"Villegio! are you speaking the truth ?" "By the life of your Excellency what I say is true," was the reply, and the news came with a wave of relief to the panic-stricken heart of the Admiral.
In the middle of October the caravels sailed from San Domingo, and the last sounds heard by Columbus from the land of his discovery were the hoots and jeers and curses hurled after him by the treacherous, triumphant rabble on the shore.

Villegio treated him and his brothers with as much kindness as possible, and offered, when they had got well clear of Espanola, to take off the Admiral's chains.

But Columbus, with a fine counterstroke of picturesque dignity, refused to have them removed.

Already, perhaps, he had realised that his subjection to this cruel and quite unnecessary indignity would be one of the strongest things in his favour when he got to Spain, and he decided to suffer as much of it as he could.

"My Sovereigns commanded me to submit to what Bobadilla should order.