The cacique was laid in the bottom of a boat, and pretended to suffer so much pain that the officer in charge of the boat loosened his bonds. Quibian thereupon jumped overboard and, as it was now night, escaped safely to land; while the Spaniards believed that he had been drowned. The danger of an attack by the savages being thus, in the opinion of the Admiral, at an end, he prepared to depart for Spain. The water on the bar at the mouth of the river was so low that the ships could not pass over it without being lightened. Their stores were therefore disembarked, and after getting into deep water the ships were anchored and the stores were brought back to them in boats. When the fleet was nearly ready to sail, Columbus sent Diego Tristan and eleven men ashore to obtain water. As they neared the settlement, they saw a horde of savages rush out of the jungle and attack the colonists. The savages were led by Quibian, who, being a heathen and a barbarian, imagined that he had more right to his wives and children than the Spaniards had. Tristan was an excellent old sailor, who held that it was the first duty of man to obey orders. He had been sent for water and not for blood, and accordingly he never thought of interfering in the fight, but rowed steadily up the river in search of fresh water. The Spaniards fought bravely, and repulsed the attack of the natives; but the latter, instead of appreciating Tristan’s fidelity to duty, fell upon him and killed him and his whole party, with the exception of one man, who fled to the settlement with his sanguinary story. The Spaniards were now convinced that they had no more use for Central America, and rushed to the ship that lay in the river, determined to return to Spain with the Admiral. The ship, however, could not be got over the bar, and the terrified colonists consented to listen to the Adelentado’s advice, and to attempt to fortify the settlement. They went on shore again, and threw up barricades--which, as every one knows who is familiar with French politics, consist of boxes, paving-stones, omnibuses, news-stands, and other heterogeneous articles piled together. The barricades were better than nothing as defensive works, but they were miserably weak. Eleven Spaniards had been killed and several more wounded, including Don Bartholomew, and as the savages vastly outnumbered them, the prospect that any of the colonists would escape was extremely small.