University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
THE PLAZA—THE NOTARIES—THE LADY TERESA.

The Plaza de Armas, or Place of Arms, in Santo Domingo,
to which the steps of our company were directed,
was a place of much more use than importance. It was
not, as we have already said, simply an area for military
assemblage, but, combining the advantages of a market-place
with that of the parade, it offered equal facilities to
the tradesman selling his wares, the seaman seeking engagements
for new voyages, and the citizens gathering together
for the consideration of public business. Here sometimes
presided the governor and the alcalde; and here, too,
at this period might still be seen the rude seat raised by
Columbus, and honoured to all future governors by its first
reception of his person. As a market-place, it was seldom
without some occupants, either in the persons of the wostricken
Indians, their women and children, sitting beside
their little piles of plantain and cassavi; or of their lordly
customers, who sauntered through the passages, peeling
“the fig while the fruit is fresh;” or, reclining upon rude
benches at the several corners, quaffing the intoxicating
juice, which the natives bad taught them to prepare, called
pulque, and which the Spaniards soon learned to drink with
as much delight, and scarcely more moderation than the
savages themselves. The structure employed in these various
uses was a simple framework of poles, elevated some
twelve or fifteen feet from the earth, thatched with caneshafts
and palm leaves intertwined, and otherwise entirely
open to the weather. It formed an oblong square, and covered
a quarter of an acre of ground. A knowledge of the
genial temperature of the climate, not less than of the sudden
and terrible hurricanes to which the island was subjected,
which the Spaniards soon acquired, taught them to

adopt, to a large extent, the customs of the natives in building,
and to avoid, up to this period, every more solid form of
habitation, which could not, any more than the frail bohio,
withstand the tempest, and which must only expose the
inhabitant to a greater risk, from the tearing asunder and
the falling apart of the heavy timbers, which its erection
must necessarily require. Like the Indians, their dwellings,
until they began to work in stone, were low to the ground,
and constructed of materials which, when scattered about
them in sudden ruin, could inflict but little injury upon their
occupants. Perhaps, too, a desire for repose, the natural
consequence of the relaxing influences of a climate so insidious
and seductive, led the grim warriors, whose whole
life previously had been one continued battle, to avoid all
labours not necessary to their various plans of conquest.
The luxury of idleness forbade the erection of massive
dwellings, the toil of building which, seemed superior to
the gratification of living in them; and to ascend the lofty
flights leading to an upper story, soon became too great an
exertion for those who saw no sort of necessity for the
building itself. Arguments are never wanting to convince
the understanding, when the blood has already taken part
in the controversy; and with the exception of those rovers
who were continually arriving from the old country, and
to whom the island of Hispaniola—already occupied by
thousands of unglutted adventurers—offered no farther rewards
for avarice and enterprise, there were few among the
Spaniards not overcome by the intoxicating influences of
success and sloth. They were no longer the bold and but
half civilized warriors, who, from battle to battle, and from
mountain to mountain, had marched through Morisco blood,
and in despite of the fierce valour of the Moriscan chivalry,
under whom they learned most of their accomplishments
in arts and arms, from the sterile passes of Arragon and
Castile to the green plains and purple towers of Grenada.
The gold of New Spain, like the molten metal poured
down the throat of Valdivia by the fierce Indians whom
he had so long hunted for it, through every sort of crime,
and who at length bestowed it upon him in a form no less
terrible than full of retributive justice, seems to have been
a moral and physical death to the mother country; and in
the prostration of her greatness, in the seeming annihilation
of her national valour, in the decay of her enterprise, in
the degradation of her people, seems not unaptly to have
revenged the sufferings of the miserable savages, who perished
in uncounted thousands to procure it. Those of her
sons who set forth upon their journey for adventures in the
wildernesses of the new world, soon found their hearts
hardened to all the sensibilities which, even in the fierce
wars with the Moors of Grenada, then just ended, it had
been equally their pride and pleasure to encourage. A stern
and avaricious bent of purpose, upon the single object, produced
a degree of morbid misdirection in the mind, which
utterly subverted every thing like principle, and rendered
their humanity entirely dependent upon the caprices of
moods naturally changing with every impulse of a proud,
successful, and hence an intoxicated, race. Endowed on a
sudden with resources of wealth, which were unexpected,
and to which they were unfamiliar, they became even more
haughty than before; and as the necessity for exertion lessened
in their eyes, they relaxed from the hardy discipline
which the moral energies of Isabella the Catholic, appear
to have taught to the several nations which her queenly
policy had incorporated into one; and gave themselves up
to a luxurious disregard of all the severer duties which,
among a heathen people, should have followed hard upon
their path of conquest. Adopting from the savage that desire
for repose, which, in the bland climates of Cuba and
Hispaniola, seems almost to have assumed the air of a sentiment,
and to have thrown around voluptuousness the virtue
of a grace, they surpassed him in its indulgence, while
subjecting him to toils under which the most iron-sinewed
manhood must have shrunk and perished. The rush floor
of the Haytian soon satisfied the torpid conqueror whose
eves had wandered with delight over the rich carpets of
Morocco, upon which he trod in the Grenadian palaces;
and the proud towers and the variegated marble of the
haughty dwellings which had been the reward of his valour
after the conquest of Malaga, and Baza, and Guadix, lifted
as they were upon sterile and gloomy hills, were considered
well exchanged for the humble cane bohio of the Cuban,
swept by the balmy winds of those foreign seas, sheltered
by the shade of towering forests, and yielding, without
culture, to his wish, fruits more luscious than he had
ever fancied in his wildest dreams before.

But, however humble to the eye accustomed to the triumphs

of Moorish architecture, may have been the Plaza
de Armas of San Domingo, it could boast of having sent
forth many a noble armament. Its shipping, already numerous,
were beginning to pierce the rivers of the continent
then recently discovered, to bear away in search of conjectured
fountains, whose waters were those of youth and immortality,
and daily to make the conquest of new shores and
empires, that were boldly and not extravagantly entitled
the very regions of the sun. Its commanders already began
to look down from eagle eminences upon the golden
empires of Montezuma and the Incas; its seamen were already
panting for the glory—how equivocal and insecure
in its rewards!—of being discoverers of new worlds, and
the possessors of unopened oceans. Not a day passed
without yielding some new name to the column of renown,
which Spanish valour and avarice had raised in the eye of
the wondering world; and every returning barque brought
tidings of pearly shores, and waters that trickled over sands
more golden than Pactolus. Let not the swelling imaginings
of those assembled in the rude structure to which we
now turn our eyes, seem unjustly ascribed to them. It may
be asserted with safety that, in that day of feverish anticipation,
when the acquisition of so much that is wonderful,
necessarily provoked the imagination to a faith in resources
of wonder yet in reserve, infinitely beyond the known and
even the conjectured; no story however strange, or conjecture
however fanciful, was found too marvellous for the
credulity of some one of the hundred classes of hungering
expectants with which the island was filled. The atmosphere
of the time, if we may so speak, not less than of the
region, was one of marvels; and we find accordingly that
the most staid and sober of the discoverers were imbued
with fancies, to which the vision of the poet could discern
no parallel. Even the truth-loving Columbus, rigidly tenacious
as he appears ever to have been to say no more than
he could say with safety, rose constantly into a form of
utterance which left but little to the embellishments of fiction.
In those days men believed in mermaids whom they
frequently beheld on fragments of rock, or diving down
into the transparent waters of the Bahamas. A nation was
supposed to exist, upon the authority of Sir Walter Raleigh,
who were born without heads, and had their eyes in their
shoulders. A misty veil, such as seems to overhang the
spiritual, and to impair if it cannot obscure, the emerging
truth, seems to have rested upon most objects at
this period in the physical world; and the land and the
sea, which daily developed objects utterly unknown to the
European, might very well be supposed to contain other
objects equally unknown, and far more marvellous. To
the Spanish cavalier, solemn and superstitious in his feelings,
and haughty and swelling in his thoughts, every variation
in nature from the accustomed objects of his sight,
savoured of an especial miracle in his behalf. The flying-fish
that leapt into his caravel in the moment of his despondency,
was a messenger from heaven; the firefly that rose
from the marsh, and revealed its dangers to his sight, was
a spiritual guide. He lived in a realm of wonders, which
his pride assured him were peculiarly designed for himself,
till in time he grew, in his own estimation, as one so favoured
of heaven, the crowning wonder of the whole. It
can scarcely be surprising to us, if he ceased to regard himself
as human, and if, in consequence, forgetting most of the
apprehensions of humanity, he soon learned to forget all
its charities. But let us enter the place of gathering, in
which we shall find assembled, at this moment, a goodly
portion of the inhabitants of the city.

The area of the building, and the greater portion of the
seats were already in possession of a mixed assembly of
captains, citizens and seamen. These formed little groups
which were parted on different sides, as if by tacit consent,
according to the prejudices prevailing among them in behalf
of leading individuals. At present, the community was
filled with the disputes of the rival knights to whom King
Ferdinand had made such magnificent, and, in some respects,
inconsistent grants. On one side were those who
formed the party of Ojeda—on the opposite were the
friends of Nicuesa. Scattered promiscuously among the
two might be found many persons not yet determined in
behalf of either, though perhaps inclining to the side on
which they sat; while, in the centre of the apartment, and
in small groups at the extremities, were others as yet entirely
uninfluenced by a bias of any kind. Many of these
were lawyers—a class of people in which the colony was
already stocked to overflowing—whom the frequent litigation
of the adventurers arising from their uncertain and
conflicting titles, their unjustly divided spoils, and the

strifes engendered as well by personal dislike as by the
right of property—had called into early and constant requisition.
Others were citizens, perhaps creditors of
Ojeda and Nicuesa, or of those engaged by them for the
voyage—watchful of the moment when to press their
claims, and having the man of law in readiness for its assertion
even to the final steps of arrest and incarceration.
Groups of seamen might be seen, sitting, lying and lounging
in various portions of the spacious hall; sometimes
drowsily yielding to the exhaustion produced by a late debauch,
but in every situation, wearing the indifferent, good-humoured
carelessness of countenance, which so eminently
distinguishes that sturdy class of adventurers, to whom their
repeated risks of life and fortune seemed to have taught
an almost total disregard of both. Huddled together on
the outer verge of the hall, though still beneath the long
drooping eaves which depended from it on every side, and
completed its shelter from the sun, squatted little parties
of the natives, whom the presence of the Spaniards in the
centre of the building, had driven thence, with their fruits
and vegetables, to the limits. These sat or stood around,
wondering if not pleased spectators of proceedings which
they could only partially understand—seemingly unconscious
of object or aim in life, unless when summoned by
some one or other of their tyrants to lift for him the desired
fruit or refill with liquor the presented calabash; and
this done, sinking back into that apathy of demeanour,
which, if it speaks not entirely for the absence of life, is the
most certain indication of that deficiency of trust and hope
without which humanity has never yet found existence desirable.
Nor did these several groups entirely complete
the assembly. There might be seen at the upper part of
the hall, and on either side of the seat, known as that of
the “Admiral,” two elevated scaffolds, of a better finish than
the other portions of the structure, though still rude, which
sustained a triple row of benches, rising as they receded,
one above the other in the manner of those of a theatre.
A temporary canopy overhung them, made of the native
cotton, but stained by the Indians—an art which they possessed
before the coming of the Spaniards—with many
colours most of which were of a glowing and intense
brightness. It will easily be divined that the seats so conspicuously
placed and decorated were intended for the
gentler portions of creation, to whom in Hispaniola, the
Bato, or Ball Play of the Indian, their Areyto or Historic
dance and song, the decision of justice and the execution
of the criminal, alike offered attractions not easily to be
foregone and seldom overlooked. The gathering of the
men on any occasion to the “Plaza,” was sure to bring
forth the most lovely and the most curious of the sex. In
the seats which the grave gallantry of the Spaniard had
provided for them, but which his jealousy had half shrouded
with the heavy and gorgeous drapery already described,
they watched the progress of business, hearkened greedily
to the disputes of rival warriors, sometimes encouraging
them with occasional words and smiles, and not unfrequently,
whenever a sly opportunity offered for such a
proceeding, pelting them with the skins of the luscious
anana which they ate with industrious eagerness as the
business proceeded. A third scaffolding not so lofty as
those assigned the ladies, but raised considerably above the
level of the seats with which the area was covered, was
intended for a purpose more in unison with the general objects
of the structure. This was the stand for the crier—
the agent or attorney for the party seeking a market—for
the auctioneer disposing of articles which it was necessary
to exhibit to the spectator's eye, and for the ocean-adventurer
aiming to recruit the seamen for his ships. It
was now occupied for this latter object, by an agent of each
of the rival knights, who, seated at the opposite extremities
of their little provinces, maintained all that courteous
distance, and nice observance towards each other, of the
smallest forms, which denote the jealousy and distrust so
natural to persons placed in such immediate competition.
A little table before each of them served to sustain their papers,
pens and ink, and certain unopened caskets, the contents
of which, only conjectured by the assembly, were
nevertheless supposed to be not among the feeblest of those
arguments which were meant to persuade the thoughtless
seamen to new perils and toils, in the search after unknown
worlds. Behind each of these persons waved a little pennoncele
or flag, bearing upon it certain emblematic forms and
figures, significant of the objects of the voyagers and the
rewards which they held out to adventure. On that of
Ojeda, which was a white ground of silk with a deep purple
border, might be seen a rude representation of a conflict
with the Indians, such as he really had on one occasion at
Cumana, the circumstances of which were well known to
the Spaniards, and had won for him the most golden opinions
from the common people. The back ground showed
an Indian village in flames, while the whites and savages
were mingled in furious melée. In the foreground Ojeda
himself might be seen—a tolerable portrait—having just
overthrown a gigantic warrior, and being about to complete
his victory by the death of his victim. The point of his weapon
was already described as entering the neck of the savage;
the black blood was spouting from the orifice, and
the last writhing expression of agony in the face of the dying
man, was sufficiently horrible to produce all the effect
of a fine picture among the spectators of that period, who
only needed to be reminded of an event which all of them
had seen but too frequently to render necessary any more
felicitous touch of the artist. The scene was one too
grateful to the sanguinary temperament of Ojeda, to leave
it at all doubtful in his mind that it must be not less so to
the people whose services he sought; and yet it is more
than likely that the flag of Nicuesa, designed in less bloody
taste, was far more captivating to the fancies of the spectators.
It represented on a pale blue ground the approach of
a ship to the towering heights of an island which was
readily recognized as that of Hispaniola. An Indian girl
stood upon the shore, and with extended hand, and smiling
eyes beckoned the approach of the voyagers. Strings of
pearl hung around her neck, and were fastened in profuse
quantities to the gay painted cotton garments which she
wore. Her black hair was literally starred with bits of the
gold called guanin, and she wore bracelets and anklets of
the same attractive metal. The eminence upon which she
stood just above the waves which beat at her feet, had its
attractions also. It was a pile of the oyster which yielded
the precious pearls of the south, and the artist had judiciously
painted some with their lips parted, and showing
within the large precious fruit in the attainment of which
Spanish cupidity had already proved itself capable of every
peril as well as every crime. The intention of this artist
was of much more merit than his execution. At once
true and poetical, no comment could have been more severe
upon the national character than that conveyed in this
slight design. There needed but another scene to show
what had been the return of the voyager for that confiding
innocence, and lovely hospitality which had welcomed him
to a shore, where he found happiness, but where he left
not even hope.

But it is time that we return to the narrative from which
our description has too long beguiled us. Let the reader
imagine now that he beholds the scene and the assembly
into which we have ventured to introduce him, on a sudden
moved to life and animation. A gay burst of music,
solemn and sweet, such as Charles the Fifth was wont to
say, with an audacity of fancy not more becoming than the
taste was just which induced it, “spoke directly to God,”
announced the arrival of some of the more conspicuous
persons of San Domingo, escorting and ushering in a band
of stately damsels, whose quick, vivacious black eyes,
peering from beneath mantillas adjusted nicely to produce
their proper effect, denoted a very different sentiment from
their stateliness of demeanour, and the slow and measured
pace to which the constraints of their education had habituated
them. A shrill, lively clamour from the gongs and
cymbals of the ships, which were generally provided with
these instruments of Moorish music, followed the more decorous
strains of the Spanish band, and during the brief
performance of the latter, the Plaza was rapidly filled with
people of all qualities and professions. The drowsy mariners
began to bestir themselves, the lawyers to adjust their
papers, the criers to look around them, and clear their
throats for the business of the day, and, even the poor Indians,
leaving for a moment their little piles of fruits, would
steal as closely to the circle as they dared, looking towards
the musicians with faces that gradually put on a more
cheerful cast, as the strange, sweet, foreign tones, beguiled
them into momentary forgetfulness of their own condition.
Ojeda was already in the Plaza bustling about among the
seamen, and promising to do wonders for those already
enlisted. The Bachelor Enciso was at his side to supply
those arguments which the less acute mind of Ojeda might
not so readily perceive, or which his headstrong quickness
of temper might readily lead him to forget. Though as
brave a man as ever lived, Ojeda was no little of a boaster;
and, perhaps, among a swelling and ostentatious people like
the Spaniards, accustomed as they were in that day to
achievements upon which the rest of Europe looked with

amazement and delight, it became essential for the leader
who hoped to win their suffrages, to promise largely for
his own performances. Among the lower orders of all nations
boasting has ever been a prevailing accomplishment;
and the basest soldier in the Spanish ranks seldom wanted
one voice at least, to testify to his own prowess. The
rival of Ojeda, to whom the reader has already undergone
introduction, had not as yet made his appearance; and
when we are told that the agent who had charge of his
interests, was one of the most acute notaries in San Domingo,
the presence of the principal may not, perhaps, be
esteemed so very essential. That person at length rose to
open the business of the day. He was a tall, slender personage,
with a nose almost as sharp as the pen he carried
behind his ear, and though it might be hyperbole to describe
it as nearly the same length, we are nevertheless
bold to assert, that it made greater approaches to a parallel
than incredulous persons, not spectators, might be willing
to admit. The mind of Antonio Guerro was scarcely less
sharp than his nose. His features generally denoted the
hard, calculating, diplomatic and subtle character of one
entirely without kindred of any description, and whom a long
and intimate acquaintance with the world, its strifes and
vicissitudes, had rendered indifferent to all considerations,
those excepted, which go to the attainment of wealth and
the security of power over the multitude. Like this class
of men generally, he had never been positively prosperous.
He had made money it is true, but he had never found it
possible to retain it. There were always some adverse influences—some
opposing winds, that assailed his barque
and made it necessary that he should throw his treasure
overboard, for the preservation of his life. Providence seldom
appears to afford any very permanent triumphs to the
cold of heart and those indifferent to humanity; and though
it may not be moral to teach, and, perhaps, is not often true,
that merit finds its rewards in this narrow term of life, yet
it may almost always be asserted with safety, that the punishments
of evil begin long before it is ended. The humble
station of Antonio Guerro as crier for the expedition of
Nicuesa, furnished an odd contrast to that which he held
but a year before, when the supposed possessor of immense
resources, he beheld his ship go down, and was indebted
for his life to the services of one of the meanest of his
crew. It was, perhaps, no small merit for one cold and
selfish as himself, that he yielded nothing to adversity, but
addressing himself to a renewal of his toils, was not reluctant
to take an office which gave but little profit and was
held in too little esteem to offer any inducements to ambition.
The faculty by which he had always succeeded hitherto,
was one which he did not omit to employ in behalf
of Nicuesa. He gave his whole energies to the task he
had undertaken; and served his employer with a closeness
and zeal which deserved the success, which more elevated
purposes in life and a purer moral, might have enabled
him, and made him worthy, to retain. He entered upon his
work with a glibness, a cool composure, and all that vulgar
and blunt sort of eloquence which is so desirable in the
auctioneer of modern times, whose business that of Antonio
Guerro might be said to resemble. Rising to his full height,
which, on the scaffolding where he stood made him eminently
conspicuous among and above the crowd, he rang a
little silver bell vehemently, as if commanding the attention
of the multitude. A buz went through the audience at this
signal, and indicated that pleasurable expectation which testifies
to the presence of a well known favourite. More
than one approving speech was audible to the crier, but
without producing upon his pale, thin, inflexible features,
the slightest change of expression. With the elevation of
his person, the notary of Ojeda began also to exhibit signs
of life. His arms and legs simultaneously bestirred themselves,
and his whole person began to show tokens of disquiet
and disturbance. He was a short, fat, fidgety sort
of person, seemingly the very opposite of Guerro, but not
without a certain share of those talents which his rival possessed,
and which his present occupation was supposed
pre-eminently to require. Though lacking the reputation
of his rival, the notary of Ojeda whose name was Medina,
familiarly styled the Padre Medina in San Domingo, and
who boasted a lineal relationship to a noble Spanish family
of the same name, was not without a decent degree of assurance
which might, in time, impress a higher estimate of
his claims upon the popular mind than he had at present.
He too rang his bell with a vehemence equal to that of
Guerro, who turned upon him a quiet look of contempt—
then, rising in his place, and looking confidently round upon
the audience, he seemed to wait the key-note which it appeared
was expected from the lips of his rival. The audience
had not long to wait. Antonio Guerro was a man
of too much good sense to baffle the public expectation by
delay, and he answered their clamours by proceeding to
laud their valour, their patriotism, and that passion for adventure
in foreign parts which had given to the Spanish
nation such a vast precedence over all others at this period,
that of Portugal, perhaps, excepted. This exordium over,
he proceeded to one of those audacious frauds, which,
whether the result of cupidity or the diseased imagination
which deceives itself along with others, would be, perhaps,
in our day, considered quite too extravagant for serious
censure. He exhibited to his audience, a map regularly
drawn, coloured, and in every part distinguished by names
of places and persons, seas, bays, and inlets of regions utterly
unknown, and existing only as subsequent discovery
has taught, in the crude or cunning fancies of the artist. In
this map all the visions of Columbus, about Cathay, the
Spice Islands of the Orient, the Golden Chersonesus, the
Great Khan, and those wondrous sources of wealth and
splendour from which Solomon drew the materials for his
temple, were laid down with marvellous precision, and for
the first time found their names and habitations in the
savage wilderness of the western continent. Broad rivers
wound their way through golden mountains; cities rose
proudly among towering hills; while fleets of nations whose
flags were yet to be seen by Europe, were boldly drawn
upon this specious presentment, dignified with euphonious
titles from old Spain, and defined with an accuracy of
measurement under a scale of Spanish leagues, which left
nothing more to be desired. Seamen—sturdy rogues—were
already nigh to testify to the correctness of the map—to
describe its shores and cities—its fruits and inhabitants—
the largeness and beauty of its pearls, and the teeming fulness
of its precious mines. They had tales of valour to
relate, which had been achieved in its partial conquest;
incidents of wonder to quicken the narrative, and even
wounds to show in proof of their story. That such fabrications
should be resorted to with partial and even perfect
success, by those who sought in this manner to seduce the
credulous, need occasion no surprise at a time when truth
and falsehood had no such facilities for circulation, as are
afforded by the modern newspaper. The oral relation was
then generally relied on for intelligence, and it became a
matter of serious responsibility, to dispute the testimony of
men who were ready to maintain their every assertion by
an appeal to the sword. The tale grew and gathered as it
went, and when all ears were open to the most wild extravagancies
of assertion, the creation of a new world was,
perhaps, a matter of only less difficulty than the finding of
persons condescending enough to occupy it.

“Madre de Dios! can it be, señor—can this be true? a
mountain of solid gold, gold hewn out with instruments of
steel—solid masses rolled down into the valley, and gathered
up and put in carriages, and carried off even as we
carry marble in blocks for building! can such be true? Is
the precious metal, which the wealthiest nations knew only
in thin veins—difficult to find—hard to gather—is it in
truth, bestowed in such lavishness upon the ignorant
heathen, who knoweth not the value of the thing upon
which he treads, and maketh of it familiar vessels for the
most lowly and base uses. What is thy thought, Señor
Vasco—say worthy Master Codro, what ear may be given
to this marvel.”

“Such ear as wise men yield to most marvels, señor;”
was the reply of Vasco Nunez to the citizen, who, grasping
his arm with looks that savored of alarm quite as much
as astonishment, challenged his opinion of a portion of the
testimony which Antonio Guerro had quoted in support of
the map which he displayed. It may be said that there
were sceptics in San Domingo, and that, by this time, the
little area was filled with a buz of disputation; words ran
high, and from conversing among themselves upon the
story which they had listened to, questions were at length
directly propounded to the narrator.

“We would see some of the guanin which comes
from these mountains, Señor Antonio—methinks thou
shouldst have some of these fine pearls which the seas of
those regions void upon the shores.”

“Ah, it were good for eyes that water!” sneered the
rival notary of Ojeda, who chuckled and rubbed his hands
with great delight, and snapped his little gray eyes with
exultation in the direction of his opponent. “A question
somewhat hard to answer, Señor Antonio, but a reasonable
demand, señor, unless Diego de Nicuesa hath forborne
to touch the treasure till he hath first had counsel and permission

of Holy Church. Ah! my masters, press ye not
too closely upon the heels of my brother. See you not
that the gold is even now but gathering, and ye give not
space for it to be seen. He hath fear, that as ye press
upon him, the block which he hath hewn from the mountains
of Cipango will suffer hurts and losses from your
daggers. Press him not to show these pearls, my masters;
or ye might suffer much harm from the blinding brightness
in your eyes.”

The laugh was against Antonio, but without seeming to
give him much annoyance. He waited patiently until
each had expended his pennyworth of wit, then glancing
coolly and contemptuously toward the still chuckling Padre
Medina, he replied as follows:

“The man hath spoken, however strangely, my masters,
with some wisdom; though how such quality might find its
way into his brain, it passes mine to satisfy you. The gold
shall be shown in season, and the pearls, and other gems
of which I have not spoken, but which may all be had for
the gathering in certain regions of Veragua, into which
the noble Señor Nicuesa stands now ready to conduct you.
But if it be wisdom in the Padre to require to look upon
our treasure, and to feel it with his hands, it were sorry
wisdom in us to suffer it. Alas! my masters, how few
are there among us, at all times prepared to resist the temptations
with which the Evil One lies in waiting to insnare
our souls. Shall it be visited upon the head of the worthy
Padre as a sin too great to be forgiven, that he is not one
to bid the tempter depart from him. It were a hard judgment,
my masters, if this were so. We will not vex our
brother with free speech upon his weakness, and we trust
that he will not complain that we keep our treasures on the
far side of our table. The flesh is weak, my masters, and
the Padre Medina hath much of it.”

“Thou withered atomy, thou skeleton! would'st thou
speak against mine honesty,” cried the Padre, with a sudden
change of manner from the good humoured chuckle
to the fierce and angry gesture of the brawler ready for
combat.

“Nay, not so,” cried Antonio coolly—“The Virgin
forbid that I should speak against the dead, or waste breath
upon that of which none hath yet beheld certain signs of
life. But I have business, my masters,” continued Antonio,

turning from the furious Padre who seemed almost
ready to turn the assembly into a gladiatorial ring—“I
have business—your business—my masters—to attend to,
and will waste no more words with my worthy brother,
who seems not to have provided himself with fitting knowledge
of what he came for, and knows not therefore what
to say. For my part—”

“I know what to say—I will say what will confound
you, Antonio Guerro,” was the furious interruption of Medina.
“I say that the Señor Diego hath made no such discoveries
as these you boast of—that he hath seen no such
mountains—that he hath gathered no pearls from Cipango
—and hath brought no slaves from the great Southern Sea.
Nay more, my masters, I say that he hath not only not
found these places, but that they have been found, if found
at all, by my most honourable Lord, the Señor Alonzo
de Ojeda. I will show you that it is he that hath found
Cipango—ay, Cipango, my masters—that Cathay already
lies at the foot of his discoveries, some of the mountains of
which look over into the territories of the Great Khan.”

The voluble Padre was interrupted in his bold declarations
by a sturdy sailor who had already entered in the armament
of Nicuesa.

“By San Jeronymo, Padre Medina, but these are new
discoveries of thine. When I met with thee this morning
thou told'st me nothing of these things, else perchance I
had taken thy offer, and been a partaker of these rich treasures
which thou hast at command. Wherefore didst thou
keep back these tidings. By the Holy Father, thou hast
done me wrong. Had I not equal right with the rest to
look into the territories of the Great Khan—was I not worthy
to share in the treasures of Cathay.”

“Nay, who denies thee, Gutierrez,” replied the unabashed
notary—“thou mayst do this now—the papers
are before me—thou hast need to give me thy name only,
and thou sharest in all the spoils of the brave cavalier,
Alonzo de Ojeda.”

“And how may I do this when I have already taken
part with Señor Diego? This I should not perchance
have done, hadst thou made thy discoveries in season.”

“Nor I—nor I—nor I,” was the echo of a dozen
voices.

“Methinks, thou hast thy answer, Padre,” remarked

Antonio Guerro, re-commencing his proceedings. The
other was not silenced, but continued to mutter and interrupt
his rival by occasional suggestions of falsehood, and
numberless sarcasms such as may very well be looked for
in a controversy so carried on before a mixed multitude, by
persons lacking in any very nice restraints of morals or
society. But the ears of Vasco Nunez ceased to hear, and
his eyes to behold the rival notaries, upon the arrival of a
group of damsels among whom the keen glance of the lover
soon discerned the lovely person of Teresa Davila. This
stately maiden, who maintained the carriage of an Amazon,
and who could have looked the maid of Orleans to admiration,
entered the Plaza, without seeming conscious of that
observation to which she was in no wise indifferent. Her
dress was composed of a gown of the purest white, surmounted
by a symar of pale blue silk, which, closely fitting
her bust, displayed its full and exquisite proportions
to the nicest advantage. A string of pearl intertwined with
her ebon tresses offered a pleasing contrast to their glossy
hues, which shone darkly bright through the transparent
veil of nicest Moorish workmanship, which, secured by a
splendid carbuncle to her brow, was also bound by another
gem of equal value to her shoulders, and from them fell
nearly to the ground. But the grace of her carriage, and
the nice taste which had adjusted every part of her costume,
were not sufficient to satisfy the spectator, and long
retain his glance after it had once caught a glimpse of the
proud, bright face, the dark and fiery eye, and the imperial
sweetness of that mouth, which conferred upon it what
a painter seldom might, the life of expression. Her head
was distinguished by that noble contour which has been
for so many ages remarked as the distinguishing and most
admirable trait of the Spanish women; and resting upon a
neck of chiselled smoothness and swanlike movement, it
mingled an air of grace with its aspect of command, and
united with the general majesty of her demeanour, a serenity
of carriage which conciliated even when it impressed,
and invited when most it awed. Perhaps, a something too
much of fire in her eye made it doubtful whether her heart
could ever yield to any great degree of feminine weakness.
There were those, and the astrologer Micer Codro was
among them, who esteemed her, chiefly, perhaps, from the
gay and reckless radiance of her eyes, a creature insensible
to all the softer influences of love, and only moved in her
attachments by that narrow selfishness which fills the bosom
given up entirely to its own vanities. But these were
the harsh judgments of those who did not themselves love.
It was the hope and faith of Vasco Nunez that his more
favouring judgment would be sustained by his own fortunate
experience. Time will show which of these was
right

“She would wed thee now, Vasco,” whispered the
astrologer to his companion, as he caught the glance of the
maiden's eye turned towards him; “if, on the instant, thou
couldst claim her hand, this instant would she bestow it.”

“Would it were so,” was the emphatic reply; “but
why sayest thou this instant; why not hereafter.”

“Thou art now triumphant, my son, and her pride is
satisfied with thee. I could not be surety for her love if
thy fortune suffered change.”

The cavalier turned from his grave companion, with
a stern countenance of dissatisfaction. But no such countenance
was shown to the fair Teresa. He beheld her
with a very different aspect. Putting aside the crowd
which stood between him and the maiden, he hurried forward
to the entrance and had the joy of assisting and attending
her to the raised and curtained seats, where had already
assembled a goodly number of the fair damsels of
the city. He stood beside her where she sat, and in the
indulgence of those dreams of the heart which for a season
will even blind the ambitious soul to its high purposes of
fame, Vasco Nunez grew not only forgetful of his own
purpose in the assembly, but almost unconscious of what
was going on around him. The increasing clamour of the
crowd, provoked by the play at cross purposes between
the rival notaries, and at length, of their leaders, soon obtruded
itself upon a sense, but too well satisfied not to find
annoyance in every change.