With the last copper fled his last friend. He wished to go to work again, and applied to many whom, in the days of his opulence, he had helped, and solely to whom they were indebted for what they had, to give him some employment.
Then it was he discovered how much truth is contained in the proverb which says 'There are no friends but God, and a crown in the pocket.'
Even by the woman whom he had loved, and in whose love he believed like a child, it was very clearly revealed to him that now times had indeed changed.
Then did Don Pedro swear an oath, that he would again become rich, even though to make his fortune he should have recourse to crime.
The chicanery of others had slain in his soul all that was great, noble, and generous; and there was awakened within him a profound disgust for human nature. Like the Roman tyrant, he could have wished that humanity had a head that he might get it on to a block; there would then be a little chopping.
He disappeared from Lima, and went to settle in Potosi.
A few days before his disappearance, there was found dead in his bed a Biscayan usurer. Some said that he had died of congestion, and others declared that he had been violently strangled with a pocket handkerchief.
Had there been a robbery or the taking of revenge? The public voice decided for the latter.
But no one conceived the lie that this event coincided with the sudden flight of our Protagonist.
And the years ran on, and there came that of 1706, when Don Pedro returned to Lima with half a million gained in Potosi.