Page:First Voyage Round the World.djvu/335

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THE MUTINY AGAINST MAGELLAN.
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letter, took him in his arms, shouting: 'On behalf of the emperor, you are arrested!" At this the men of the skiff came on board with their swords drawn; then the chief constable cut the throat of Luis de Mendoça with a dagger, for he held him thrown down under him, for so Magellan had given him orders. Upon this a tumult arose, and Magellan hearing it, ordered the hawser to be paid out, and with his ship dropped down upon the other ships, with his men under arms, and the artillery in readiness. On reaching the ship of Mendoça, he ordered six men to be hung at the yard-arms, who had risen up against the chief constable, and these were seized upon by the sailors of the ship, of which he at once made captain, Duarte Barbosa, a Portuguese, and a friend of his: and he ordered the corpse of Mendoça to be hung up by the feet, that they might see him from the other ships. He then ordered Barbosa to prepare the men for going and boarding one of the other ships; and to avoid doing the harm which it was in its power to have done, and since he was a Portuguese, and the crews belonged to the emperor, he used a stratagem, and spoke secretly to a sailor, whom he trusted, who fled to the ship of Cartagena, where, at night when the current set for Magellan's ship, which was astern, the sailor seeing his opportunity, cut the cable or loosed the ship of Cartagena, so that it drifted upon that of Magellan, who came up, shouting: 'Treason! treason!' Upon which he entered the ship of Cartagena, and took him and his men prisoners, and made captain of the ship one Alvaro de Mesquita, whom Cartagena had arrested and put in irons, because he found fault with him for the mutiny which he was making. Seeing this, the other ship at once surrendered. He ordered Cartagena to be quartered, having him publicly cried as a traitor; and the body of Luis de Mendoça also was quartered; and he ordered the quarters and the executed men to be set on shore, spitted on poles. So the Castillians had great fear of him, for he kept the