It was now the end of April, but the weather declined to improve. Probably Columbus, like a skilful commander, made his men draw lots with a view to pilgrimages, and encouraged them to vow to attend church in their shirts; but there is no mention of these manœuvres in the Admiral’s log. The ships were nearly eaten up by the teredo and could with difficulty be kept afloat. One was abandoned, and the crew taken on board the other two. These reached the islands lying south of Cuba which Columbus had discovered on his second voyage, where they were detained nearly a week by violent storms. When the voyage was resumed the head-winds promptly resumed also, and finally, with his ships leaking like sieves out of repair, and his provisions nearly exhausted, Columbus bore up for Jamaica, which he reached on the 23d of June. The next day he entered the harbor of Port Santa Gloria, where his decrepit vessels were run ashore to keep them from sinking, and were firmly lashed together. CHAPTER XVIII. HIS LAST YEARS. [Æt. 67; 1503] The ships were now hopeless wrecks, and there was nothing more to be done with them except to abandon them to the underwriters and claim a total loss. The only chance that the Spaniards could avoid laying their bones in the bake-ovens of the Jamaican natives was in communicating with San Domingo, but in the absence of any efficient postal service this chance seemed very small. Diego Mendez, who was the captain of one of the vessels, and who had earned the confidence of Columbus by the skill with which he superintended the escape of the beleaguered colonists from Quibian’s hordes, volunteered to take a canoe and, with the help of Indian paddlers, make his way across the one hundred and twenty miles of sea which stretched between Jamaica and Hispaniola. He started on his voyage, and skirted the shore of Jamaica, so that he could land from time to time and take in provisions. It struck the natives that they might as well improve the opportunity to lay in provisions for themselves, and accordingly they attacked Mendez with great energy and appetite, and made him and his Indian paddlers prisoners. There being in all seven prisoners, a dispute arose as to the fairest way of dividing them, and the savages agreed to settle it by a game of chance--which was probably “seven-up.” Mendez took advantage of the quarrelling to which the game gave rise, and ran away. At the end of a fortnight he appeared before the Admiral and announced that all was lost except honor and his canoe.