48 THE SEA. 



of Anson's squadron) and some Indians of the country. Among the latter was a chief 

 named Orellana, and ten of his tribe, whom the Spaniards treated with great inhumanity. 

 The Indians determined to have their revenge. They managed to acquire a number of 

 long knives, and employed their leisure in cutting thongs of raw hide, and in fixing 

 to each end of the thongs the double-headed shot of the quarter-deck guns, which when 

 swung round their heads, became powerful weapons. In two or three days all was ready 

 for their scheme of vengeance. 



It was about nine in the evening, when the decks were comparatively clear, that 

 Orellana and his companions, having divested themselves of most of their clothes, came 

 together to the quarter-deck, approaching the door of the great cabin. The boatswain ordered 

 them away. Orellana, however, paid no attention to him, placed two of his men at 

 either gangway, and raising a hideous war-cry, they commenced the massacre, slashing in 

 all directions with the knives, and brandishing the double-headed shot. The six who 

 remained with the chief on the quarter-deck laid nearly forty Spaniards low in a few minutes, 

 of whom twenty were killed on the spot. Many of the officers fled into the great cabin, 

 and hastily barricaded the door. A perfect panic ensued on board. Many attempting 

 to escape to the forecastle were stabbed as they passed by the four Indian sentries, 

 and others jumped into the waist, where they thought themselves fortunate to lie concealed 

 among the cattle on board ; a number fled up the main shrouds and kept on the tops 

 or rigging. The fact is that those on board did not know whether it was not a general 

 mutiny among the pressed hands and prisoners, and the yells of the Indians and groans 

 of the dying, and the confused clamour of the crew, were all heightened in effect by the 

 obscurity of the night. And now Orellana secured the arm-chest, which had been placed 

 on the quarter-deck for security a few days before. It was of no use to him, as he 

 only found a quantity of fire-arms, which he did not understand, or for which he had 

 no ammunition ; the cutlasses, for which he was in search, were fortunately hidden underneath. 

 By this time Pizarro had established some communication with the gun-rooms and 

 between decks, and discovered that the English prisoners had not intermeddled in the 

 mutiny, which was confined to the Indians. They had only pistols in the cabin, and 

 no ammunition for them ; at last, however, they managed to obtain some by lowering a bucket 

 out of the cabin window, into which the gunner, out of one of the gun-room ports, put 

 a quantity of cartridges. After loading, they cautiously and partially opened the cabin 

 door, firing several shots, at first without effect. At last, Mindinuetta, one of the captains 

 of the original squadron, had the fortune to shoot Orellana dead on the spot, on which his 

 faithful companions one and all leaped into the sea and perished. For full two hours these 

 eleven Indians had held a ship of sixty-six guns, and manned by nearly 500 hands ! 



Pizarro, having escaped this peril, reached Spain in safety, "after having been 

 absent between four and five years, and having," says the narrator, " by his attendance on 

 our expedition, diminished the naval power of Spain by above three thousand hands (the 

 flower of their sailors), and by four considerable ships of war and a pataehe." He had 

 not encountered Anson, nor done any of his ships damage. To the disasters and adventures 

 encountered by that commander we must now return. 



Off Cape Horn the weather was so terrible that it obliged the oldest mariners on board 



