Chapter 15

The tale that was told was one of bad fortune. The party had barely covered a league from the shore when one of the two savages managed to free himself from his handcuffs and dash across the rough ground towards the camp of the savages. Carvalho hesitated to order his men to fire on him, and they had no possibility of catching him as he was accustomed to run at great speed across the land. Then the second prisoner attempted to escape but he was rendered unconscious by a blow to his head. He was then carried unaware of his surroundings until they reached the camp of the savages. But the first escaped prisoner had warned the inhabitants of the camp that our men were coming, so the camp was empty of both men and women when our party arrived. By then it was almost sunset, so they had no option but to make camp for the night in the deserted village.

Although the village was deserted, its inhabitants were nearby, and they spent the night loosing volleys of arrows at our men who were trapped in the village. In return, our men fired their arquebuses wildly without discerning any target, and so the two sides passed a night of constant attack and repulse. It was during one of these attacks that the sailor was hit by an arrow which severed an artery and he bled to death in a very short time. When dawn broke, Carvalho ordered his men to set fire to the huts in the village and to hastily return to the shore, leaving the prisoner behind still with his hands bound.

When they returned and reported what had occurred, Magellan was furious and blamed Carvalho for having failed in his mission, but in truth the fault lay with Magellan for having conceived of a plan that was ill-thought out and without considering how the savages would react to their companions being held against their will. From then on, we came under almost daily attack by volleys of arrows that fortunately did no harm, but which meant that we were confined to the area of shore and to the naos that had been successfully careened. Even our hunting parties were constrained to search for guanaco within sight of the shore for fear of being attacked from ambush by the savages who were now our implacable enemies. This, for me, added to the list of reasons why the Captain-General was not suited to the task that lay ahead of us.

By the end of July, we had completed the difficult work of making three of the naos seaworthy and ready to continue the quest for the passage to the South Sea. The repairs had been successfully tested after the naos were righted and returned to the sea, so Magellan decided that when the work on the fourth nao had been completed we should sail to the bay of Santa Cruz and wait there for the weather to become more favourable for our search to continue. This was a sensible decision because of the daily attacks by the savages and the scarcity of fish in the sea, whereas the bay of Santa Cruz appeared to be free of savages and the many small islands there were home to many of the seals that could be slaughtered and provide us with food for the next stage of our voyage. As two of the captains had been killed during the mutiny, and after it had failed, it was necessary to appoint new captains for the Concepción and the Victoria. Obviously aware of the need to have captains who were loyal to him, Magellan appointed Serrano as the captain of the Concepción, and his brother-in-law, Duarte Barbosa, as captain of the Victoria. Other appointments were made and the crews were redistributed among the four remaining naos. The punishment of us 40 mutineers who had been forced to work in freezing cold water while careening the naos was deemed to have been sufficient and, to my surprise, I was once again returned to my position as maestre on board the Concepción. I was happy to serve under Serrano as he was an experienced captain, so I was sure that the crew would work together to serve such a professional sailor.