The sacrament having been previously administered, and having made confession, Vasco Nuñez, with his usual firm step and calm demeanor, mounted the scaffold. Raising his eyes to heaven he called on God to witness his innocence. Then with a rapid farewell glance at heaven's light and earth's beauty, at the eager upturned faces of his friends, he placed his head upon the block, and in a moment more it was rolling trunkless on the platform!
Valderrábano, Botello, and Muñoz each suffered in turn. Argüello remained. A last attempt was made to move Pedrarias. "It cannot be," was the reply. "Rather than one of them should live, I myself will die." It was dark before the last dull heavy stroke told the crowd that the sickening work was done. With the death of the offender justice is satisfied; not so vengeance. By order of Pedrarias the head of Vasco Nuñez was placed upon a pole, and displayed in the market-place.
Time, which throws a misty cloud between the present and the past, and strips the hideousness from many iniquitous deeds, drops no friendly mantle over the horrors of that day at Acla. One century after another rolls by, and the colors on the canvas deepen; the red gore dripping from the scaffold becomes redder, the black heart of Pedrarias blacker, and the generous qualities and brilliant achievements of Vasco Nuñez shine yet brighter.
CHAPTER XIII.
DECLINE OF SPANISH SETTLEMENT ON THE NORTH COAST.
1517-1523.
Dishonesty the Best Policy—Pedrarias Stigmatized—His Authority Curtailed—Quevedo in Spain—He Encounters Las Casas—The Battle of the Priests—Oviedo Enters the Arena—Business in Darien—The Interoceanic Road Again—Its Termini—Pedrarias and Espinosa at Panamá—The Licentiate Makes Another Raid—The Friars of St Jerome have their Eye on Pedrarias—The Cabildo of Antigua Shakes its Finger at Him—Continued Attempts to Depopulate the North Coast—Albites Builds Nombre de Dios—Lucky Licentiate—Arrival and Death of Lope de Sosa—Oviedo Returns and Does Battle with the Dragon—And is Beaten from the Field.
For the villainous adjudging of Vasco Nuñez, Gaspar de Espinosa received his place on the South Sea. And when true tidings reached Pedrarias of the appointment of Lope de Sosa as his successor, the grizzly old governor did exactly that for which he pretended to have beheaded Vasco Nuñez. Striking corollaries from the historical propositions of the preceding chapter.
THE CONDUCT OF PEDRARIAS CONDEMNED.
That Pedrarias was not at once deposed may seem strange to us. He was deposed, however; but slipping south he sought new fields, as we shall presently see; and by the intercession of powerful friends at court he managed to retain rulership for a term of years. Then, too, the changes. It was troublesome and expensive for royalty to establish subordinate governments in the Indies; and as nearly all of Spain's New World governors, and, indeed, officials and subjects, were wrong in some particular, there was not always encouragement to make a change. Yet Spain and all Christendom were indignant over the infamous doings at Acla. The friars of St Jerome instantly clipped the wings of the cormorant, by ordering him in the kings name "to resolve upon nothing by himself, but to follow the advice of the cabildo[XIII-1] of Darien; and, moreover, to send to Española all the gold taken from Cacique Paris." This was of little practical avail, however. Royalty might issue edicts; but those appointed to enforce them seemed to turn to corruption on entering the atmosphere of the Indies.
Some said, if the good bishop had been there, Vasco Nuñez had not died. But according to Micer Codro it was scarcely among the possibilities for the inauspicious friend of Balboa to have been present at the right moment. Associated with the alcalde mayor and the governor in magisterial authority, the bishop could without doubt have diverted the quarrel from such gory channels; for there was always enough of the temporal in his spiritual polities to give his influence weight in balancing power. It was a wolfish flock. The bishop complained of it to the king; and on the other hand the royal officers complained of the bishop. Both were right. It was impossible too severely to censure such acts as were constantly perpetrated by the officials of Castilla del Oro, and although Quevedo had gone to Spain on the more pleasing errand of love and reconciliation, he found it convenient occasionally to say a word to the king in his own defense, and not without influence on the imperial ear. Once the royal officials wrote the king that the bishop neglected the conversion of the Indians, favored Vasco Nuñez against the government, and discouraged colonization by speaking ill of the country; and again that the bishop was a source of constant disturbance, and praying that a provisor, talented and upright, be appointed to superintend sacred affairs.[XIII-2]
Before the sovereign, Quevedo spoke disparagingly of both Pedrarias and Vasco Nuñez; the prelate alone was perfect. But beside the genuine ring of Las Casas, the base metal of Quevedo's composition sounded flat. The protector-general was at this time busy at once with his colonization scheme and his impeachment of the Jeronimite Fathers, who, although meaning well, were slack in exacting the right as measured by apostolic zeal.