Part 11 (1/2)

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 governors.h.i.+p of the colony. The outcome of this disturbance had been the practical seizure of the office of captain-general by Vasco Nunez 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 Nunez had been friends for years; in fact it was Saavedra who had managed the smuggling of Balboa on board the s.h.i.+p 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 Nunez 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 Nunez 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 s.h.i.+ning 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.”