Vasco Nuñez de Balboa

by Frederick A. Ober

The unhappy youth related what he had told his sister, and the story was the same that she had told, only there was something added. Gasping for breath, and with temples throbbing from agonizing pain, the hapless boy said that Zemaco had long before plotted the death of Balboa, and had for this purpose posted his warriors in disguise among the Indian laborers in the fields. They watched for weeks an opportunity to take the commander off his guard; but, though they valued not their lives at all, they were intimidated by the horse which he rode and the long lance he carried, and finally gave up the attempt upon his life. This failure had determined Zemaco to form the conspiracy with the other caciques, and to this scheme he was devoting all his energies.

As the boy proceeded with his relation, and detailed the means by which the plan against Balboa's life had been frustrated, it flashed upon that worthy that his going to the fields every day fully armed and mounted on horseback was owing to the Cacica's pleadings. Otherwise he would have gone without armor, in his doublet and hose, and on foot. Thus he would certainly have fallen a victim to the Indian's rage, and thus—it became evident even to his perverted sense—he owed his life to the sister of that frail boy before him, whom he had allowed to be tortured. Then his heart misgave him surely, and, awaking from the trance into which his evil thoughts had plunged him, he exclaimed: "Release that youth. Cast off his bonds and bathe his brow where the cord hath wounded it. He hath done nothing, and I did not mind to torture him to extremity; only to elicit the truth—and that we have done. So set him free."

The magistrates murmured and protested: "It is not customary, nor is it safe, to set free one who has been put to the torture, lest, in revenge, he hold murderous plans against us. Let us now finish him, with the sword or with the garrote, and done with it."

"Nay, nay!" exclaimed Balboa, excitedly. "I am governor, though you are, by my grace, the magistrates. I take this youth under my protection, and woe be to them who dare molest him!"

"As your excellency commands," retorted one of the magistrates. "He certainly hath claims upon you, if what rumor says may be believed: to wit, that his sister is thy—"

"That for thy insolence," exclaimed Balboa, stopping the objectionable word with a blow on the magistrate's mouth. "Let it be known that this youth hath my protection, and," he added, with an ominous frown, "let what may please you be said about it—behind my back; but not in front of me!" With that he strode out of the dungeon, leading the wondering Indian by the hand. And thus, bruised and disfigured, the trembling youth was taken to Balboa's house, and left there to be cared for by the Indian maiden.

It may seem to have been the refinement of cruelty thus to force upon the Cacica this victim of the Spaniards' barbarity; but in the eyes of Balboa she was merely a savage whose charms had ensnared him temporarily. Possessing neither delicacy nor keen moral perception, he mistakenly reasoned that the Cacica would overlook this wanton outrage upon her brother and forgive the perpetrators of it. She was his slave, subject to his every whim; but still she had a heart and a conscience, and she was capable of resentment. Though she had so carefully concealed her feelings that he imagined she would always be mild and passive, no matter what occurred, the Cacica really possessed a deep, revengeful nature.

When Balboa and her brother appeared before her, she clutched at her heart, as if to still its beatings, but said nothing, though a single glance told her what had occurred. She led her brother away, to a hut outside the palm-thatched structure which served Balboa as a dwelling, and was about to bathe his bruised forehead, when he repulsed her with a gesture of disgust.

She did not ask why, for she knew, and he did not waste words in telling her that she was a traitress, and was solely responsible for what had occurred to him. In silent dignity he gathered up his bow and arrows, which had been left with the Cacica when he was thrust into the dungeon, and without one word of farewell stalked off into the forest.

Then the Cacica knew that she had incurred the hatred of her tribe, as well as lost the respect of her master, by revealing the plot of Zemaco. She had done it for love of Balboa, as she had assured him; but now that she realized her position, as an outcast from her people, and, despised by the brother who had risked his life to save her own, she hated her master, and loathed him. Thenceforth she lived only for revenge; but, with the cunning of a savage, she concealed her real feelings from Balboa, and appeared to him only the dutiful slave. She lived silent and apart, but ever nursing a scheme of vengeance which in due time cost Vasco Nuñez de Balboa his life.