company of natives as freighters and servants. This was Agueynaba's
chance. He ordered his men to slip Salzedo into a river and hold him
under water for a time. If he was an immortal this would not hurt
him, and if he died, why--they would try very hard to bear up under
the loss. While crossing the river--the spot is still shown--the
men who bore Salzedo on their shoulders pitched him off and detained
him beneath the surface for a couple of hours; then, fearing that he
might be still alive and vicious, they put him on a bank and howled
apologies to his remains for three days. By that time there was no
longer a doubt about his deadness. Reports of this discovery traversed
the island with the speed of a South American mail service, so that
within a week people even forty miles away had heard about it. Thus
encouraged to resistance by the discovery that white men were mortal,
the populace fell upon their persecutors and troubled them, although
after one defeat the Spaniards rallied and drove the Indians back to
the mines.

Ponce

When Ponce de Leon visited and conquered Porto Rico he heard of the
elixir of life. It may not have been among the springs of that island,
but the natives had a faith in it and some of them referred it to the
Bahamas. Their possible reason for this was to persuade the white men
to go there and look for it, for they were not popular in Porto Rico,
and this was the more to be regretted in Ponce's case, because he was
far from popular at home. At the court of Ferdinand and Isabella was
a page who was handsome, spirited, and saucy. One of the daughters of
the royal pair, wearied with the forms and ceremonies of her state,
which, in the most punctilious court in Europe, were especially
trying, found means to converse with this well-appearing, quick-witted
scamp. A tattling courtier, recalling a _faux pas_ of the last queen,
and desiring no more scandals, reported that the princess had been
seen to smile on the youngster. No guilt was proven upon him, but
handsome pages were ill-chosen company for young women of blue blood.

Ponce de Leon was the page, and he was sent to the New World
to discover something to the advantage of his own modesty, and
incidentally to accumulate for shipment anything that might be useful
to the Spanish treasury. He landed in Boriquen, as Porto Rico was
then called, and began a general subjugation and slaughter of the
natives. Some were slain in battle, but thou