Diego de Rojas and the other captains had decided to stay there a few days, until they could receive information about the country ahead of them. When the Indians approached them, the Spaniards saddled their horses and rode towards them to give battle. As it is our Lord God's will and pleasure that those unknown countries, so distant from Spain, shall be opened up and His glorious standard of the Cross be known there, He almost miraculously protects the Christians; that they may find a way before them until they reach the extremity of the land, where there is little left before seeing the sun complete its course around the world. So it was that, though these Indians came armed with arrows tipped with the poison we have mentioned, God watched over His Christians. But no special favour was needful on that day, as a single volley sufficed for the Indians' dispersal, and after a number of them had fallen the conflict ceased. Diego de Rojas then sent Pedro López de Ayala with forty horsemen to explore the country ahead. The Indians, undismayed by their losses, fought on continuously during the next two days, and Diego de Rojas doing his duty as a famous captain in the midst of the fray, was wounded in the leg by an arrow. After having chased and overtaken the Indians who had wounded him, they retired to the camp. Diego de Rojas thought little of his wound, as it was so small. But, since the herb was so poisonous, it began to work. Diego de Rojas felt ill, and there being a woman in the camp, who served Felipe Gutiérrez, she came to nurse him. After she had given him certain things to eat, Diego de Rojas became worse, and some of his servants said that he had been poisoned by order of Felipe Gutiérrez. Believing this to be true Diego de Rojas drank a great quantity of oil.
The captain Felipe Gutiérrez, when informed of this suspicion, declared his innocence. He assured Diego de Rojas, and all who might disbelieve him, that he never had any such evil thought, and that no one would regret the loss of his companion so much as himself. When the poison arrived near the heart, Diego de Rojas, seeing himself so near death, requested Felipe Gutiérrez to appoint in his place Francisco de Mendoza, whom he loved as if he were his son. Felipe Gutiérrez answered that although, under the authority they held from Vaca de Castro, this could not be done, the command should, after Rojas' death, remain vested in the two, and that he was delighted to please him.
After this, Diego de Rojas died during a violent fit of retching. He was a native of the city of Burgos: a valiant man, liberal, anxious always to do what was right. In war he was always cautious, at all times watching and patrolling like any other soldier. It is believed that if he had lived these regions would have been completely explored. His death was due to the poison in the herb, for which a plant of such virtue as an antidote was afterwards discovered, that the poison lost its strength, and the wounded were cured by means of it.
[CHAPTER XCVII]
How Pero López de Ayala discovered the river Soconcho, found a well-peopled region, and returned to where the general Felipe Gutiérrez was, and how they all set out for that region.
BEFORE the death of the captain Diego de Rojas, Pero López de Ayala had started out with a few mounted Spaniards to explore to the eastward; passing without meeting with any resistance over wide arid wastes and dense algarrobo forests, peopled by other Indians, who showed no inclination to attack them. At length they reached the banks of the river called Soconcho,[159] and found large villages on both sides. Reflecting that it would not be prudent to advance farther with so small a force, they returned to report to their leaders. When Felipe Gutiérrez heard what they had seen and discovered, he resolved to move his camp as far as the province of Tesuna, a distance of six leagues. He first sent Francisco de Mendoza to fetch certain Spaniards who had remained in Tucumá. In this service Mendoza heard much yelling and had some skirmishes with the Indians.
When they arrived in that province they found abundance of necessary things. The natives had retired, not daring to offer battle to the Christians. They now knew clearly that they were in the country of the poisonous herb, and that Diego de Rojas had been killed by it, and not by connivance of Felipe Gutiérrez as had been thought. After all were united the general Felipe Gutiérrez complained, saying that consent could not be given for Francisco de Mendoza to take over the post which had been filled by Diego de Rojas, nor could he suffer him to do so; and thus there began to be enmity between them, Felipe Gutiérrez wishing Francisco de Mendoza to remain subordinate to him like the rest, while Mendoza, knowing that he could not prevent this, had, by making use of the effects of Diego de Rojas, gained friends who gave him to understand that they would not see him deprived of the post he then held, and over this they would all stake their lives. When Felipe Gutiérrez wanted to carry his intention into effect, some of those in the league formed by Mendoza admonished him to desist from a measure that must cause scandal and bloodshed, and be followed by no advantage, but engender great evil. And mediators thereupon intervening between them they made friends, and Mendoza retained his appointment as before. But although this was then arranged, the suspicion that each felt of the other was not removed.