This
was a league from Guarico and from La Navidad. The
slain Indian's companion escaping, told.
This time Diego de Arana went to Guarico and Guacanagari. He took with him a rich present, and he
showed how
the guilty men were punished. "You do not slay them?"
asked Guacanagari. Arana shook his head. He thought
we were too few in this land to be ridding of life the violent
and lustful. But the Indians seemed to think that he said
that he could not. They still doubted, I think, our mortality.
As yet they had seen no mighty stranger bleed or die.
Arana would have kept his garrison within the walls.
But indeed it was not healthful for them there, and at the
very word of confinement faction rose. There were now
two parties in La Navidad, the Commandant's party and
Escobedo's party.
The heat increased. It was now March. An illness fell
among us. I took Guarin into counsel and gave in water the
bitter inner bark of that tree shredded and beaten fine. Those
who shook with cold and burned with fever recovered.
Fray Ignatio was among those who sickened. He left
after some days his hammock, but his strength did not come
back to him. Yet, staff in hand, he went almost daily to
Guarico. Then, like that! Fray Ignatio died. He died
--his heart stopped--on the path between Guarico and
La Navidad. He had been preaching, and then, Guarin told
me, he put his hand to his side, and said, "I will go home!"
He started up the path, but at the big tree he dropped.
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