to cool him off.

Ojeda was very much dejected by the fact that he had been wounded. It
seemed to him that the Virgin, his patron, had deserted him. The
little band, by this time reduced to less than one hundred people, was
in desperate straits. Starvation stared it in the face when
fortunately assistance came. One Bernardino de Talavera, with seventy
congenial cut-throats, absconding debtors and escaped criminals, from
Hispaniola, had seized a Genoese trading-ship loaded with provisions
and had luckily reached San Sebastian in her. They sold these
provisions to Ojeda and his men at exorbitant prices, for some of the
hard-earned treasure which they had amassed with their great
expenditure of life and health.

There was no place else for Talavera and his gang to go, so they stayed
at San Sebastian. The supply of provisions was soon exhausted, and
finally it was evident that, as Encisco had not appeared with any
reenforcements or supplies, some one must go back to Hispaniola to
bring rescue to the party. Ojeda offered to do this himself. Giving
the charge of affairs at {16} San Sebastian to Francisco Pizarro, who
promised to remain there for fifty days for the expected help, he
embarked with Talavera.

Naturally Ojeda considered himself in charge of the ship; naturally
Talavera did not. Ojeda, endeavoring to direct things, was seized and
put in chains by the crew. He promptly challenged the whole crew to a
duel, offering to fight them two at a time in succession until he had
gone through the ship, of which he expected thereby to become the
master; although what he would have done with seventy dead pirates on
the ship is hard to see. The men refused this wager of battle, but
fortune favored this doughty little cavalier, for presently a great
storm arose. As neither Talavera nor any of the men were navigators or
seamen, they had to release Ojeda. He took charge. Once he was in
charge, they never succeeded in ousting him.

In spite of his seamanship, the caravel was wrecked on the island of
Cuba. They were forced to make their way along the shore, which was
then unsettled by Spain. Under the leadership of Ojeda the party
struggled eastward under conditions of extreme hardship. When they
were most desperate, Ojeda, who had appealed daily to his little
picture of the Virgin, which he always carried with him, and had not
ceased to urge the others to do likewise, made a vow to establish a
shrine and leave