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Nicuesa had landed some of his horses, and such was the terror inspired by those remarkable and unknown animals that several of the women who had escaped from the fire, when they caught sight of the frightful monsters, rushed back into the flames, preferring this horrible death rather than to meet the horses.
They obediently followed Enciso, but nevertheless implored him at least to grant them the favour of allowing them to return to Hispaniola or to conduct them himself to Nicuesa, promising in exchange for his good services twenty-six drachmas of gold; for though they were in want of bread, they were rich in gold.
With little or no provisions, Nicuesa and his faithful seventeen were forced to put to sea amid the jeers and mockery of the men on shore. The date was March 1, 1511. According to the chroniclers, the last words that those left on the island heard Nicuesa say were, "Show thy face, O Lord, and we shall be saved." A pathetic and noble departure!
Then he strove valiantly to bring about an adjustment between the fugitive and the brutal soldiery, but in vain. Nicuesa, abandoning all his pretensions, at last begged them to receive him, if not as a governor, at least as a companion-at-arms, a volunteer. But nothing, neither the influence of Balboa nor the entreaties of Nicuesa, could mitigate the anger of the colonists.
It therefore fell out that Nicuesa, with sixty companions, had hardly landed, so it is reported, before the colonists forced him to re-embark, overwhelming him with threats. The better intentioned of the colonists were displeased at this demonstration, but fearing a rising of the majority headed by Vasco Nuñez, they did not interfere.
Colmenares accepted this mission, for he was a personal friend of Nicuesa, and boldly announced that the provisions he had brought were intended as much for Nicuesa as for the colonists of Uraba. He, therefore, fitted out one of his ships and the brigantine, which had been taken from Enciso, loading them with a part of the provisions he had brought.
Another adventurer, Nicuesa, came as his neighbour, holding the Governorship of the coast from the Gulf of Uraba to the Cape Gracias a Dios. These two conquistadores, although as jealous of each other as was usual with almost all these pioneer explorers, joined forces against the Indians, whom they attempted to subdue by means of an iron hand rather than by a silk glove.
He said that no one had the right to keep back any of the gold, without his authorisation, or that of his associate Hojeda. These imprudent words reached the ears of the colonists of Uraba, and roused against Nicuesa the indignation of the partisans of Enciso, Hojeda's deputy judge, and that of Nuñez.
The buccaneers are those who made it famous. So the word brings up white-hot stories of battle, murder and sudden death. The history of the Spanish Main begins in 1509, with the voyages of Ojeda and Nicuesa, which were the first definite and authorized attempts to colonize the mainland of South America.
From Veragua to the river named by Columbus, San Matteo, on whose banks Nicuesa wasted so much time and suffered such hardships after losing his caravel, the map showed only one hundred and forty leagues, but many of the men who have returned from there say the distance is really considerably greater.
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