ugh to keep the natives at bay.

Outside the bar, in his anchorage beyond the green wooded point, the
Admiral meanwhile was having an anxious time. One supposes the entrance
to the river to have been complicated by shoals and patches of broken
water extending some considerable distance, so that the Admiral's
anchorage would be ten or twelve miles away from the camp ashore, and of
course entirely hidden from it. As day after day passed and Diego
Tristan did not return, the Admiral's anxiety increased. Among the three
caravels that now formed his little squadron there was only one boat
remaining, the others, not counting one taken by Tristan and one left
with Bartholomew, having all been smashed in the late hurricanes. In the
heavy sea that was running on the bar the Admiral dared not risk his last
remaining boat; but in the mean time he was cut off from all news of the
shore party and deprived of any means of finding out what had happened to
Tristan. And presently to these anxieties was added a further disaster.
It will be remembered that when the Quibian had been captured fifty
natives had been taken with him; and these were confined in the
forecastle of the Capitana and covered by a large hatch, on which most of
the crew slept at night. But one night the natives collected a heap of
big stones from the ballast of the ship, and piled them up to a kind of
platform beneath the hatch; some of the strongest of them got upon the
platform and set their backs horizontally against the hatch, gave a great
heave and, lifted it off. In the confusion that followed, a great many
of the prisoners escaped into the sea, and swam ashore; the rest were
captured and thrust back under the hatch, which was chained down; but
when on the following morning the Spaniards went to attend to this
remnant it was found that they had all hanged themselves.

This was a great disaster, since it increased the danger of the garrison
ashore, and destroyed all hope of friendship with the natives. There was
something terrible and powerful, too, in the spirit of people who could
thus to a man make up their minds either to escape or die; and the
Admiral must have felt that he was in the presence of strange, powerful
elements that were far beyond his control. At any moment, moreover, the
wind might change and put him on a lee shore, or force him to seek safety
in sea-room; in which case the position of Bartholomew would be a very
critical one. It wa