ando, however, was to discover a state of things requiring exemplary
treatment; friend Roldan was arrested, with several of his allies, and
put on board one of the ships to be sent back to Spain for trial. The
cacique Guarionex, who had been languishing in San Domingo in chains for
a long time, was also embarked on one of the returning ships; and about
eighteen hundred-weights of gold which had been collected were also
stowed into cases and embarked. Among this gold there was a nugget
weighing 35 lbs. which had been found by a native woman in a river, and
which Ovando was sending home as a personal offering to his Sovereigns;
and some further 40 lbs. of gold belonging to Columbus, which Carvajal
had recovered and placed in a caravel to be taken to Spain for the
Admiral. The ships were all ready to sail, and were anchored off the
mouth of the river when Columbus arrived in San Domingo.

When he found that he was not to be allowed to enter the harbour himself
Columbus sent a message to Ovando warning him that a hurricane was coming
on, and begging him to take measures for the safety of his large fleet.
This, however, was not done, and the fleet put to sea that evening. It
had only got so far as the eastern end of Espanola when the hurricane, as
predicted by Columbus, duly came down in the manner of West Indian
hurricanes, a solid wall of wind and an advancing wave of the sea which
submerged everything in its path. Columbus's little fleet, finding
shelter denied them, had moved a little way along the coast, the Admiral
standing close in shore, the others working to the south for sea-room;
and although they survived the hurricane they were scattered, and only
met several days later, in an extremely battered condition, at the
westerly end of the island. But the large home-going fleet had not
survived. The hurricane, which was probably from the north-east, struck
them just as they lost the lee of the island, and many of them, including
the ships with the treasure of gold and the caravels bearing Roldan,
Bobadilla, and Guarionex, all went down at once and were never seen or
heard of again. Other ships survived for a little while only to founder
in the end; a few, much shattered, crept back to the shelter of San
Domingo; but only one, it is said, survived the hurricane so well as to
be able to proceed to Spain; and that was the one which carried Carvajal
and Columbus's little property of gold. The Admiral's luck again; o