THE ROMANCE OF MEXICO
the name of warfare, for the natives were, without compunction, brutally and treacherously hounded to death by thousands. The rules of European chivalry, always neglectful of the low born and the poor, were utterly regardless of these pagan, dark-skinned peoples, held to be mere beasts of burden, not entitled to the rights and privileges of men. In a few years after Isabella's death it was computed that more than six-sevenths of the population of Hispaniola had disappeared from the fair isle of their birth.
Where now would the ruthless invaders find slaves whose agonising labour should sate their avarice? Realising that the prosperity of his colony was once more at stake, Ovando, resourceful and unprincipled, planned a speedy remedy. There dwelt in the Lucayo Islands a simple, unsuspicious folk who could doubtless be enticed by Spanish guile to board the ships of the white men; and then transported to swell the thinned ranks of slaves in Hispaniola. It was not difficult to gain Ferdinand's assent to this infamous proposal, for which Ovando advanced a specious excuse. In their own free land the Lucayans lived and died in heathen darkness. Would it not then be an act of grace, most pleasing to the saints, to carry them to a Spanish colony where they might learn from their masters the doctrines of the Christian faith?
To the shores of the Lucayos came one day mighty ships bearing beautiful white-skinned men who spoke with winning accents to the wondering natives in their own tongue. "We have sailed,"
