This movement failed; but it resulted in Roldan's ingratiating himself with the tributary caciques, and intercepting the garrison's supplies. It was at this juncture, when everything looked desperate for Bartholomew, shut up in the Vega fort, that news reached him of the arrival (February 3, 1498) at the new port of Santo Domingo of the advance section of the Admiral's fleet, sent thither, as we have seen, by the Queen's assiduity, under the command of Pedro Fernandez Coronel.
Bartholomew could tell the Admiral of the good effect which the intelligence received through Coronel had on the colony. His own title of Adelantado, it was learned, was legitimated by the act of the sovereigns; and Columbus himself had been powerful enough to secure confirmation of his old honors, and to obtain new pledges for the future. The mutineers soon saw that the aspects of their revolt were changed. They could not, it would seem, place that dependence on the unpopularity of the Admiral at Court which had been a good part of their encouragement.
Bartholomew's new honors.
Proceeding to Santo Domingo, Bartholomew proclaimed his new honors, and, anxious to pacificate the island before the arrival of Columbus, he dispatched Coronel to communicate with Roldan, who had sulkily followed the Adelantado in his march from the Vega. Roldan refused all intercourse, and, shielding himself behind a pass in the mountains, he warned off the pacificator. He would yield to no one but the Admiral.
The rebels go to Xaragua.
There was nothing for the Adelantado to do but to outlaw the rebels, who, in turn, sped away to what Irving calls the "soft witcheries" of the Xaragua dryads. The archrebel was thus well out of the way for a time; but his influence still worked among the Indians of the Vega, and Bartholomew had not long left Conception before the garrison was made aware of a native conspiracy to surprise it.
Guarionex's revolt.
Word was sent to Santo Domingo, and the Adelantado was promptly on the march for relief. Guarionex, who had headed the revolt again, fled to the mountains of Ciguay, where a mountain cacique, Mayobanex, the same who had conducted the attack on the Spaniards at the Gulf of Samana during the first voyage, received the fugitive chief of the valley.
It was into these mountain fastnesses that the Adelantado now pursued the fugitives, with a force of ninety foot, a few horse, and some auxiliary Indians. He boldly thridded the defiles, and crossed the streams, under the showers of lances and arrows. As the native hordes fled before him, he fired their villages in the hope of forcing the Ciguayans to surrender their guest; but the mountain leaders could not be prevailed upon to wrong the rights of hospitality. When no longer able to resist in arms, Mayobanex and Guarionex fled to the hills.