aptain of the _Juana_ went to look, all, all were dead, having
hanged themselves.

CHAPTER XLIII

WE left one of our ships in the Bethlehem and we lost another upon this
disastrous coast ere we got clear for Jamaica.

We were sea specters. We had saved our men from the _San Sebastian_
as from the _Margarita_. Now all were upon the _Consolacion_ and the
_Juana_. Fifty fewer were we than when we had sailed from Cadiz, yet the
two ships crept over-full. And they were like creatures overcome with
eld. Beaten, crazed, falling apart.

On the Eve of Saint John we came to Jamaica.

The ships were riddled by the _teredo_. We could not keep afloat to go
to Hispaniola. At Santa Gloria we ran them in quiet water side by side
upon the sand. They partly filled, they settled down, only forecastle
and poop above the blue mirror. We built shelters upon them and bridged
the space between. The ocean wanderers were turned into a fort.

Jamaica, we thanked all the saints, was a friendly land. They brought us
cassava and fruit, these Indians; they swarmed about us in their canoes.
The gods in trouble, yet still the gods!

We were forty leagues from Hispaniola, and we had no ship!

Again there volunteered Diego Mendez. We ourselves had now but one
Christian boat. But there existed canoes a-plenty. Chose one, with six
Indians to row! Leave Diego Mendez with one other Spaniard of his choice
to cross the sea between us and Hispaniola, get to San Domingo, rouse
all Christian men, even Don Nicholas de Ovanda, procure a large ship or
two smaller ones, return with rescue!

We sent off Diego Mendez with strong farewells and blessings. The vast
blue sea and air withdrew and covered from sight the canoe.

A week--two weeks. Grew out of the azure a single canoe, and approached.
"Diego Mendez--Diego Mendez!"

It was he alone, with a tale to tell of storm and putting ashore and
capture after battle by Jamaicans no longer friendly, and of escape
alone. But he would go again if so be he might have with him Bartholomew
Fiesco. They went, with heavily paid Indians to row the staunchest canoe
we could find. This time the Adelantado with twenty kept them company
along the shore to end of the island, where the canoe shot forth into
clear sea, and the blue curtain came down between the stranded and the
going for help. The Adelantado returned to us, and we waited. The weeks
crept by.

Great heat and sickness, and the Indians no longer prompt to b