THE slave-seekers, one hundred and fifty armed men, struck a flag into the earth before the village and demanded a parley. Their leader or captain was a tall, black-bearded person, fierce and fell of voice and aspect. He came to the front and shouted to the Indians in a mixture of Spanish and Indian words. Also he made friendly-seeming gestures. “No harm meant—no harm meant! Friends—friends! Your kindred send you messages—from a happy country—much happier than here where you live! Let us come into your village and talk.—We have beads and scarlet cloth—” But the village kept silence. At Aderhold’s instigation, immediately after the ship’s first visit, it had digged around itself a shallow ditch and planted in part a stockade of sharpened stakes, in part a tall and thorny hedge. Within this manner of wall were gathered some four hundred souls, counting men, women, and children. Besides the infants and the small boys and girls there were the old and infirm and the sick. All were naked of other defence than this one barrier and the frail, booth-like walls of their huts. They were armed only with primitive weapons. The word “Spaniard” meant to them ogre and giant. If they were not truly ogres and giants, the slave-seekers were yet active, hardened, picked men, trained in cruelty, practised in wiles, fired with lust of the golden price. When the village held silent, the leader tried again with blandishments; when there came no answer but the hot sunshine and the murmur of wood and sea, the company lifted its flag and advanced with deliberation. From behind the wall came a flight of spears and arrows. A Spaniard staggered and fell. Some savage arm, more sinewy than most, had sent a spear full through his neck. There arose a roar of anger. The men from the ships, the black-bearded one at their head, rushed forward, came tilt against the stockade and the thorn hedge.... They had not believed in the stoutness of any defence, nor of these Indians’ hearts. But driven back, they must believe. Carrying with them their wounded, they withdrew halfway to the sea and held council.