ovided him with guides and sent him
off to Isabella, where, hearing that his antagonist had recovered, and
that he himself was therefore in no danger of punishment, he presented
himself with his story.

Columbus immediately despatched Bartholomew with a party to examine the
mines; and sure enough they found in the river Hayna undoubted evidence
of a wealth far in excess of that contained in the Cibao gold-mines.
Moreover, they had noticed two ancient excavations about which the
natives could tell them nothing, but which made them think that the mines
had once been worked.

Columbus was never backward in fitting a story and a theory to whatever
phenomena surrounded him; and in this case he was certain that the
excavations were the work of Solomon, and that he had discovered the gold
of Ophir. "Sure enough," thinks the Admiral, "I have hit it this time;
and the ships came eastward from the Persian Gulf round the Golden
Chersonesus, which I discovered this very last winter." Immediately, as
his habit was, Columbus began to build castles in Spain. Here was a fine
answer to Buil and Margarite! Without waiting a week or two to get any
of the gold this extraordinary man decided to hurry off at once to Spain
with the news, not dreaming that Spain might, by this time, have had a
surfeit of news, and might be in serious need of some simple, honest
facts. But he thought his two caravels sufficiently freighted with this
new belief--the belief that he had discovered the Ophir of Solomon.

The Admiral sailed on March 10th, 1496, carrying with him in chains the
vanquished Caonabo and other natives. He touched at Marigalante and at
Guadaloupe, where his people had an engagement with the natives, taking
several prisoners, but releasing them all again with the exception of one
woman, a handsome creature who had fallen in love with Caonabo and
refused to go. But for Caonabo the joys of life and love were at an end;
his heart and spirit were broken. He was not destined to be paraded as a
captive through the streets of Spain, and it was somewhere in the deep
Atlantic that he paid the last tribute to the power that had captured and
broken him. He died on the voyage, which was longer and much more full
of hardships than usual. For some reason or other Columbus did not take
the northerly route going home, but sailed east from Gaudaloupe,
encountering the easterly trade winds, which delayed him so much that the
voyage occupied three