The captain then proceeded to set matters in order. There were prisoners in the cabins near them; these were brought forth one by one, and examined with commendable fairness. Morgan was surprised at the change in Hernando. He had expected to find him vindictive and cruel, and he knew that not a soul in the fore-part of the galley had been spared in the darkness of the previous night. But liberty had softened the Spaniard; he remembered the injustice he had suffered, not with a view to exacting "eye for eye" and "tooth for tooth" from others, but with the resolve not to inflict injustice upon his fellows. The trials of the prisoners took up the remainder of the day. Some who had been cruel to the slaves were hanged with but little ceremony; it was hardly to be expected that men whose backs still smarted would do otherwise. The two boatswains had perished the night before; the chief boatswain was doomed to share their fate; two others were hanged; the rest were sent below to the slave-deck, and chained to one of the oars, far enough away from the troublesome slaves who were undergoing punishment.
The night passed without alarm. Hernando and Morgan walked the deck for hours in the starlight, planning for the future. They saw the difficulties and dangers of their position, but could not clearly see a way out of them. They had a ship, well manned and well armed, and fairly well victualled. What should they do with her? Search would be made for them, and galley after galley, ship after ship, coming into Panama, would be sent in quest of them. It they continued in Spanish waters, they must be overtaken at some time or other. What would the result be? They had guns, ammunition, and a fair supply of weapons, but their fighting capacity was very small. The Indians—or most of them—must be at the oars. Out of less than a score of Europeans, some must be about deck duties. A mere handful of men would be left to work the guns and fight. A foe of any strength must inevitably capture them.
Should they attempt to cross the Atlantic to England? There again came the question of capture. Would the Indians remain faithful if any attempt were made to take them thousands of miles from their homes? Should they turn corsairs; capture a sailing ship; set the Indians ashore on their own coast, or leave them the galley to do as they pleased with it? The two men could not make up their minds.
The next day the same thoughts came to the rest of the Europeans, and they were heard discussing their chances of ultimate escape. Another full council was held, and the position placed clearly before them all. There were many differences of opinion, but eventually it was agreed that there was too much danger in remaining near the seaboard of Spanish America, and equal or greater peril to be encountered in an attempt to make a winter passage to Europe. No man would face the voyage round Cape Horn with an inadequate crew and a clumsy galley mainly propelled by oars. The voyage would take nearly a year, and they had provisions for about a fortnight. The plan of capturing a small ship was more favourably considered; but the question arose, Where could such a ship be found? If they got into the ordinary track of navigation, other and less welcome vessels might sight them. The position was distinctly perilous, and a bad feature of it all was that some of the rescued men were thoroughly treacherous and untrustworthy, and others so broken down by years of slavery as to be helpless for strenuous action. The three ringleaders saw plainly that they had less than a dozen men, including themselves, that could be relied upon for loyal, valiant, and intelligent conduct in an emergency. They went to rest that night with no definite plans for the morrow. The galley was kept slowly going northward towards the Pacific coast of Mexico; the oars were little used.
The next morning Hernando took definite steps. He took the captured officers and the recalcitrant whites, put them into a boat within sight of land, set them adrift, and stood out to sea again. He had none under his command then who were not at least faithful.
For a couple of days he went north, well out to sea. Then he turned inshore again, coasted for a while, until he came to a wooded bay that offered good anchorage. Entering this he dropped his anchor, and went ashore with Morgan and half a dozen or so of the Indians. The party was away for some hours, and only returned at sunset. The next day the object of the expedition was disclosed. Hernando called the whole crew, white and Indian, before him. He explained the dangers they were hourly in on the high seas, and the impossibility of fighting any strong adversary. Food was running short, and a long voyage in the galley was out of the question. He proposed to take to the land himself, and hazard his chance of life and liberty there. The Indians could scatter abroad. The forest teemed with game, and he and his party had seen many streams. No village or town was anywhere in sight. The chances of escape into Mexico were excellent for whites and natives alike. Or any man who wished it might try to reach his own tribe again; a matter of half a moon of marching would bring him to his people. Every man should take some weapon and as much food as he cared to carry. His plan included the burning of the galley, so that all trace of them might be lost.
The natives rejoiced at the chance of quitting the hated galley for their native woods, and the Europeans saw that their captain's plan offered them the best hope of safety; they agreed also.
The Santa Maria was partially dismantled. All that was of value in her was taken out; the food was shared, arms distributed, and the whole party went ashore in the boats. Hernando stayed last, and fired the vessel before he left her. During the whole night she blazed, illuminating the camp of her late occupants amid the trees on the shore. The Indians had rigged up two tents with the sails, and in these their white companions slept comfortably.
No move was made from the camping-place on the shore for several days. The Indians scouted round in all directions, going fifty or sixty miles through forest and over mountain, and spying out the land. Hernando, meanwhile, tried to get some idea of his position on the Pacific coast. From his observations, and the reports of the natives, he concluded that he must be somewhere west of the great lake of Nicaragua, and in a line for the small town of San Juan on the Atlantic coast, not more than a week's march away.
When fairly satisfied of this, he struck his camp, and marched inland over the mountains. The natives carried one boat. In due time they saw a vast stretch of water below them, and knew that the lake lay in their path.