Zamudio, followed by the gang that had driven out Nicuesa, claims preëminence as a reward for his villainies. Enciso, the learned and disinterested representative of the higher orders of mastership, earthly and heavenly, never fails to keep the high and holy law spread before these misguided men. Vasco Nuñez keeps his own counsel; but he feels within himself that neither Zamudio nor Enciso shall rule Antigua. All he need do is to continue as hitherto to turn against his opponents their own weapons. The lawyer he vanquishes with law; the ruffian, by giving him a rope wherewith to hang himself. In the present instance, like a skilful tactician, he separates his antagonists and opposes one to the other. Calling Zamudio aside, he makes evident to him the necessity, if he would continue a municipal government, of withholding all power from the bachiller. Having no intention of relinquishing the sweets of office, for which he has risked so much, Zamudio lends a willing ear. The lawyer must be quieted, but lawfully. High-handed measures may be employed, but only exceptionally. The law is too useful a weapon to be flung aside by intelligent knaves. So the two alcaldes put their heads together and frame charges to fit the occasion. Enciso is accused of wilful usurpation of authority, of assuming the duties and exercising the functions of alcalde mayor without license from the king—grave charges, truly, emanating from so scrupulous a society. The lawyer's skill at pleading avails him nothing. He is convicted, his property confiscated, and himself cast into prison.[VIII-2] He is not long kept in confinement, however, but is set free on giving a promise immediately to leave the country.[VIII-3] Thus one of the two ambitious Cæsars is out of the way; but how dispose of the other? Again Vasco Nuñez draws Zamudio aside and expresses a fear that the enraged bachiller, once in Spain, will stir up the king against them, and enter false statements before the tribunal of the Indies regarding the quality of justice dispensed by the alcaldes of Antigua. "Would it not be well," continues Balboa, "for one of us to accompany the bachiller? and thus, while misrepresentations may be promptly refuted, we may at the same time secure our government upon a more substantial basis." Zamudio sees this necessity, and is finally induced to accept the commission. Thus Vasco Nuñez is left to reign alone; and every effort is made by him firmly to secure his government. While cementing his friends, he conciliates his enemies; above all he strives to deal justly by everybody, and with fair success. By caring for their comfort and exercising strict impartiality in the division of spoils, he wins the hearts of the fighting men. Even Oviedo, who was not friendly to Balboa, says: "No chieftain who ever went to the Indies equalled him in these respects." And yet, beneath the accumulating honors the recipient sits not wholly at ease. "No one need hope to rule this land," writes Vasco Nuñez to the king, "and sit or sleep; for if he sleep, he will never wake. Day and night I think only of your Majesty's interests. In every battle I lead my men, and with truthful example, and kind treatment of the natives, seek to bring into favor your Majesty's government in these parts."
It must not be supposed that the settlers were idle all this time, or that the natives, or their gold, were neglected. The town had grown in size and importance since the driving out of Cemaco. Streets had been regularly laid out round a plaza,[VIII-4] or public square, common to all Spanish towns, and a church and religious houses established, for priests had come hither with the rest.
ENCISO AND THE ALCALDES.
While Enciso made ready for departure, Bachiller Corral, Captain Badajoz, and others, enemies of Balboa, improved the time by secretly making specifications of both the alcaldes' errors, and by instigating others to assist in criminating the rulers. These charges were to be delivered to the king by Enciso. Hearing of it, the alcaldes seized the ringleaders and confined them in a pen,[VIII-5] the municipal jail, situated in the middle of the plaza. But the prisoners escaped from the cage to the Franciscan monastery, and, claiming the protection of the sanctuary,[VIII-6] they were finally discharged.
Valdivia, the regidor, was Balboa's friend; before leaving the Salvatierra plantation they had been warmly intimate. Supplies were needed, and Enciso and Zamudio required passage to Spain. Taking, therefore, a small vessel, and placing in Valdivia's hands a large amount of gold,[VIII-7] Vasco Nuñez sent him to Española, with instructions to buy the good opinion of Diego Colon the governor, and Pasamonte[VIII-8] the king's treasurer, and bring back recruits. The regidor was fairly successful. He set forth the wealth of Tierra Firme, and the important services of Vasco Nuñez in glowing colors, and obtained from the governor a commission authorizing Balboa to act as his lieutenant in those parts. He begged for his friend Pasamonte's influence with the king; but Enciso was active there with opposing influence.
Meanwhile Balboa was haunted by thoughts not of the happiest. He well knew how precarious was his tenure of position. Nicuesa's wrongs were ever before him. Though not the chief criminal in that affair, he knew he was criminal enough. Yet before the deed was done, and since, he had striven to make amends. "Once, twice, three times," writes he to the king, "have I sent aid to Nicuesa's men, and saved them when dying at the rate of five and six a day." Then, too, he must confess having treated poor Enciso somewhat shamefully; and the bachiller was stronger where there was more strength in the law; while Zamudio was not the same before the king as before his Antigua ruffians. There remained only one course. Action was the word. If he would play the great man, and rule others, he must bestir himself to something nobler than political strife and demagogy at Antigua. Gold would help him; he thoroughly appreciated the weakness of officials in that direction; but a notable adventure, a great discovery, were better. At all events, upon whatever he should decide, he must act immediately, before being deprived of his present modicum of authority.
First of all, he would begin his career of greatness by assuming to be great. One is never nearer the truth than when one puts on humility and curses one's self for an ass. Without offensive ostentation he assumed becoming forms of dignity, took upon himself the title of governor, appointed officers, and drilled soldiers in the tactics of Indian warfare.
BATTLE WITH CEMACO.
Some twenty leagues westerly from Antigua, adjoining the lands of Cemaco, was an Indian province called Coiba, of which Careta[VIII-9] was chief. The governor, being informed that Careta was rich in gold and maize, despatched thither a small company under Pizarro, whom he had made captain. They were hardly on the march before Cemaco was encountered, at the head of four hundred men, all fired, like their chief, with ever-living rage. Never for an hour since the strangers landed to seize their homes had the eyes of the savages been removed from them. It was hopeless to fight, naked as they were; yet for what had they to live, with houses and lands and all their property taken from them? The mode of warfare, too, was against the natives; they did not fight here, as at San Sebastian, with poisoned arrows shot from behind rocks and trees, but engaged in hand-to-hand conflict, opposing their defenceless bodies to the steel weapons of the Spaniards, on whose coats of mail their darts and clubs fell harmless. A fight ensued nevertheless, and fiercely it was waged. It is somewhat difficult to believe Herrera when he says that Pizarro had with him but six men, who, when the four hundred closed with them, eviscerated one hundred and fifty savages, and put the remainder to flight. Hastening back to Antigua, leaving one man wounded on the field, Pizarro stood before the governor exhausted and bleeding. Balboa's anger at the desertion overpowered for a moment his admiration for the desperate courage displayed by the little band, and turning to Pizarro, he said sharply, "Go instantly and bring me Francisco Hernan, and, as you value your life, never again leave one of my soldiers alive upon a field of battle." Pizarro departed, and soon returned with his disabled comrade. Balboa immediately placed himself at the head of a hundred men, and started in pursuit of Cemaco, determined to extirpate the tribe; but, after ascending the river for some distance and finding no enemy, he abandoned pursuit. Scarcely had he returned, when the two brigantines sent to Nombre de Dios for the remainder of Nicuesa's men made their appearance at Antigua. They brought no news of Nicuesa, greatly to the disappointment of Balboa, who would now gladly have fortified himself in a less elevated position, and placed Antigua under the banner of the lawful governor of the territory.
EXPEDITION AGAINST CARETA.