, now numbering but about four hundred, and their utter
extermination could hardly be doubtful. Under these circumstances he
decided to attempt to conquer a peace. Still he made other efforts,
but in vain, to conciliate the justly enraged chieftain. He then
prepared for war. However severely he may be censured for this
decision, it is the duty of the impartial historian to state those
facts which may in some degree modify the severity of judgment.

A large number of canoes were prepared, in which two hundred Spaniards
and three thousand Indians embarked to attack Capaha upon his island,
before he had time to collect a resistless force of warriors. They
found the island covered with a dense forest, and the chief and his
troops strongly intrenched. The battle was fought with great fury, the
Spanish soldiers performing marvellous feats of bravery, strength and
endurance. The warriors of Capaha, who fought with courage equal to
that of the Spaniards, and struck such dismay into the more timid
troops of Casquin, that they abandoned their allies and fled
tumultuously to their canoes, and swiftly paddled away.

De Soto, thus left to bear the whole brunt of the hostile army, was
also compelled to retreat. He did this in good order, and might have
suffered terribly in the retreat but for the singular and, at the
time, unaccountable fact that Capaha withdrew his warriors and allowed
the Spaniards to embark unmolested. It would seem that the sagacious
chieftain, impressed by the wonderful martial prowess displayed by the
Spaniards, and by the reiterated proffers of peace and friendship
which had been made to him, and despising the pusillanimity of the
troops of Casquin, whom he had always been in the habit of conquering,
thought that by detaching the Spaniards from them he could convert De
Soto and his band into friends and allies. Then he could fall upon the
Indian army, and glut his vengeance, by repaying them tenfold for all
the outrages they had committed.

Accordingly, the next morning, four ambassadors of highest rank
visited the Spanish encampment. De Soto and Casquin were together. The
ambassadors bowed to De Soto with profound reverence, but
disdainfully took no notice whatever of Casquin. The speaker then
said,--

"We have come, in the name of our chief, to implore the oblivion of
the past and to offer to you his friendship and homage."

De Soto was greatly relieved by the prospect of this termination of
the diffic