d resumed their search on the next day, when
they found two more corpses, one of which was seen to have a large
quantity of beard. As all the natives were beardless this was a very
significant and unpleasant discovery, and the explorers returned at once
and reported what they had seen to Columbus. He thereupon set sail for
La Navidad, but the navigation off that part of the coast was necessarily
slow because of the number of the shoals and banks, on one of which the
Admiral's ship had been lost the year before; and the short voyage
occupied three days.

They arrived at La Navidad late on the evening of the 27th--too late to
make it advisable to land. Some natives came out in a canoe, rowed round
the Admiral's ship, stopped and looked at it, and then rowed away again.
When the fleet had anchored Columbus ordered two guns to be fired; but
there was no response except from the echoes that went rattling among the
islands, and from the frightened birds that rose screaming and circling
from the shore. No guns and no signal fires; no sign of human habitation
whatever; and no sound out of the weird darkness except the lap of the
water and the call of the birds . . . . The night passed in anxiety
and depression, and in a certain degree of nervous tension, which was
relieved at two or three o'clock in the morning by the sound of paddles
and the looming of a canoe through the dusky starlight. Native voices
were heard from the canoe asking in a loud voice for the Admiral; and
when the visitors had been directed to the Marigalante they refused to go
on board until Columbus himself had spoken to them, and they had seen by
the light of a lantern that it was the Admiral himself. The chief of
them was a cousin of Guacanagari, who said that the King was ill of a
wound in his leg, or that he would certainly have come himself to welcome
the Admiral. The Spaniards? Yes, they were well, said the young chief;
or rather, he added ominously, those that remained were well, but some
had died of illness, and some had been killed in quarrels that had arisen
among them. He added that the province had been invaded by two
neighbouring kings who had burned many of the native houses. This news,
although grave, was a relief from the dreadful uncertainty that had
prevailed in the early part of the night, and the Admiral's company,
somewhat consoled, took a little sleep.

In the morning a party was sent ashore to La Navidad. Not a boat was i