Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAPTER XV.

PIZARRO AND CORTEZ.

GLOOMY and despondent, Estevan jogged along the road, and Salamanca was soon lost to view among the hills. The day was well advanced, and he had a long and dangerous journey before him, and a relentless and subtle foe in his rear; but his thoughts were not of himself. Misfortune, disgrace, and death were forgotten in the fear that he had lost the only being who would make his life worth living.

A clatter of hoofs startled him from his painful revery, and, turning his eyes to where a road from the hamlet intersected the path he was travelling, he saw a man riding a horse and leading another. He waved his hand for Estevan to stop.

"Wait, señor; I have a better steed for you!" he called after him.

"Who are you?" asked the amazed youth as the strange horseman approached him.

"I am your friend Sancho, sent to bring you a

horse, and accompany you on your journey, for you have enemies in hot pursuit."

"Have I met you before? Are you a retainer at the castle?"

"Lose no time in conjecture. I am your friend come to guide you to safety; trust in me and all is well. Your enemies ride hard behind you."

Turning his mule loose, he mounted one of the horses and set off with his mysterious guide at full speed for Seville. Although Estevan's pursuers followed him for several leagues, he managed to shake them off, and then the faithful Sancho, bidding him God-speed, left him as mysteriously as he had approached him.

Reaching Seville in safety, Estevan remained quietly among friends until danger was thought to be over. One morning he was strolling in disguise toward the bay, when he discovered a large vessel which had just come into port. He at once con

jectured that it had come from the New World. At this moment he heard loud, angry voices, and discovered a commotion at the quay, toward which great crowds of people were hurrying.

"It is a scurvy trick for Bachelor Encisco to arrest him just now," one man declared.

"Who is arrested?" the youth asked.

At this moment some officers came up the hill with a tall, sunburned, battle-scarred man, whose

long beard and abundant hair bore evidences of a wild life. This man, Estevan learned, was Francisco Pizarro, who had just returned from America.

Pizarro, with his officers, had reached Seville that morning (early in summer of 1528). There happened to be in Seville at that time a person known in the history of Spanish adventure as Bachelor Encisco. He had taken an active part in the colonization of terra-firma, and had a pecuniary claim against the early colonists of Darien, of whom Pizarro was one. Immediately on his landing, Pizarro was, by Encisco's orders, seized for the debt. Pizarro, who fled from his native land as a forlorn and homeless adventurer, after an absence of more than twenty years, most of which time was passed in unprecedented toil and suffering, now found himself, on his return, the inmate of a prison. Such was the commencement of those brilliant fortunes which, as he had trusted, awaited him at home.

While Estevan stood watching them take the man away to a debtor's prison, he heard more than one expression of indignation from the bystanders. Here was a man who had been the friend of his father suffering the most intolerable persecution. Estevan determined to see the prisoner and try to aid him. Soon after his incarceration, he demanded admission to Pizarro's cell, and after some

difficulty was admitted. The bronzed, battlehardened conqueror fixed his eyes on the youth in

amazement.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Christopher Estevan."

"The son of Hernando?"

"Yes, señor."

"He was my friend."

"And so am I, señor.

I come to offer my ser

vices to you, poor as they may be."

66

Why are you in Seville?" asked Pizarro, regarding the young man with interest.

Estevan told his story, concealing nothing save his love and betrothal to Inez.

"You have been as illy treated as I," said the great conqueror, when he had concluded. "I came to lay before the king my plans for the conquest of the richest country in the world. I have brought samples of gold and treasure from Peru, such as the king has never seen. The moment I touched my foot on my native shore I was arrested for a debt for which I am no more responsible than Governor Pedrarias. It was Balboa who dispossessed Bachelor Encisco and not I."

[ocr errors]

After a long consultation over the matter, Estevan became so interested in the conquest of Peru that he determined to accompany Pizarro's officers to Toledo, where they proposed to lay the matter

before that monarch, although there was danger of his own arrest.

As yet the king had received too little returns from his transatlantic possessions to give them the attention they deserved. But as the recent acquisition of Mexico, and the brilliant anticipations respecting the southern continent, were pressed upon his notice, he felt their importance as likely to afford the means for prosecuting his most ambitious and expensive enterprises, and he was therefore willing to listen to Pizarro. He ordered his release at once and commanded that he should be sent to him. Much to the disgust of Encisco, the debtor was released.

Enter

Estevan accompanied Pizarro to Toledo. ing the city, Estevan and Pizarro were walking along one of the chief thoroughfares, discussing the proposed conquest, when they suddenly came upon a cavalier as bronzed, swarthy, and battlehardened as the hero of Panama. Though it had been years since Estevan had seen that face, a glance at it recalled the early morning at St. Jago when the angry governor, mounted on his fiery horse, thundered down to the water's edge and demanded the return of the man whom he had commissioned to the conquest of Mexico. Estevan was but a child then, yet he recognized him, and, bounding forward, he seized his hand.

« PreviousContinue »