h him two Indians whom he had been training for guides and
interpreters; but to his great disappointment they escaped.

"The Spaniards had captured some Indian women, and from them De Soto
learned that a neighboring chief had in his keeping a captured
Spaniard, one of the men of Narvaez.

"After Narvaez landed he had sent back to Cuba one of his smaller
vessels--on board of which was this Juan Ortiz--to carry the news of
his safe arrival to his wife. She at once sent additional supplies by
the same vessel and it reached the bay the day after Narvaez and his
men had fled, as I have already told you, from the vengeance of the
outraged Ucita and his indignant subjects.

"Ortiz and those with him, seeing a letter fixed in a cleft of a stick
on shore, asked some Indians whom they saw to bring it to them. They
refused and made signs for the Spaniards to come for it. Juan Ortiz,
then a boy of eighteen, with some comrades, took a boat and went on
shore, when they were at once seized by the Indians, one of them, who
resisted, instantly killed, and the rest taken to the cruelly wronged
and enraged chief Ucita, who had made a vow to punish with death any
Spaniard who should fall into his hands.

"Ortiz' mind, as they hurried him onward, was filled with the most
horrible forebodings. When they reached the village the chief was
waiting in the public square to receive them. One of the Spaniards was
at once seized, stripped of his clothes and bade to run for his life.

"The square was enclosed by palisades and the only gateway was guarded
by well-armed Indians. As soon as the naked Spaniard began to run one
of the Indians shot an arrow, the barbed edge of which sank deeply
into his shoulder. Another and another arrow followed, the man in a
frenzy of pain hurrying round and round in a desperate effort to find
some opening by which he might escape; the Indians looking on with
evident delight.

"This scene lasted for more than an hour, and when the wretched victim
fell to the ground there were no less than thirty arrows fixed in his
flesh, and the whole surface of his body was covered with blood.

"The Indians let him lie there in a dying condition and chose another
victim to go through the same tortures; then another and another till
all were slain except Ortiz. By that time the Indians seemed to be
tired of the cruel sport and he saw them consulting together, the
chief apparently giving the others some directions.

"It seems t