98
VOYAGES
A N D D I S C O V E R I E S OF
With all his faults he did not harbor malice.
He was quick and
fiery, it is true, and his sword was too apt to leap from its scab足 bard on the least provocation ; but after the first flash all was over, and, if he cooled upon an injury, he never sought for vengeance.
CHAPTER XIII. A R R I V A L OF ALONZO DE OJEDA AT SAN DOMINGO.
CONCLU足
SION OF HIS STORY.
O N arriving at San Domingo, the first inquiry of Alonzo de Ojeda was after the Bachelor Enciso.
He was told that he had departed
long before, with abundant supplies for the colony, and that nothing had been heard of him since his departure.
Ojeda waited for a
time in hopes of hearing, by some return ship, of the safe arrival of the Bachelor at San Sebastian.
No tidings, however, arrived,
and he began to fear that he had been lost in those storms which had beset himself on his return voyage. Anxious for the relief of his settlement, and fearing that, by delay, his whole scheme of colonization would be defeated, he now endeavored to set on foot another armament, and to enlist a new set of adventurers.
His efforts, however, were all ineffectual.
The disasters of his colony were known, and his own circumstan足 ces were considered desperate.
He was doomed to experience
the fate that too often attends sanguine and brilliant projectors. The world is dazzled by them for a time, and hails them as he足 roes while successful ; but misfortune dissipates the charm, and they become stigmatized with the appellation of adventurers.