ent on the coast of Jamaica
--those two wornout caravels, lashed together with ropes and bridged by an
erection of wood and thatch, in which the forlorn little company was
established. In all communities of men so situated there are alternate
periods of action and reaction, and after the excitement incidental to
the departure of Mendez, and the return of Bartholomew with the news that
he had got safely away, there followed a time of reaction, in which the
Spaniards looked dismally out across the empty sea and wondered when, if
ever, their salvation would come. Columbus himself was now a confirmed
invalid, and could hardly ever leave his bed under the thatch; and in his
own condition of pain and depression his influence on the rest of the
crew must inevitably have been less inspiriting than it had formerly
been. The men themselves, moreover, began to grow sickly, chiefly on
account of the soft vegetable food, to which they were not accustomed,
and partly because of their cramped quarters and the moist, unhealthy
climate, which was the very opposite of what they needed after their long
period of suffering and hardship at sea.

As the days and weeks passed, with no occupation save the daily business
of collecting food that gradually became more and more nauseous to them,
and of straining their eyes across the empty blue of the sea in an
anxious search for the returning canoes of Fieschi, the spirits of the
castaways sank lower and lower. Inevitably their discontent became
articulate and broke out into murmurings. The usual remedy for this
state of affairs is to keep the men employed at some hard work; but there
was no work for them to do, and the spirit of dissatisfaction had ample
opportunity to spread. As usual it soon took the form of hostility to
the Admiral. They seem to have borne him no love or gratitude for his
masterly guiding of them through so many dangers; and now when he lay ill
and in suffering his treacherous followers must needs fasten upon him the
responsibility for their condition. After a month or two had passed, and
it became certain that Fieschi was not coming back, the castaways could
only suppose that he and Mendez had either been captured by natives or
had perished at sea, and that their fellow-countrymen must still be
without news of the Admiral's predicament. They began to say also that
the Admiral was banished from Spain; that there was no desire or
intention on the part of the Sovereigns