ret of the road to the
new islands; and Bartholomew can have had nothing more to guide him than
a rough chart showing the islands in a certain latitude, and the distance
to be run towards them by dead-reckoning. That he should have made an
exact landfall and sailed into the Bay of Isabella, never having been
there before, was a certificate of the highest skill in navigation.

Unfortunately it was James who was in charge of the colony; Bartholomew
had no authority, for once his ships had arrived in port his mission was
accomplished until Christopher should return and find him employment.
He was therefore forced to sit still and watch his young brother
struggling with the unruly Spaniards. His presence, however, was no
doubt a further exasperation to the malcontents. There existed in
Isabella a little faction of some of the aristocrats who had never,
forgiven Columbus for employing them in degrading manual labour; who had
never forgiven him in fact for being there at all, and in command over
them. And now here was another woolweaver, or son of a wool-weaver, come
to put his finger in the pie that Christopher has apparently provided so
carefully for himself and his family.

Margarite and Buil and some others, treacherous scoundrels all of them,
but clannish to their own race and class, decide that they will put up
with it no longer; they are tired of Espanola in any case, and Margarite,
from too free indulgence among the native women, has contracted an
unpleasant disease, and thinks that a sea voyage and the attentions of a
Spanish doctor will be good for him. It is easy for them to put their
plot into execution. There are the ships; there is nothing, for them to
do but take a couple of them, provision them, and set sail for Spain,
where they trust to their own influence, and the story they will be able
to tell of the falseness of the Admiral's promises, to excuse their
breach of discipline. And sail they do, snapping their fingers at the
wool-weavers.

James and Bartholomew were perhaps glad to be rid of them, but their
relief was tempered with anxiety as to the result on Christopher's
reputation and favour when the malcontents should have made their false
representations at Court. The brothers were powerless to do anything in
that matter, however, and the state of affairs in Espanola demanded their
close attention. Margarite's little army, finding itself without even
the uncertain restraint of its commander, n