the island; and the contingency of hurricanes was not provided for.  Besides, the governor believed that this prediction of a hurricane was a mere pretext of the admiral’s for obtaining admission to the harbour.  To an eye unaccustomed to tropical changes, the weather appeared to be “set fair.”  Scarcely a ripple passed over the sea; scarcely a breath stirred the luxuriant foliage on shore.  Ovando repulsed with scorn the admiral’s suggestion that, at any rate, the departure of the fleet for Spain should he delayed.  This fleet was the richest in cargo that had ever left the islands.  It contained all the gold which had been wrung out of the natives by Bobadilla’s harsh measures.  Of one nugget, especially, the old chroniclers speak in the most glowing terms.  According to them, it was the largest piece of virgin gold ever discovered.  It had been found accidentally, by an Indian woman at the mines, while listlessly moving her rake to and fro in the water one day during dinner time.  Its value was estimated at 1,350,000 maravedis;[About 416 English Pounds] and in the festivities which took place on the occasion, it was used as a dish for a roast pig, the miners saying that no king of Castile has ever feasted from a dish of such value.  We do not find that the poor Indian woman had any part in the good fortune.  Indeed, as Las Casas observes, she was fortunate if she had any portion of the meat, not to speak of the dish.  Bobadilla had purchased the nugget for Ferdinand and Isabella, and had shipped it with other treasure valuable enough to go a long way towards compensating the sovereigns for all their expenditure on the new colony—­if the fleet could only reach Spain in safety.

But on the second day after its departure the Admiral’s prediction became terribly verified.  A tornado of unexampled fury swept over the seas; and those on shore could judge of the fate that was likely to befall the unfortunate squadron, as many of the buildings and trees on the island were levelled with the ground by the force of the tempest.  Of all the ships, only one—­and that the frailest of the fleet—­was able to accomplish the voyage to Spain.  A few vessels managed to return, in dire distress, to the island; but by far the greater number foundered at sea.  The historians of the period do not fail to remark that, while the ship which reached Spain safely was the one carrying the admiral’s property, a special providence decreed that his enemies—­Bobadilla, Roldan, and their associates in cruelty and plunder—­should perish with their ill-gotten gains.

Like Cassandra, Columbus witnessed the discomfiture of the disbelievers in his prophecy:  like her he was denied the right of sanctuary upon the occurrence of the disaster which he had foretold.  Repulsed from port by Ovando, however, the admiral sailed along the coast, and succeeded in bringing his own ship under the lee of the land when the storm came on.  But the three other caravels were in no little danger (particularly the disabled one, which was commanded by the Adelantado), and some days elapsed before the little squadron was re-united in the port of Azua, to the west of San Domingo.