Unseaworthy—The Matter before the Soldiers—The Fleet Sunk—Indignation of the Velazquez Faction—One Vessel Remaining—It is Offered to any Wishing to Desert—It is finally Sunk—Francisco de Garay’s Pretensions—Seizure of Some of his
To the top of a fir-tree, which he curbed and then let spring, Theseus fastened the robber Sinis, who had been accustomed himself to kill travellers in that way. In a hollow brazen bull, which he had made for the Sicilian tyrant to roast his victims in, Perillus the inventor was roasted. A famous detective was hanged at last for house-breaking. Matthew Hopkins, the witch-finder, who about the middle of the seventeenth century travelled the country over to discover and bring witches to punishment, was finally, with pronounced effect, subjected to one of his own tests. Witches, he had said, would not sink in water. This was a safe proposition for the prosecution; for if they sank they were drowned, and if they did not sink they were burned. Being at length himself charged