nd regarded him with awe.
As the natives had no written language, the way in which the Spaniards
conveyed information to one another by means of mysterious marks on
paper seemed a kind of magic to them. When the expedition was
approaching a town, Las Casas would send a messenger in advance,
carrying a paper scrawled all over and hidden in a hollow reed. The
messenger would show the paper to the Indians and tell them that the
Christians were coming and the father wanted them to furnish so many
huts for them to sleep in, so much food for them to eat, and so on,
adding: "If you do not, Behique will be much displeased." So great was
their confidence in him that they would at once obey his commands, which
they believed the messenger had read from the paper, and in this way Las
Casas was able to save them from the dreadful massacres that had so
often wiped out whole villages.

But one day a terrible thing occurred. Valasquez had gone away to be
married and had appointed a Spaniard, named Pamfilo de Narvaez,
commander in his absence. The soldiers,--about three hundred in
number,--drew near a village called Caonao, and stopped to eat in the
dry bed of a river, where there were a great many stones on which they
sharpened their swords. When, at length, they entered the town some two
thousand natives were gathered together, all sitting peacefully on the
ground to look at the wonderful strangers and especially to see the
horses, at which they were never tired of gazing. About five hundred
others were busy in one of the huts, preparing food for the Spaniards,
as Las Casas had told them to do. Suddenly one of the soldiers drew his
sword,--why, nobody ever knew,--and began slashing right and left at the
defenseless Indians. Instantly the others followed his example, and
before half of the Indians had realized what was happening, the place
was piled with dead bodies. Las Casas, who was not present at the
moment, hearing what was going on, in a white heat of rage rushed out
into the square to stop the slaughter; but before he succeeded in doing
this many hundred helpless men, women, and children had been butchered.

Not long after this dreadful event Valasquez returned to Cuba, and, the
whole island being now subdued, he proceeded to found a number of towns
and to divide the land and the Indians among the Spaniards. Las Casas
and a dear friend of his, Pedro de Renteria, who had lived near him in
Hispaniola, received together a whole vi