Within two days, one of those tremendous storms which sometimes sweep those latitudes gathered up, and began to blow. Columbus sheltered his little squadron as well as he could, and sustained no damage. A different fate befel the other armament. The ship in which were Bobadilla, Roldan, and a number of the most inveterate enemies of Columbus, was swallowed up with all its crew, together with the principal part of the ill-gotten treasure, gained by the miseries of the Indians. Some of the ships returned to St. Domingo, and only one was able to continue her voyage to Spain; that one had on board four thousand pieces of gold, the property of Columbus, which had been recovered by the agent whom he sent out with Ovando. Thus, while the enemies of the admiral were swallowed up as it were before his eyes, the only ship enabled to pursue her voyage was the frail bark freighted with his property. CHAPTER VII. PARLEY TELLS HOW COLUMBUS WAS SHIPWRECKED, AND ALSO OF THE MANNER OF HIS DEATH. Columbus soon left Hispaniola where he met with so inhospitable a reception, and steering towards the west, he arrived on the coast of Honduras. There he had an interview with some of the inhabitants of the continent, who came off in a large canoe; they appeared to be more civilized than any whom he had hitherto discovered. In return to the inquiries which the Spaniards made with their usual eagerness, where the Indians got the gold which they wore by way of ornaments, they directed him to countries situated to the west, in which gold was found in such profusion that it was applied to the most common uses. Well would it have been for Columbus had he followed their advice. Within a day or two he would have arrived at Yucatan; the discovery of Mexico and the other opulent countries of New Spain would have necessarily followed, the Southern Ocean would have been disclosed to him, and a succession of splendid discoveries would have shed fresh glory on his declining age. But the admiral's mind was bent upon discovering the supposed strait that was to lead to the Indian Ocean. In this navigation he explored a great extent of coast from Cape Gracios a Dios till he came to a harbour, which on account of its beauty and security, he called Porto Bello. On quitting this harbour he steered for the south, and he had not followed this course many days when he was overtaken by storms more terrible than any he had yet encountered. For nine days the vessels were tossed about at the mercy of a raging tempest. The sea, according to the description of Columbus, boiled at times like a cauldron, at other times it ran in mountain waves covered with foam: at night the raging billows sparkled with luminous particles, which made them resemble great surges of flame. For a day and a night the heavens glowed like a furnace with incessant flashes of lightning, while the loud claps of thunder were often mistaken for signal guns of their foundering companions.