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 was while things were at this apparent deadlock that a brave fellow, Pedro Ledesma, offered to attempt to swim through the surf if the boat would take him to the edge of it.  Brave Pedro, his offer accepted, makes the attempt; plunges into the boiling surf, and with mighty efforts succeeds in reaching the shore; and after an interval is seen by his comrades, who are waiting with their boat swinging on the edge of the surf, to be returning to them; plunges into the sea, comes safely through the surf again, and is safely hauled on board, having accomplished a very real and satisfactory bit of service.

The story he had to tell the Admiral was as we know not a pleasant one —­Tristan and his men dead, several of Bartholomew’s force, including the Adelantado himself, wounded, and all in a state of panic and fear at the hostile natives.  The Spaniards would do nothing to make the little fortress safer, and were bent only on escaping from the place of horror.  Some of them were preparing canoes in which to come out to the ships when the sea should go down, as their one small boat was insufficient; and they swore that if the Admiral would not take them they would seize their own caravel and sail out themselves into the unknown sea as soon as they could get her floated over the bar, rather than remain in such a dreadful situation.  Columbus was in a very bad way.  He could not desert Bartholomew, as that would expose him to the treachery of his own men and the hostility of the savages.  He could not reinforce him, except by remaining himself with the whole of his company; and in that case there would be no means of sending the news of his rich discovery to Spain.  There was nothing for it, therefore, but to break up the settlement and return some other time with a stronger force sufficient to occupy the country.  And even this course had its difficulties; for the weather continued bad, the wind was blowing on to the shore, the sea was—­so rough as to make the passage of the bar impossible, and any change for the worse in the weather would probably drive his own crazy ships ashore and cut off all hope of escape.

The Admiral, whose health was now permanently broken, and who only had respite from his sufferings in fine weather and when he was relieved from a burden of anxieties such as had been continually pressing on him now for three months, fell into his old state of sleeplessness, feverishness, and consequent depression; and it, these circumstances it is not wonderful that the firm ground of fact began to give a little beneath him and that his feet began to sink again into the mire or quag of stupor.  Of these further flounderings in the quag he himself wrote an account to the King and Queen, so we may as well have it in his own words.