What was to be done? The admiral could not depart while hostilities were pending, nor could the Spaniards delay their operations until it should please the savages to attack them. The adelantado determined to force an issue. With seventy-five men, on the morning of the 30th of March, he ascended the Veragua, and landed unobserved near the quibian's village. Hiding his men, he advanced, first with four attendants, then alone, until after some difficulty he gained admission to the quibian's presence. What Bartolomé was now attempting was the regular game, afterward played for higher stakes, but now being pretty generally practised in the New World; namely, to capture the chief and hold him hostage for the good behavior of his people. It was at the door in front of the quibian's dwelling that this interview took place. The savage suspected nothing. The very boldness of the scheme, so foreign to aboriginal warfare, tended to allay apprehension. Within were fifty of his household, and at easy call five hundred warriors; what had the quibian to fear? The two chiefs sat and talked, first on general subjects; then the adelantado enquired concernedly about his host's illness, examined the wound tenderly, passed his hands over the disabled limb while proposing remedies. Suddenly the savage felt the grasp of the Spaniard tighten upon him, and before his suspicions were fairly aroused his arms were pinioned behind him. Mendez, who had been watching, fired his arquebuse, and the concealed Spaniards rushed forward and surrounded the house. The quibian struggled, but weakened by sickness he was easily held in the iron grasp of the adelantado, until by the aid of the other Spaniards he was made powerless. So adroitly was the feat performed, that before the presence of the Spaniards was generally known among the natives, their chief and all his family were captive, and on the way to the boats. The savages lifted up the usual lamentations, and offered enormous ransom; but it had been determined beforehand that the chief personages of the nation should be sent to Spain; for in such procedure, the admiral thought, lay the greater security of his plans. At this juncture in the narrative historians, even modern writers of fair intelligence, gravely discuss the probabilities of guilt in the quibian's supposed treachery, some holding with Diego de Porras that the natives did not meditate attack; as if they had not the right to defend their country, their wives and little ones, from the ravages of the invader by any means within their power.