CHAP. V I . ]
CHRISTOPHER
COLUMBUS.
175
treaty to win this perverse and turbulent man from his career. Roldan answered with hardihood and defiance, professing to op pose only the tyranny and misrule of the Adelantado, but to be ready to submit to the admiral on his arrival. He, and several of his principal confederates, wrote letters to the same effect to their friends in San Domingo, urging them to plead their cause with the admiral when he should arrive, and to assure him of their dis position to acknowledge his authority. When Coronal returned with accounts of Roldan's contumacy, the Adelantado proclaimed him and his followers traitors. That shrewd rebel, however, did not suffer his men to remain within either the seduction of promise or the terror of menace ; he im mediately set out on his march for his promised land of Xaragua, trusting to impair every honest principle and virtuous tie of his misguided followers by a life of indolence and libertinage. In the meantime the mischievous effects of his intrigues among the caciques became more and more apparent. No sooner had the Adelantado left Fort Conception, than a conspiracy was formed among the natives to surprise it. Guarionex was at the head of this conspiracy, moved by the instigations of Roldan, who had promised him protection and assistance, and led on by the forlorn hope, in this distracted state of the Spanish forces, of re lieving his paternal domains from the intolerable domination of usurping strangers. Holding secret communications with his tri butary caciques, it was concerted that they should all rise simul taneously and massacre the soldiery, quartered in small parties in their villages ; while he, with a chosen force, should surprise the fortress of Conception. The night of the full moon was fixed upon for the insurrection. One of the principal caciques, however, not being a correct