Part 8

In twenty-four days the fleet arrived upon a coast which no one on board had ever seen. It was in fact two hundred leagues further to the south than Paria, where the Admiral had touched. The people were taller and more vigorous than the Arawaks of Hispaniola, and expert with the bow, the lance and the shield. Their bell-shaped houses were of tree-trunks thatched with palm leaves, some of them very large. The people wore ornaments made of fish-bones, and strings of white and green beads, and feather headdresses of the most gorgeous colors. The interpreter told Ojeda that the Spaniards' desire of gold and pearls was very puzzling to these simple folk, who had never considered them of any especial value. In a harbor called Maracapana the fleet was unloaded and careened for cleaning. Under the direction of Ojeda and La Cosa a small brigantine was built. The people brought venison, fish, cassava bread and other provisions willingly, and seemed to think the Spaniards angels. At least, that was the version of their talk which reached Ojeda. It was here that Amerigo Vespucci made that remark about translators. He had not studied accounts of Atlantic voyages for the last few years without drawing a few conclusions regarding the nature of savages. When it was explained that the natives had neighbors who were cannibals, and that they would greatly value the strangers' assistance in fighting them, Vespucci came very near making a suggestion. He finally made it to Juan de la Cosa instead of to Ojeda. The old pilot chuckled wisely.

"I've got past warning my young gentleman of danger ahead," he said good-naturedly. "He can do without fighting just as well as a fish can do without water. If I die trying to get him out of some scrape he has plunged into head-first, it will be no more than I expect."

Ojeda was, in fact, spoiling for adventure, and joyfully set sail in the direction of the Carib Islands. Seven coast natives were on board as guides, and pointed out the island inhabited by their especial enemies. The shore was lined with fierce-faced savages, painted and feathered, armed with bows and arrows, lances and darts and bucklers. Ojeda launched his boats, in each of which was a paterero, or small cannon, with a number of soldiers crouching down out of sight. The armor of the Spaniards protected them from the Indian arrows, while the cotton armor of the savages and their light shields were no defense against cannon-balls or crossbow-bolts.

When the barbarians leaped into the sea and attacked the boats the cannon scattered them, but they rallied and fought more fiercely on land. The Spaniards won that day's battle, but the dauntless islanders were ready to renew the fight next morning. With his fifty-seven men Ojeda routed the whole fighting force of the tribe, made many prisoners, plundered and set fire to the villages, and returned to his ships. A part of the spoil was bestowed on the seven friendly natives. Ojeda, who had not received so much as a scratch, anchored in a bay for three weeks to let his wounded recover. There were twenty-one wounded and one Spaniard had been killed.

Sailing westward along the coast the fleet presently entered a vast gulf like an inland sea, on the eastern side of which was a most curious village. Ojeda could hardly believe the evidence of his own eyes. Twenty large cone-shaped houses were built on piles driven into the bottom of the lake, which in that part was clear and shallow. Each house had its drawbridge, and communicated with its neighbors and with the shore by means of canoes gliding along the water-ways between the piles. The interpreters said it was called Coquibacoa.

"That is no proper name for so marvelous a place," said Ojeda after he had tried to pronounce the clucking many-syllabled word. "Is it like anything you have seen, Vespucci?"

The Italian had been comparing it with a similar village he had seen on his first voyage, on a part of the coast called Lariab. He had an instinct, however, that it would not be well to mix his own discoveries with those of the present expedition.

"It is rather like Venice," he said demurely.

"That is the name for it," cried Ojeda in high delight,--"Venezuela--Little Venice!"

"It would be interesting," observed Vespucci, "to know what names they are giving to us. How they stare!"

The people of the village on stilts were evidently as much astonished at the strangers as the strangers were at them. They fled into their houses and raised the draw-bridges. The men in a squadron of canoes which came paddling in from the sea were also terrified. But this did not last long. The warriors went into the forest and returned with sixteen young girls, four of whom they brought to each ship. While the white men wondered what this could mean, several old crones appeared at the doors of the houses and began a furious shrieking. This seemed to be a signal. The maidens dived into the sea and made for the shore, and a storm of arrows came from the canoemen. The fight, however, was not long, and the Spaniards won an easy victory, after which they had no further trouble. They found a harbor called Maracaibo, and twenty-seven Spaniards at the earnest request of the natives were entertained as guests among the inland villages for nine days. They were carried from place to place in litters or hammocks, and when they returned to the ships every man of them had a collection of gifts--rich plumes, weapons, tropical birds and animals--but no gold. The monkeys and parrots were very amusing, but they did not make up, in the minds of some of the crew, for the gold which had not been found.

Ojeda returned from an exploring journey one day with a ruffled temper. "A gang of poachers," he sputtered,--"rascally Bristol traders. We shall have to teach these folk their place."

"What really happened?" Vespucci inquired privately of Juan de la Cosa. The old mariner's eyes twinkled.

"It was funny. You see, we were coming down to the shore, ready to return to the ships, when we spied an English ship and some sailors on the beach, dancing after they'd caught their fish and eaten 'em. Up marches our young caballero with hand on hilt and asks whose men they are. But they answered him in a language he can't understand, d'ye see, and after some jabbering he makes them understand that he wants to go on board to see their captain. I went along, for I'd no mind to leave him alone if there should be trouble.

"So soon as I set eyes on the captain I knew him for a chap I'd seen years ago in Venice. He did me a good turn there, too, though he was but a lad. I knew he was a Bristol man, but I hadn't expected to see him or his ship so far from home. He could talk Spanish nearly as well as you do.

"'What are you doing here?' asks our worshipful commander.

"'Looking at the sky,' said the other man, cool as a cucumber. 'I think we are going to have a storm.'

"'Don't bandy words with me,' says Ojeda. 'You are trespassing on my master's dominions.'

"'Your master is the Admiral of the Indies, no?' says the stranger, and that pretty near shut our young gentleman's mouth for a minute, for between you and me I think he knows that Colón has not been well treated. But he only got the more furious.

"'Do you insult me?' says he, and whips out his Toledo blade and bends it almost double, to show the quality.

"'Wait a minute, my young hornet,' says the captain--he wasn't much more than a boy, himself,--'didn't your master the Duke of Medina Coeli teach you better than to irritate a man on the deck of his own ship? Mine can sail two leagues to your one, and I'm just leaving for home, so, unless you would like to go with me, perhaps you will let this conversation end without any more pointed remarks. If I chose, you know, I could drop you overboard in sight of your men, to swim ashore. My guns would stave your longboat all to pieces. But I've stayed long enough to give the lads a chance to have a good meal and a bit of fun--nothing's better than dancing, for the spirits, dad always said it was better than either fighting or dicing on shipboard. Before we part, though, I'm going to give you one piece of advice. Don't stir up these coast natives too often. If you do, they'll eat you. They use poisoned arrows in some of these parts, and there's no cure for that but a red-hot iron.'

"The caballero's temper is like gunpowder--it flashes up in a second, or not at all. He must ha' seen that the captain meant him kindness. Anyway, he slips his sword back in the scabbard and says cool as you please,

"'Señor, pardon my hasty conclusion. You have of course a perfect right to look at the sky, and to dance, if that is your diversion. I should be extremely sorry to interfere with your departure. But you will understand that when a commander in the service of the sovereigns of Aragon and Castile finds intruders within their territory it is his duty to make it his affair. I thank you for your warning. Adios,' and he makes a little stiff bow and goes over the side, me after him. I looked back just as I went over the rail, and the skipper was watching me, and I may be mistaken but I believe he winked. I tell you, our little captain can do things that would get him run through the body if he were any other man."

Vespucci smiled thoughtfully. But this incident may have had something to do with his later decision to part company with Ojeda. Vespucci continued to explore the coast, and Ojeda sailed northward to the islands, where he kidnaped some Indians for slaves. When he returned to Cadiz the young adventurer found to his intense disgust that after all expenses were paid there remained but five hundred ducats to be divided among fifty-five men. This was all the more mortifying because, two months before, Pedro Alonso Nino, a captain of Palos, and Christoval Guerra of Seville, had come in from a trading voyage in the Indies with the richest cargo of gold and pearls ever seen in Cadiz.

Vespucci wrote his book some years later, and as it was the first popular account of the new Spanish possessions and was written in a lively and entertaining style it had a great reputation. It gave to the natives of the country the name which they have ever since borne--Indians. A German geographer who much admired the work suggested that an appropriate mark of appreciation would be to name the new continent America, after Vespucci, and this was done. Vespucci described all that he saw and some things of which he heard, using care and discretion, and if he suspected that the captain of the Bristol ship was Sebastian Cabot, later pilot-major of Spain, he did not say so.

NOTE

Amerigo Vespucci has been unjustly accused of endeavoring to steal the glory of Columbus, but there is no evidence that he ever contemplated anything of the kind. It was a German geographer's suggestion that the continent be named America.

THE GOLD ROAD

O the Gold Road is a hard road, And it leads beyond the sea,-- Some follow it through the altar gates And some to the gallows tree. And they who squander the gold they earn On kin-folk ill to please Go soon to the grave, but he toils in the grave-- The miner upon his knees.

The Gold Road is a dark road-- No bird by the wayside sings, No sun shines into the cañons deep, No children's laughter rings. They are slaves who delve in the stubborn rocks For the pittance their labor brings. Their bread is bitter who toil for their own, But they starve who toil for Kings.

The Gold Road is a small road,-- A man must tread it alone, With none to help if he faint or fall, And none to hear his groan. The weight of gold is a weary weight When we toil for the sake of our own-- But our masters are branding our hearts and souls With a Christ that is carved in stone!

VIII

THE DOG WITH TWO MASTERS

"They fight among themselves too much. They need the man with the whip."

"_Bough! wough!_"

"_Yar-r-rh! arrh!--agh!_"

A spirited and entertaining dog-fight was going on just outside the house of the governor of Darien. The deep sullen roar of Balboa's big hound Leoncico was as unmistakable as the snarling, snapping, furious bark of Cacafuego, who belonged to the Bachelor Enciso. The two hated each other at sight, months ago. Now they were having it out. The man with the whip evidently came on the scene, for there was a final crescendo of barks, yelps and growls, followed by silence.

Pizarro's remark, however, did not refer to the dogs but to the settlers, who had been rioting over the governorship of the colony. The outcome of this disturbance had been the practical seizure of the office of captain-general by Vasco Nuñez de Balboa. Pizarro himself, and Juan de Saavedra, to whom he addressed his comment, had supported Balboa. Saavedra did not commit himself further than to answer, with a shrug, "Balboa can use the whip on occasion, we all know that. Ah, here he comes now."

The man and the dog would have attracted attention anywhere, separately or together. The man was well-made and vigorous, with red-brown hair and beard, and clear merry eyes, a leader who would rather lead than command. The dog was of medium size but very powerful, tawny in color with a black muzzle, and the scars on his compact body recorded many battles, not with other dogs but with hostile Indians. He had been his master's body-guard in several fights, and Balboa sometimes lent him to his friends, the dog receiving the same share of plunder that would have been due to an armed man. Leoncico is said to have brought his captain in this way more than a thousand crowns.

"You called him off, eh, General?" Saavedra asked, bending to stroke the terrible head. He and Vasco Nuñez had been friends for years; in fact it was Saavedra who had managed the smuggling of Balboa on board the ship in a cask, to escape his creditors, when the expedition set out. They were intimate, as men are intimate who are different in character but alike in feeling and tradition. Pizarro was an outsider and knew it.

"Yes; Enciso's dog would be better for a whipping, perhaps, but I had no mind to make the Bachelor any more an enemy than he is. Pizarro,--" he turned to the soldier of fortune, with a frank smile, "I have work for you to do. It is dangerous, but I know that you do not care for that. Pick out six good men, and be ready to see if there is any truth in those stories about the Coyba gold mines."

Pizarro's black brows unbent. Nothing could have suited him better than just these orders. He was, like Balboa, a native of the province of Estremadura in Spain, and being shut out by his low birth from advancement in his own land, had come to the colonies in the hope of gaining wealth and position by the sword. His reckless courage, iron muscle, and a certain cold stubbornness had given him the reputation of an able man, but though nearly ten years older than Balboa, he had never held any but a subordinate position. He had nearly made up his mind that his chance would never come. These hidalgos wanted all the glory as well as all the power for themselves. He could not see why Balboa should turn the possible discovery of a rich new province over to him, but if the gold should be there, Pizarro would get it. He bowed, thanked the general, and took his leave.

"General," said Saavedra, "I never like to put my neck in a noose, but if you were only Vasco Nuñez I would ask you why you made exactly that choice."

Balboa laughed and pulled the ears of Leoncico, who had laid his head in full content on his master's knee. "I am always Vasco Nuñez to you, _amigo_," he said easily, "as you very well know. Pizarro is a bulldog for bravery, and he has a head on his shoulders. Also he is ambitious, and this will give him a chance to win renown."

"And keeps him out of mischief for the time being," put in Saavedra dryly.

Balboa laughed again. "Why do you ask me questions when you know my mind almost as well as I do? You see, now that Enciso is about to go, we shall have some freedom to do something besides quarrel among ourselves. Gold is an apology for whatever one does, out here. If there is as much of it as they say, in this Coyba, the King may be able to gild the walls of another salon, and if he puts Pizarro's portrait in it in the place of honor I shall not weep over that. There is glory enough for all of us, who choose to earn it."

Pizarro and his men had not gone ten miles from Darien before they ran into an ambush of Indians armed with slings. The seven Spaniards charged instantly, and actually put the enemy to flight, then beat a quick retreat. Every man of them despite their body armor had wounds and bruises, and one was left disabled upon the field. Balboa met them as they limped painfully in. His quick eye took in the situation.

"Only six of you? Where is Francisco Hernan?"

"He was crippled and could not walk," answered Pizarro sulkily; he saw what was coming. Balboa's eyes blazed.

"What! You--Spaniards--ran away from savages and left a comrade to die? Go back and bring him in!"

Pizarro turned in silence, took his men back over the road just traversed, and brought Hernan safely in.

This was one of the many incidents by which the colony learned the mettle of the new captain-general. Under his direction exploration of the neighboring provinces was undertaken. Balboa with eighty men made a friendly visit to Comagre, a cacique who could put three thousand fighting men in the field. Comagre and his seven sons entertained the white men in a house larger and more like a palace of the Orient than any they had before seen. It was one hundred and fifty paces long by eighty paces broad, the lower part of the walls built of logs, the floors and upper walls of beautiful and ingenious wood-work. The son of this cacique presented to Balboa seventy slaves, captives taken by himself, and golden ornaments weighing altogether four thousand ounces. The gold was at once melted into ingots, or bars of uniform size, for purposes of division. One-fifth of it was weighed out for the Crown, the rest divided among the members of the expedition. The young cacique stood by watching with scornful curiosity as the Spaniards argued and squabbled over the allotment. Suddenly he struck up the scales with his fist, and the shining treasure tumbled over the porch floor like spilt corn.

"Why do you quarrel over this trash?" he asked. "If this gold is so precious to you that you leave your homes, invade the land of peaceable nations and endure desperate perils, I will tell you where there is plenty of it."

The Spaniards' attention was instantly caught and held. The young Indian went on, with the same careless contempt, "You see those mountains over there? Beyond them is a great sea. The people who dwell on the border of that sea have ships almost as big as yours, with sails and oars as yours have. The streams in their country are full of gold. The King eats from golden dishes, for gold is as common there as iron is among you,"--he glanced at the cumbrous armor and weapons of his guests. Indeed the panoply of the Spaniards, made necessary by the constant possibility of attack, and the weight of their cross-bows and other weapons, was a source of continual wonder to the light and nimble Indians, and of much weariness and suffering to themselves. Many in time adopted the quilted cotton body armor of the natives, and used pikes when they could in place of the musketoun, which was like a hand-cannon.

This was not the first time that Balboa and many of the others had heard of the Lord of the Golden House, but no one else had told the story with such boldness. The young cacique said that to invade this land, a thousand warriors would be none too many. He offered to accompany Balboa with his own troops, if the white men would go.

Here indeed was an enterprise with glory enough for all. Balboa returned to Darien and began preparations. Valdivia, the regidor of the colony, had been sent to Hispaniola for provisions, but the supply he brought back was absurdly small. One of the serious difficulties encountered by all the first settlers in the New World was this matter of provisioning the camps. For the Indians the natural fruits and produce of the country were sufficient, and they seldom laid up any great store. The small surplus of any one chief was soon exhausted by a large body of guests. Moreover, the country had no cattle, swine, fowls, goats, no domestic food animals whatever, no grain but the maize. The supply of meat and grain was thus very small until Spanish planters could clear and cultivate their estates. On the march the troops could and did live off the country with less trouble.

Balboa decided to send Valdivia back to Hispaniola for more supplies. He also sent by him a letter to Diego Colón, son of the great Admiral and governor of the island, explaining his need for more troops in view of what he had just learned about a new and wealthy kingdom not far away. He frankly requested the Governor to use his influence with the King to make this discovery possible without delay.

Weeks passed, and Valdivia did not come back. Provisions again became scarce. Then a letter from Balboa's friend Zamudio, who had gone to Spain in the same ship with the Bachelor Enciso, in order to defend Balboa's course. Everything, it seemed, had gone wrong. The King had listened to the eloquence of the Bachelor, and would probably send for Balboa to come to Spain to answer criminal charges. It was said that he meant to send out as governor of Darien, in the place of Balboa, an old and wily courtier, one of Fonseca's favorites, named Pedro Arias de Avila, and usually called Pedrarias.

"That," said Balboa, handing the letter over to Saavedra to read, "seems to mean that the fat has gone into the fire."

"What shall you do?"

"If the King's summons arrives," said Balboa reflectively, "I think I will be on the top of that mountain range looking for the sea the cacique spoke of."

"I will go at once and make my preparations," assented the other. "Did you know that Pizarro has adopted that dog--the Spitfire--Enciso's brute?"

"Has the dog adopted him?" laughed Balboa, extracting a thorn with the utmost care from the paw of Leoncico.