious cacique, as the priest persisted in calling the savage, but Columbus hesitated. There was, however, little left of that mutual confidence which had characterized the relations of the Admiral and the chieftain during the trying days of the shipwreck, the year before. When the Admiral offered to hang a cross on the neck of his visitor, and the cacique understood it to be the Christian emblem, he shrank from the visible contact of a faith of which the past months had revealed its character. With this manifestation they parted, and the cacique was set ashore. Coma seems to unite the incidents of this interview on the ship with those of the meeting ashore.
The cacique and Catalina.
There comes in here, according to the received accounts, a little passage of Indian intrigue and gallantry. A messenger appeared the next day to inquire when the Admiral sailed, and later another to barter gold. This last held some talk with the Indian women, and particularly with Catalina. About midnight a light appeared on the shore, and Catalina and her companions, while the ship's company, except a watch, were sleeping, let themselves down the vessel's side, and struck out for the shore. The watch discovered the escape, but not in time to prevent the women having a considerable start. Boats pursued, but the swimmers touched the beach first. Four of them, however, were caught, but Catalina and the others escaped.
When, the next morning, Columbus sent a demand for the fugitives, it was found that Guacanagari had moved his household and all his effects into the interior of the island. The story got its fitting climax in the suspicious minds of the Spaniards, when they supposed that the fugitive beauty was with him. Here was only a fresh instance of the savage's perfidy.