Then in came the captain, and first ate up all their provisions with a gluttony incredible. Then he said to the women in the bed, 'Turn out, turn out!' and laid himself down in place of them. But Providence was upsides with him, for a terrible storm came on, and he had to get up immediately and go out to try to save the ship. And so he got no more sleep that night, which pleased the gentlewomen greatly in spite of all their own fears and pains. They never saw more of him till they landed at the Brill. From that they set out on foot for Rotterdam with one of the gentlemen that had been kind to them on the crossing to Holland.
It was a cold, wet, dirty night. Grisell's little sister, a girl not well able to walk, soon lost her shoes in the dirt. Whereupon the Lady Polwarth took her upon her back, the gentlemen carrying all their baggage, and Grisell going through the mire at her mother's side.
At Rotterdam they found their eldest brother and Sir Patrick himself waiting to conduct them to Utrecht, where their house was. No sooner were they met again than they forgot everything, and felt nothing but happiness and contentment.
And even after their happy and prosperous return to Scotland they looked back on these years in Holland, when they were so poor, and often knew not whence was to come the day's dinner, as the happiest and most delightful of their lives. Yet the years of Grisell Baillie's after-life were neither few nor evil.
THE CONQUEST OF PERU
THE YOUTH OF PIZARRO
AT the time when the news of the conquest of Mexico by Cortés, and the report of its marvellous stores of treasure, were inflaming the minds of the men of Spain with an ardent desire for fresh discoveries, there happened to be living in the Spanish colony of Panamá a man named Francisco Pizarro, to whose lot it fell to discover and conquer the great and flourishing empire of Peru. He was a distant kinsman of Hernando Cortés, but had from his childhood been neglected and left to make his living as best he might. He could neither read nor write, and had chiefly been employed as a swineherd near the city of Truxillo, where he was born. But as he grew older and heard the strange and fascinating stories of adventure in the New World which were daily more widely circulated, he took the first opportunity of escaping to Seville, from which port he, with other Spanish adventurers, embarked to seek their fortunes in the West, the town being at this time left almost entirely to the women, so great was the tide of emigration. Thenceforward he lived a stirring life. We hear of him in Hispaniola, and serving as lieutenant in a colonising expedition under Alonzo de Ojeda. After this he was associated with Vasco Nunez de Balboa in establishing a settlement at Darien, and from Balboa he may first have heard rumours of Peru itself, for it was to Balboa that an Indian chief had said concerning some gold which had been collected from the natives: 'If this is what you prize so much that you are willing to leave your homes and risk even life itself for it, I can tell you of a land where they eat and drink out of golden vessels, and gold is as common as iron with you.' Later, Pizarro was sent to traffic with the natives on the Pacific side of the isthmus for gold and pearls, and presently from the south came Andagoya, bringing accounts of the wealth and grandeur of the countries which lay beyond, and also of the hardships and difficulties endured by the few navigators who had sailed in that direction. Thus the southern expeditions became a common subject of talk among the colonists of Panamá.
Pizarro does not at first seem to have shown any special interest in the matter, nor was he rich enough to do anything without assistance; but there were two people in the colony who were to help him. One of them was a soldier of fortune named Diego Almagro, an older man than Pizarro, who in his early life had been equally neglected; the other was a Spanish ecclesiastic, Hernando de Luque, a man of great prudence and worldly wisdom, who had, moreover, control of the necessary funds. Between these three, then, a compact was made, most of the money being supplied by De Luque, Pizarro taking command of the expedition, and Almagro undertaking the equipment of the ships. Only about a hundred men could be persuaded to join the explorers, and those but the idle hangers-on in the colony, who were eager to do anything to mend their fortunes. Everything being ready, Pizarro set sail with these in the larger of the two ships, in the month of November 1524, leaving Almagro to follow as soon as the second vessel could be fitted out. With such slender means did Pizarro begin his attack on a great people, and invade the mysterious empire of the Children of the Sun.