made overtures for a
reconciliation to Porras, and endeavoured to persuade the mutineers to
return on board the ships. But these overtures were scornfully repulsed
and the admiral's messengers were sent back with threats of force. As for
the caravel, Porras had little difficulty in persuading his credulous
followers that it was merely an apparition which Columbus had conjured up
by magic arts; and such was the reputation for sorcery which the admiral
had acquired by his astronomical observations, that even the sight and
taste of some tangible bacon (half of that present from Ovando of which we
have heard) which he sent as a peace offering to the mutineers, failed to
convince them of the material character of the supposed phantom ship.

RESORT TO ARMS.

Soon, however, the differences between the rival parties were brought to
an issue. The Adelantado received information that Porras was planning a
descent on the ships, with the object of seizing the stores and capturing
the admiral. Resolving to anticipate this attack, he placed himself at the
head of fifty[25] devoted partisans of Columbus, and sallied out to engage
the mutineers. A furious struggle ensued; but the Adelantado performed
prodigies of valour, and his followers were better supplied with fire-arms
than the rebels; so that the latter sustained a complete defeat, and their
leader Porras was carried off as a prisoner to the ships.

[Footnote 25: It would appear from this number that either there had
been some defection from the ranks of the mutineers or that more than
half the Spaniards had remained faithful to the admiral.]

THE MUTINEERS CONQUERED.

The natives, who had been spectators of the affray, were much perplexed.
Wiser people than these poor savages have looked with sorrowful wonder on
the appeal to brute force to decide the quarrels of nations; and the
Indians, when they saw strife and death among the beings whom they had
formerly considered as heaven-descended and immortal, felt that their
estimate of these attributes ought to be lowered. But when curiosity
impelled them to examine the corpses of the Spaniards who had been killed
in the encounter, after minutely inspecting several bodies, they came to
that of Ledesma--whose name may be remembered as that of the gigantic
pilot of Seville who swam through the surf at Bethlehem to the
Adelantado's relief--who had now fallen, covered with wounds, fighting on
behalf of the mutineers. As