THE
C O M P A N I O N S OF C O L U M B U S .
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the provincial government he was about to establish in the wil derness. In an evil hour the aspiring Bachelor yielded to the tempta tion, and agreed to invest all bis money in the enterprise.
It was
arranged that Ojeda should depart with the armament which had arrived from Spain, while the Bachelor should remain at Hispa niola to beat up for recruits and provide supplies ; with these he was to embark in a ship purchased by himself, and proceed to join his high-mettled friend at the seat of his intended colony. Two rival governors, so well matched as Ojeda and Nicuesa, and both possessed of swelling spirits, pent up in small but active bodies, could not remain long in a little place like San Domingo without some collision. The island of Jamaica, which had been assigned to them in common, furnished the first ground of conten tion ; the province of Darien furnished another, each pretending to include it within the limits of his jurisdiction.
Their disputes
on these points ran so high that the whole place resounded with them.
In talking, however, Nicuesa had the advantage ; having
been brought up in the court, he was more polished and ceremo nious, had greater self-command, and probably perplexed his rival governor in argument.
Ojeda was no great casuist, but he
was an excellent swordsman, and always ready to fight his way through any question of right or dignity which he could not clearly argue with the tongue ; so he proposed to settle the dis pute by single combat. Nicuesa, though equally brave, was more a man of the world, and saw the folly of such arbitrament Secretly smiling at the heat of his antagonist, he proposed as a preliminary to the duel, and to furnish something worth fighting for, that each should deposit five thousand castillanos, to be the prize of the victor.
VOL.
m.
This, as he foresaw, was a temporary check
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