by their lust for gold and their pursuit of the women of 

 the tribe. A band of the Spaniards who were roaming the 

 countryside and terrorizing the inhabitants were at last set 

 upon and killed by order of the Indian chiefs Caonaboa 

 and Mariema. The warriors had then attacked the Indian 

 village to ferret out the rest of the Spaniards and had 

 slaughtered them, 



Guacanagari, evidently feeling obligated to his friend 

 Columbus in spite of the despicable way the Castilians 

 had behaved, had tried to defend them, thus bringing 

 disaster upon his own people. Now Guacanagari had re- 

 tired to the main Indian village to the east, supposedly to 

 recuperate from a leg wound he had received in the fight- 

 ing. 



As there was no longer any reason to settle at the site 

 of Navidad, Columbus sent exploring parties in both di- 

 rections in a vain search for a likely site for the new 

 settlement he proposed to establish. He finally determined 

 to return along the coast to the east and build a town nearer 

 the area where gold had been found. 



So, early in December, almost a year after the wreck 

 of the Santa Maria, the fleet departed, leaving as evidence 

 of white occupancy only a broken ship on a coral reef, 

 the burned ruins of Spain's first settlement, and a scatter- 

 ing of European belongings which had found their way 

 into the huts of the Indians who had salvaged them. It 

 would be many years before the white man would return 

 to make over this part of Hispaniola to his design. 



I spent the next two days quietly at the Beck hostelry 

 while each morning Sea Diver and her crew set out to 

 continue their exploration of the reefs. They came upon no 

 signs of a ship as old as the Santa Maria, but they returned 

 at the end of the second day to report the discovery of a 

 most intriguing wreck. The watchers in Reef Diver's hull 



198 Sea Diver 



