s having been got over
the shallow bar, their loading was completed and they were ready to sail.
On April 6th Diego Tristan was sent in charge of a boat with a message to
Bartholomew, who was to be left in command of the settlement; but when
Tristan had rounded the point at the entrance to the river and come in
sight of the shore he had an unpleasant surprise; the settlement was
being savagely attacked by the resurrected Quibian and his followers.
The fight had lasted for three hours, and had been going badly against
the Spaniards, when Bartholomew and Diego Mendes rallied a little force
round them and, calling to Columbus's Irish dog which had been left with
them, made a rush upon the savages and so terrified them that they
scattered. Bartholomew with eight of the other Spaniards was wounded,
and one was killed; and it was at this point that Tristan's boat arrived
at the settlement. Having seen the fight safely over, he went on up the
river to get water, although he was warned that it was not safe; and sure
enough, at a point a little farther up the river, beyond some low green
arm of the shore, he met with a sudden and bloody death. A cloud of
yelling savages surrounded his boat hurling javelins and arrows, and only
one seaman, who managed to dive into the water and crawl ashore, escaped
to bring the evil tidings.

The Spaniards under Bartholomew's command broke into a panic, and taking
advantage of his wounded condition they tried to make sail on their
caravel and join the ships of Columbus outside; but since the time of the
rains the river had so much gone down that she was stuck fast in the
sand. They could not even get a boat over the bar, for there was a heavy
cross sea breaking on it; and in the meantime here they were, trapped
inside this river, the air resounding with dismal blasts of the natives'
conch-shells, and the natives themselves dancing round and threatening to
rush their position; while the bodies of Tristan and his little crew were
to be seen floating down the stream, feasted upon by a screaming cloud of
birds. The position of the shore party was desperate, and it was only by
the greatest efforts that the wounded Adelantado managed to rally his
crew and get them to remove their little camp to an open place on the
shore, where a kind of stockade was made of chests, casks, spars, and the
caravel's boat. With this for cover, the Spanish fire-arms, so long as
there was ammunition for them, were eno