Timber is sought nearer at hand this time, and with fair success. Vasco Nuñez now divides his force into three parties, and sends one to hew timber, one to bring supplies from Acla, and a third to forage on the natives. Again they are ready with new materials to begin construction, when the heavens suddenly darken and drop such a deluge on them that they are obliged to take refuge in trees. Part of the timber is swept away, and part buried in mud. To add to their misfortunes, foraging fails; hunger pinches; and "when Vasco Nuñez himself was forced to feed on roots," says Las Casas, always with an eye to his protégés, "it may well be imagined to what extremity six hundred Indian captives were reduced."
It now looks very dark to Vasco Nuñez, and he begins to consider if it were not better to move on, one way or the other, than to die there. But these misgivings are only for a moment. No, it is not better. Throwing a bridge of floating withe-tied logs across the river he sends over Compañon with a strong company, and tells him never to return except with food. Hurtado he despatches to Antigua for more men, and goes himself to Acla for necessary effects. In all which he is successful; and he is successful finally in floating two brigantines upon the Balsas. There is no such thing as failure this side of death.
What a bright vision it is that greets him as he drops down into the sea, his own sea that he had found and well-nigh lost again! Heaven is indeed beautiful if it be anything fairer. Silver and gold and pearl are the sunshine, land, and sky; while the sea, the murmuring, gladdening, majestic sea; it would inspire a brute with nobility, one sight of it!
Dreams and realities! Wild as had been the dreams of these ignorant and voracious men, dreams with their Indies and Araby isles, they fell far short of reality. How could they dream of a Montezuma empire waiting expectantly to welcome the destroyer, or of an Inca faction so evenly balanced that so light a hell-flake as a Pizarro might turn it?
AT THE PEARL ISLANDS.
Selecting Isla Rica, the largest of the Pearl Islands, as a rendezvous and place of settlement, Balboa discharged his vessels there and sent them back to bring from the Balsas the remainder of the company, together with materials for two more ships, which were in due time completed, making four in all. More supplies were brought from Acla, and journeys between the two seas were from this time frequent. Meanwhile, after pacifying the Pearl Islands, he embarked with one hundred men for a cruise eastward. After sailing twenty leagues a shoal of whales so frightened the sailors that they anchored for the night near the shore, and embraced the opportunity to kill a village of Indians for having put to death Bernardo Morales and his men in a former expedition. The wind being contrary the fleet next morning returned to the Pearl Islands.
Thus haply launched upon the tide of glorious adventure, with full freedom in the south, and in harmony with superior powers, what could fortune offer more satisfactory or secure? But fickle the goddess, and malignant the while, keeping alive suspicion and envy where only honor and good-will should be. It happened about this time that as one of Balboa's captains was setting out on his return to the South Sea, rumor reached Acla that Lope de Sosa, a native of Córdova, then acting governor of the Canary Islands, had been appointed to supersede Pedrarias. At one time such a prospect would have been hailed with delight by Vasco Nuñez, but now that his fortunes were so happily linked with those of his ancient enemy he could desire no change.
One evening while in friendly conversation with the vicar, Rodrigo Perez, and the notary, Valderrábano—for on these Pearl Islands now were all the paraphernalia of spiritual and temporal rulership—upon the probable effect of a change of governors on South Sea affairs Vasco Nuñez remarked, "It may be possible that Lope de Sosa has ere this received his commission, and that even now he is at Antigua, in which case my lord Pedrarias is no longer governor, and all our toilsome undertakings will profit us nothing. In order therefore to know best how to proceed in this emergency I am of opinion that it would be well to send some faithful messenger to Acla for our further necessities; and if the new governor has come, we will furnish our ships, and pursue our enterprise as best we can, trusting to his future approval. But if my lord Pedrarias is still in power, he will allay our fears, and we will then set out upon our voyage, which I trust in God will succeed according to our wishes." I beg the reader to remember these words, and say if in them is hidden the venom of treason to the father-governor when morbid acrimony decides them criminal. I do not say that at this juncture Vasco Nuñez would not have disregarded any whimsical malevolence on the part of his future father-in-law which might stand in the way of his high purposes. I think he would have done so. But that he saw no necessity for so doing, and never dreamed of disobedience or disloyalty, I am very sure.
As his ill-fate would have it, just when Vasco Nuñez was concluding his remarks on this subject, a sentinel on guard in front of the general's quarters stepped up under the awning to shelter himself from a passing shower. This fellow, whose sense of smell was so acute that he could detect disloyalty though hidden in a barrel of salt, found here at once a mare's nest. Of course his general was talking treason; he had often been suspected, and now he openly admitted that if affairs planned in Spain or at Antigua did not suit him, he would sail away and leave all emperors and governors in the lurch. And if he alone might have the disclosing of this villainy his fortune was made.
MICER CODRO, THE ASTROLOGER.