letter which required immediate decision.
That is to say, Columbus was simply told that the whole matter must be
left in suspense till the sovereigns could make such an investigation
as they wished. The hope, therefore, of some help from home was wholly
disappointed.

Roldan, the chief of the rebels, was encouraged by this news to take
higher ground than even he had ventured on before. He now proposed that
he should send fifteen of his company to Spain, also that those who
remained should not only be pardoned, but should have lands granted
them; third, that a public proclamation should be made that all charges
against him had been false; and fourth, that he should hold the office
of chief judge, which he had held before the rebellion.

Columbus was obliged to accede to terms as insolent as these, and the
rebels even added a stipulation, that if he should fail in fulfilling
either of these articles, they might compel him to comply, by force or
any other means. Thus was he hampered in the very position where, by the
king's orders, and indeed, one would say, by the right of discovery, he
was the supreme master.

For himself, he determined to return with Bartholomew to Spain, and he
made some preparations to do so. But at this time he learned, from the
western part of the island, that four strange ships had arrived there.
He could not feel that it was safe to leave the colony in such a
condition of latent rebellion as he knew it to be in; he wrote again to
the sovereigns, and said directly that his capitulation with the rebels
had been extorted by force, and that he did not consider that the
sovereigns, or that he himself, were bound by it. He pressed some of the
requests which he had made before, and asked that his son Diego, who was
no longer a boy, might be sent out to him.

It proved that the ships which had arrived at the west of the island
were under the command of Ojeda, who will be remembered as a bold
cavalier in the adventures of the second voyage. Acting under a general
permission which had been given for private adventurers, Ojeda had
brought out this squadron, and, when Columbus communicated with him, was
engaged in cutting dye-woods and shipping slaves.

Columbus sent Roldan, who had been the head of the rebels, to inquire
on what ground he was there. Ojeda produced a license signed by Fonseca,
authorizing him to sail on a voyage of discovery. It proved that
Columbus's letters describing the pearls of Pa