Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/256

242 the Spaniards fled to Culiacan; the rest, with a few exceptions, besides Alcaráz, were murdered in the night, their horses killed, all their cattle slaughtered or carried off, and their houses torn down and burnt. Cárdenas, in order to escape the poisoned arrows of the Opatas, hurried back to Zuñi, and thence to the Rio Grande.

This report provoked a relapse in Coronado's condition, which caused all thoughts of Quivira to be set aside for the time. How long his illness and convalescence lasted cannot be exactly determined. An error in counting the years has crept into Casteñeda's story, for he places the beginning of the expedition to the plains in 1541 and the return in 1542, but afterward corrects himself as to the date 1542, so as to fix the return to Mexico in the year 1543. This is certainly an error, unless Coronado's illness lasted a whole year and the Spaniards spent the winter of 1542-43 in Bernalillo. It appeal's clearly from the reports, however, that this was not the case, but that Coronado had fully recovered in March, 1542. The relapse which he suffered is suspected by Casteñeda of having been a pretence; but Jaramillo, who was an officer, and stood in closer relations with him than Casteñeda, says nothing of this. His wounded condition increased the weary commander's longing to return, and the insurrection of the Opatas in the rear of the little army made its situation very critical. He therefore proposed to his officers to take advantage of the feeling of the troops, and to have them prepare a petition to him for the evacuation of New Mexico. Signatures were easily procured for this petition, but Coronado had