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Updated: June 11, 2025
Ojeda now thought himself secure of his enemy; he immediately dispatched a boat within a short distance of the shore, where the crew lay on their oars, requiring Roldan to come to them. "How many may accompany me?" demanded the latter. "Only five or six," was the reply. Upon this Diego de Escobar and four others waded to the boat. The crew refused to admit more.
They plunged on, tearing their clothes on the spiked brush and the thorns of the sweetbrier, fragrant lilac petals falling in a shower about them, great ferns trodden and rebounding. The air was heavy with perfume and the pungent odour of redwood and pine. Roldan had passed Adan. Suddenly his horse stumbled and would have gone headlong had not his expert rider pulled him back on his haunches.
The air was now of an agreeable warmth; the full moon was so low and brilliant that Roldan called out he could count the bristling hairs on a coyote's back. In less than two hours they were climbing a mountain trail leading through a dense redwood forest. In these depths the moon's rays were scattered into mere flecks dropping here and there through the thick interlacing boughs of the giant trees.
Roldan knew that the enslavement of the Indians was an unpopular feature in the government of the island, especially with the queen; and the artful character of this man is evinced in his giving his opposition to Columbus the appearance of a vindication of the rights of the suffering islanders.
The vigorous and somewhat austere character of the Adelantado for some time kept him in awe; but when he was absent from the settlement, Roldan was able to carry on his machinations with confidence. Don Diego, who then commanded at Isabella, was an upright and worthy man, but deficient in energy.
Roldan had written to the admiral that he was drawing near to St Domingo by the advice of Caravajal, to be nearer him to treat for an accommodation on his arrival; and now that the admiral was arrived, his actions not suiting with his letter, it was to be presumed that Caravajal had invited him thither to the end that, if the admiral had been long of coming, or had not come at all, he as the admirals associate and Roldan as chief judge might have usurped the government of the island to the exclusion of the lieutenant.
An instance of the bad faith usual between bad men was now evinced. The former partisans of Roldan, finding him earnest in his intention of serving the government, and that there was no hope of engaging him in their new sedition, sought to waylay and destroy him on his march, but his vigilance and celerity prevented them.
That he had seen deer and rabbits, the skins and paws of tigers, and guaninis , all of which he shewed to Roldan in his caravels. He farther said that he should soon repair to St Domingo to give the admiral a full account of his voyage.
"You are the sons of aristocrats, and yet you are torn and unkempt, and one of you has ridden many leagues without a saddle. Are you runaways? The shelter of the Mission is for all, but we do not countenance insubordination." Roldan introduced himself and his friend. "We are runaways, my father," he added, "but from the government; and we have arranged that our parents shall not be anxious.
As the boys, congratulations and modest acknowledgement over, were making for home and breakfast, the priest pressed his horse close to Roldan's. "I interested you much at the race yesterday, Don Roldan," he said, with a good-humoured smile. "Why was that?"
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