SPANISH CRUELTY.
These particulars being in good forwardness, the execution of their
scheme was perhaps precipitated by a particular outrage committed on
Orellana himself; for one of the officers, who was a very brutal fellow,
ordered Orellana aloft, which being what he was incapable of performing,
the officer, under pretence of his disobedience, beat him with such
violence that he left him bleeding on the deck and stupefied for some
time with his bruises and wounds. This usage undoubtedly heightened his
thirst for revenge, and made him eager and impatient till the means of
executing it were in his power, so that within a day or two after this
incident he and his followers opened their desperate resolves in the
ensuing manner.
(*Note. It is called a bola.)
A DARING ADVENTURE.
It was about nine in the evening, when many of the principal officers
were on the quarter-deck indulging in the freshness of the night air; the
waist of the ship was filled with live cattle, and the forecastle was
manned with its customary watch. Orellana and his companions under cover
of the night, having prepared their weapons and thrown off their trousers
and the more cumbrous part of their dress, came altogether on the
quarter-deck and drew towards the door of the great cabin. The boatswain
immediately reprimanded them and ordered them to be gone. On this
Orellana spoke to his followers in his native language when four of them
drew off, two towards each gangway, and the chief and the six remaining
Indians seemed to be slowly quitting the quarter-deck.
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