The unfeeling mutineers in the meantime rowed with exultant shouts to the eastern point of the island, thence passing over to Hispaniola. When they went ashore they plundered and outraged the natives and shamelessly advised them to hold the Admiral responsible, as he was the sole cause of their trouble. If they could get no indemnity from him, they had their permission to kill him. It was his intention to make them all suffer and if they were smart they would get ahead of him. This greatly embittered the Indians against their treacherous leaders. Next they forced a large number of Indians, whom they had made prisoners, to go on board and do the rowing. They had hardly gone four miles after this when a furious wind arose and made the sea so rough that their small craft began to fill with water. In order to lighten them, the wretches determined to murder the Indians and throw them overboard. Some of them had already been killed when the others, growing desperate, flung themselves into the water and imploring mercy swam along near the canoes. But with unheard-of cruelty, whenever they became exhausted and to rest themselves would cling for a little while to the canoes, these European monsters would push them off and inhumanly leave them to die. No less than eighteen were thus sacrificed, and the same dreadful fate would have overtaken all of them had not the Spaniards doubted the possibility of reaching Jamaica without the help of the few remaining. Columbus in the meantime bore his great trouble with his customary resolution and, sick as he was, looked after the other invalids with the tenderness of a father. Heaven blessed his generous solicitude and sympathy and in a short time the old man had the pleasure of seeing all of them restored to health. But now he had to contend with a new danger. The Indians, who had supplied him with provisions up to that time, began to fear that these voracious Europeans would stay there forever and consume everything they could produce. This fear and the outrages from which they had suffered at the hands of the mutineers prejudiced them against the whites, and the result was they stopped bringing supplies to the vessels. Columbus, however, found a way of surmounting this difficulty, for which he was indebted to his knowledge of astronomy. He foresaw that an eclipse of the moon was at hand and he made use of this knowledge to arouse anew the respect and hospitality of the natives. With the help of one of the natives of Hispaniola he summoned the headmen by the announcement that he had something of great importance to communicate to them. When they appeared, he told them through an Indian interpreter that he and his companions were people who knew the God that made the heavens and the earth. This God, who protected the good and punished the bad, would also punish them if they refused any longer to supply food. As a sign of the punishment hanging over them, the moon the