ing replanted their land, the fields would wave with
abundant golden harvests.

In an army of eight or nine hundred Spanish adventurers, there would
of course be many worthless characters, difficult of restraint. De
Soto had been in this village several weeks. Notwithstanding all his
endeavors to promote peace and friendship, several broils had arisen
between the natives and some of the low and degraded of his soldiery.
The conduct of these vile men had produced a general feeling of
ill-will among the natives. Even the princess herself manifested
estrangement. She had become distant and reserved, and was evidently
desirous that her no longer welcome guests should take their speedy
departure. There were some indications that the princess so far
distrusted the Spaniards that, like her more prudent mother, she was
about secretly to escape from them by flight.

This would leave the Spaniards in a very embarrassed condition. They
needed guides to conduct them through the extended territory of the
princess. Heavily armed as they were, they needed porters to carry
their burdens of extra clothing and provisions. The flight of the
princess would be the signal for the natives, all over the territory,
to rise in a war of attempted extermination. The queen mother would
doubtless do everything in her power to rouse and stimulate this
hostility. The Spaniards thus assailed on every side, destitute of
guides, without porters to carry their baggage, and with but little
food, would find themselves compelled in self-defence, to cut their
way, with blood-dripping sabres, through their foes, to rob their
granaries, and to leave behind them a path strown with the dead, and
filled with misery.

Again De Soto found himself in a false position. Again he felt
constrained to do that which his own conscience told him was unjust.
The only possible way, as it seemed to him, by which he could obtain
extrication from these awful difficulties, was to seize the person of
the princess, his friend and benefactor, and hold her as a captive to
secure the good behavior of her subjects. He knew that their love for
her was such that so long as she was in his power, they would not
enter upon any hostile movement which might bring down vengeance upon
her head.

If De Soto had accepted the spirit of the noble letter from Isabella,
and had said, "I will no longer persevere in this invasion of the
lands of others, which is always plunging me more and more dee