CHAP. X . ]
CHRISTOPHER
219
COLUMBUS.
intention of the admiral to leave a part of his men for the defence of the island from the Caribs, while he returned to his country for more, he was greatly overjoyed.
His subjects manifested
equal delight at the idea of retaining these wonderful people among them; and at the prospect of the future arrival of the admiral, with ships freighted with hawks' bells, and other pre cious articles.
They eagerly lent their assistance in building the
fortress; little dreaming that they were assisting to place on their necks the galling yoke of perpetual and toilsome slavery. The preparations for the fortress were scarcely commenced, when certain Indians, arriving at the harbor, brought a report that a great vessel, like those of the admiral, had anchored in a river at the eastern end of the island.
These tidings, for a time,
dispelled a thousand uneasy conjectures which had harassed the mind of Columbus, for of course this vessel could be no other than the Pinta.
He immediately procured a canoe from Gua
canagari, with several Indians to navigate it, and dispatched a Spaniard with a letter to Pinzon, couched in amicable terms, making no complaints of his desertion, but urging him to join company immediately. After three days' absence the canoe returned.
The Spaniard
reported that he had pursued the coast for twenty leagues, but had neither seen nor heard any thing of the Pinta; he considered the report, therefore, as incorrect.
Other rumors, however, were
immediately afterwards circulated at the harbor, of this large vessel to the eastward; but, on investigation, they appeared to Columbus to be equally undeserving of credit.
He relapsed,
therefore, into his doubts and anxieties in respect to Pinzon. Since the shipwreck of his vessel, the desertion of that com mander had become a matter of still more serious moment, and