Although to a certain extent deserted and discredited, Columbus determined to make one more desperate effort to draw himself clear of the oblivion which was now enveloping him.  With a fleet of four small vessels he set sail from Cadiz on May 9, 1502.  Perhaps on this occasion his mortification was greater than ever before.  Ovando, the Governor, would have nothing to do with him.  Having suffered shipwreck and numerous other calamities besides, the great navigator, embittered and downcast, turned the bows of his ships towards Spain.  On landing he learned of the death of Queen Isabella, the only person of influence who had shown him a consistent friendship.  Realizing now that his influence and chances had finally departed, he retired into seclusion in the neighbourhood of Vallodolid, where he died in his sixtieth year on May 20, 1506.

CHAPTER III

THE SPANISH CONQUISTADORES

The pioneer conquistadores of South America afford an interesting study.  Such men as those who took their lives in their hands and sailed out into the unknown were actuated by two motives—­the love of adventure and the desire of gain.  There is no doubt that the second consideration by far outweighed the first.  A man of the period left Spain or Portugal for the New World for one cogent reason only, to seek his fortune.  If he won fame in the achievement of this, so much the better.  Indeed, as a matter of fact, it was generally impossible to achieve the one without the other, although this fame might frequently have its shield sullied and blackened by a number of wild and terrible acts; for circumstances tended to make the conquistador what he almost invariably became, a daring being who let the lives of no others stand in the way of his own interests.

He was not, as was the case with corresponding officials of a later epoch, sent out on an accurately defined mission for which his emoluments were definitely fixed and guaranteed by the Home Government.  The conquistador nearly always risked much of his own before he set sail from his native land.  A man was seldom given a Governorship, even of an unknown region in the New World, unless he showed himself prepared to finance in part an expedition which should be of sufficient importance to furnish the new territory with men and live-stock, and everything else of the kind.

The conquistador, in fact, was generally the active partner in an enterprise which was largely commercial.  Sometimes his sleeping partners were the merchants of Spain; sometimes it was the King himself who joined in the venture; at others it was both King and merchants who jointly assisted the pioneer.  But it was very seldom that an adventurer of the kind succeeded in obtaining an important concession unless he were prepared to subsidize it heavily from his own pocket.