Page:First Voyage Round the World.djvu/336

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THE MUTINY AGAINST MAGELLAN.

mutineers prisoners in irons, and set to the pumps, during three months that he remained in this river, in which he careened and refitted his ships very well.

"When he was about to set sail, he ordered the prisoners to be set at liberty, and pardoned them, and he sent them to go along the shore, following the bank of the river until they found the headland from which they could see the sea on the other side; and whoever returned to him with this news he would give him a hundred ducats as a reward for good news. These men went for more than forty leagues, and returned without news; and they brought back two men, fifteen spans high, from a village which they found. He then sent Serrano, because his vessel was the smallest, to go along the river to discover its extremity; and he went with a strong current, which carried him without wind. And, going along thus, his ship grounded on some rocks, on which it was lost, and the boat returned laden with the crew. Magellan sent the boats thither, and they saved everything, so that only the hull was lost. Then he ordered two priests, who had taken part in the mutiny, to be set on shore, and a brother of Cartagena, whom he pardoned at the petition of Mesquita, and he left them thus banished.

"Then he sailed from the river and ran along the coast until he reached a river, to which they gave the name of Victoria, and which had high land on either side. From this river Mesquita's ship ran away, and it was not known whether they had killed him, or if he had gone of his own accord; but an astrologer and diviner told him that the captain was a prisoner, and that they were returning to Castile, but that the emperor would do them an injury.

"Then Magellan, with the three ships which he had, entered the river, through which he ran for more than a hundred leagues, and came out on the other side into the open sea, where he had a stern wind from the east, with which they ran for more than five months without lowering