Taken to the city of Santo Domingo, he was placed on trial for attempting to defraud the government, and the decision was against him. He was not only deprived of his lands, but was stripped of everything he owned. For several years thereafter he roamed about the island, and made occasional voyages, but as a penniless, rather than an influential, adventurer. His good friend, the "ungodly bishop," Fonseca, was still in power, but inaccessible through the great distance that separated them. One happy day, however, Ojeda met La Cosa, who was then in the enjoyment of a considerable fortune, and who, with the reckless generosity for which sailors are proverbial, placed all his means at his disposal. He went to Spain, where he saw the bishop, secured a fleet (as already mentioned), and in it sailed for Santo Domingo, where he was met by his partner, and together the soldier and the sailor set out for Terra Firma. Before they left the island, however, Ojeda must needs plunge himself into another difficulty by picking a quarrel with a rival discoverer, Nicuesa, whom he challenged to fight a duel. It seems that King Ferdinand had granted territory in Terra Firma to both these men; and, though there was certainly room enough and to spare in that vast region, they began to dispute over their perspective boundaries before they had staked them out. The hot-headed Ojeda was a skilled swordsman, but Nicuesa was artful enough to avoid an encounter, in which there was little doubt he would be killed, by insisting that each contestant should deposit five thousand castellanos with an umpire before engaging in the fight. As this was a larger sum than poor Ojeda could raise--which, of course, Nicuesa knew full well--the irate cavalier was obliged to sail without having obtained satisfaction. This was the expedition that ended so disastrously, as narrated in a previous chapter. The Spaniard who was charged with La Cosa's last message to Ojeda was the only survivor of seventy who had followed the rash commander in his headlong attack. What had become of Ojeda himself none of the survivors could tell, for several days passed without news of him. His body was not to be found among the slain, and no one who knew him believed that the Indians could have captured him alive. He had fought like a tiger to reach and defend his friend La Cosa, but had been borne back by the thronging savages, and since then nothing had been heard of him. The woods and shore were searched by scouts, and he was finally found extended on some mangrove roots on the borders of the forest. He was in such an exhausted state that he could not speak, but, intrepid to the last, still clung to his buckler, and in his right hand grasped the good sword with which he had cut his way through the savage hordes.