THE
COMPANIONS
OF COLUMBUS.
269
their free spirits and indolent habits, restraint and labor were worse than death.
Many of the most hardy and daring proposed
a general insurrection, and a massacre of their oppressors ; the great mass, however, were deterred by the belief that the Span足 iards were supernatural beings and could not be killed. A shrewd and skeptical cacique, named Brayoan, determined to put their immortality to the test.
Hearing that a young Span足
iard, named Salzedo, was passing through his lands, he sent a party of his subjects to escort him, giving them secret instructions how they were to act.
On coming to a river they took Salzedo
on their shoulders to carry him across, but, when in the midst of the stream, they let him fall, and, throwing themselves upon him, pressed him under water until he was drowned.
Then
dragging his body to the shore, and still doubting his being dead, they wept and howled over him, making a thousand apologies for having fallen upon him, and kept him so long beneath the surface. The cacique Brayoan came to examine the body and pro足 nounced it lifeless ; but the Indians, still fearing it might possess lurking immortality and ultimately revive, kept watch over it for three days, until it showed incontestable signs of putrefaction. Being now convinced that the strangers were mortal men like themselves, they readily entered into a general conspiracy to destroy them.* * Herrera, decad. i. lib. viii. cap. 13.