University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.
THE RIVAL CHIEFTAINS.

The movement of Vasco Nunez which led him to the
side of Teresa Davila, was followed by a corresponding
movement of the astrologer. With difficulty, the faithful
old man struggled through the crowd, ascended the steps,
and plucked the cavalier by the sleeve in the midst of an
address to the maiden, in which he spoke much more of
love than compliment.

“What now?” demanded Vasco Nunez, hastily.

“Thou hast forgotten all, my son. The damsel fills
the brain with lethe that fills the heart with love. These
seamen must be secured even now or never. In a few
moments they will have taken part with one or other of
these knights, and the refuse only will be left thee. Suffer
me to do this business for thee, and secure thy fitting complement,
if thou wilt not thyself.”

The cavalier, secretly pleased with the offer, yet made
some show of hesitation.

“It will trouble thee too greatly to press through this
crowd, Micer Codro!—”

“Not a whit! Velasquez, thy lieutenant, is at hand,
and shall bring chosen men to me at the porch. I will
put an argument into their hands which shall better convince
them of thy superior claims than those which the
notaries yield only to their ears. It will take me but little
time and even less labour, to secure thee thy men; and if
thou wilt, I will give moneys to Velasquez to get thee
stores and provisions. Mendez Pacheco I behold in the
crowd—perchance, he will seek thee for that which thou
owest him.”

“Pay him then, in God's name,” replied the cavalier,

precipitately, but in a close whisper, “but suffer him not
to come near me.”

“This will leave but little in the casket,” said the other.

“Well—it matters not; we have all then that we shall
need. Let it take all; but let not Pacheco come to me
with his vile murmurs in this presence. Not here—not
now! let me be free of him.”

To the great relief of Vasco Nunez, the astrologer departed
on his various purposes, and he was suffered once
more to give his whole attention to the proud maiden by
whose side he stood. The controversy, meanwhile, had
not only waxed warm between the two notaries, but the
audience had naturally enough begun to grow interested
in it. Sides were soon taken by the bluff seamen; and as
the several criers nttered their sharp speeches at the expense
of one another, a hearty hurra from either portion of
the assembly rewarded them for their rudeness or their
wit. But the sharp-shooting was not confined to the subordinates
entirely. It was not long before it extended to
their superiors, who soon found themselves unable altogether
to resist those influences which moved the assembly,
and in which they had such weighty interests. They had
not listened to the jeers of their respective agents without
feeling that they too sometimes suffered from the sarcasms
and sneers so freely bestowed upon their representatives.
Gradually they had been brought to say something aloud
in the course of the proceedings, and as this could not
well be the case without something being uttered calculated,
however indirectly, to provoke the opponent, or disparage
his claims in the support of their own, the feeling
of rivalry between them, previously existing, which had
not been altogether without its bitterness before, was not a
little increased by the actual personal collision to which
they were proximating fast. The hot-headed little warrior,
Ojeda, was heated doubly by the obvious necessity
of restraining his temper at a moment when any ebullition
of it might defeat his purposes; and, moving now to the
foot of the scaffold on which his crier sat, now mounting
up behind and whispering in his ear, and anon shooting
off into the open air, as if for a breathing space, betrayed
to all the excitement under which he laboured, and which
compelled him to maintain, to the great amusement of the
party of Nicuesa, a sort of perpetual motion. His rival,

on the contrary, preserved much more effectually the dignity
and ease of his usual winning manner. Without exhibiting
any impatience, or acknowledging, by word or
action, any annoyance, he yet busied himself with quite
as much industry as Ojeda, and a far better prospect of
success in raising his claims among the seamen, and commending
himself to the favour of all persons who might
serve him in his purposes. With a gay speech to one, and
a pleasant smile to another; now a whisper of compliment,
and now a sudden and friendly grasp of the hand,
he made his way through the crowd in all directions, winning
golden opinions as he went. But golden opinions
were of far less value in Santo Domingo than golden treasures,
and something more was essential to success than
the felicitous condescensions of the gentleman or the boastful
promises of the warrior. The seamen had acquired no
little knowledge of their leaders in the hundred voyages
made by as many adventurers, which every season sent
forth from the mother country; and they had now learned
to place a high value upon services which, amidst the
strife with Indians, and among themselves—not to speak of
the dangers of the seas—were not often paid for according
to promise or desert. Conscious, too, that they were absolutely
necessary to the rivals for the completion of their armaments,
they were resolved to hold out to the last moment,
and then to make the very best terms which they could
extort from the necessity, or which lay within the capabilities,
of their captains. Their reluctance or slowness to engage,
necessarily led to increased exertions on the part of
the notaries. They stimulated the latter to a degree of
earnestness in their efforts, which finally terminated in
short-chopping contradictions of each other's testimony—a
sort of warfare, which, as it displayed the angry passions
of those who were not yet willing to come to blows; and
as it had the still further effect of provoking, almost to
madness, the petulant Ojeda, while gradually warming
into irritability the more gentle and better graced Nicuesa,
afforded just that sort of excitement to all ranks of spectators
which is derived from a contemplation of those brutal
sports, misnamed of “The Fancy,” in which the vulgar
of Great Britain and America are supposed to take so
much more delight than that of all other nations. The
Spaniards of Santo Domingo were not wanting, however,
in due efforts to encourage the combatants to the ultima
ratio implied in these exhibitions.

“Ha! by Saint Dominie, Padre, but you cannot answer
that. There he hath you, as one may say, between wind
and water. To the pumps, man, it will need all your
breath.” And the cheers went up for Antonio, but not to
the annihilation of his stubborn rival.

“Were I here to speak for myself only, my good masters,
he were not long without his answer—an answer to
put his nose into the dust and out of sight, immeasurably
long as it is; but the business of the Señor Ojeda is at a
stand, my masters, while I waste the precious hours; and
I should be forgetful of his merits, were I simply striving
here to show my own. Let me dwell for a moment upon
his well-known prowess in battle, his great skill, of which
you had proofs, when in his first voyage to the coast of
Paria, he—”

“Ay! what were his profits in that voyage? Let him
tell that, my masters. What brought he away from Cumana,
and Maracapana, and the Islands of the Charaibee, but
wounds? It were a sorry reward to hold forth to us now,
to tell of the profits of that voyage to Paria.”

Such was indeed the history of Ojeda's first adventure as
a leader in American discovery. The speech of Antonio
Guerro was not without its effect upon his audience. This
was perceptible to Ojeda, as well as to his notary, and the
former was seen, with a face bloated with fiery anger, to
ascend behind his agent, and whisper in his ear, with tremulous
eagerness and haste.

“That is true, my masters; Antonio Guerro sometimes
speaks the truth. The brave Señor Alonzo de Ojeda did
bring little from Paria, in that first voyage, beside wounds;
but those wounds were all taken for his people, whom he
never yet deserted; and they were wounds from which I
trow that Antonio Guerro would have fled with shame, and
so, perhaps, his betters. It is no shame to have made one
unprofitable voyage, my masters, since good fortune smiles
not always, even upon the greatest merit.”

“But it is scarcely a sign of the greatest merit to have
never made one profitable voyage,” was the reasonable and
ready response of the other. “Where are the proofs of the
Señor Ojeda's success? Where are his pearls, his gold, his
slaves? Methinks I have heard the questions asked by the

alcalde, and certain men learned in the law, quite too frequently
to make it matter of wonder. It were no great
wisdom in him to produce these treasures, if indeed it were
in his power so to do. There be such officials known to
the law, as lay forcible hands on such matters, in requital
of certain vulgar responsibilities, which are called debts. It
were a blessing to the Señor Vergara, whom I see beyond
the music, and to many others whom I could name in Santo
Domingo, though I behold them not all present, could they
but look upon some of these proofs of the Señor Alonzo's
successes. They were creditors by far too generous to take
from him the honourable wounds which he got on the shores
of Paria—the only profits of that first voyage which he ever
brought home with him to Santo Domingo.”

The fiery little captain shook his fist, and looked unutterable
vengeance at the speaker; but he was saved from
any rashness by the direct retort of his emissary, who, by
carrying the war into his enemy's country, did much to
silence if not soothe his anger.

“It is new, my masters,” said he, “to reproach a brave
captain with his wounds, and make his misfortunes a subject
of idle merriment; but, we will admit that the Señor
Alonzo hath all the wounds, and that the Señor Diego hath
most wisely gone only where he could get none. That he
hath not escaped every where in like manner is no less certain;
for I have either dreamed it, or it is true, that he hath
had misfortunes also. I will not speak, as from my own
knowledge, but will humbly ask of himself, he being here
present, if he hath no debts?—if he owes no creditor?”

Ojeda clapped his hands at this sally, and every eye in
the assembly was turned upon the spot where the handsome
Nicuesa stood. Laughing good-humouredly as the
notary concluded, the cavalier responded promptly to the
impertinent question, and in a manner that showed him as
prompt in converting seeming evil into benefit, as his unhappy
rival, Ojeda, was in converting the good into unmixed
evil.

“That he does, thou knave!—he owes more debts and
hath more creditors than he will ever pay, unless he gets
help from the gold mines of Chersonesus, which he hopes
soon to do with the aid of this good assembly. It is such
noisy knaves as thou, that will not suffer my attorney to
show the proofs upon which I found my claim to borrow

more moneys, and find newer creditors. I have no fear of
what I owe, if they will only suffer me to owe enough. I
have no fear to pay my creditors, as I trust ever to keep
unwounded and free from harm. It is my pleasure to think,
that when I return to Santo Domingo, I will bring with me
every seaman that I carry hence; and none of them without
his proofs, not of my valour and his own danger, but
of my prudence and his own great profits therefrom. I
have no ambition of wounds, my friends, infinitely preferring
a whole skin and a heavy pouch. I trust, my masters—those
who go with me, I mean—that we shall never
lack the first, and soon fill the other.”

A loud cheering from all parts of the Plaza rewarded this
frank speech of the cavalier. The good nature of his reply
—in such complete contrast to the angry deportment of
Ojeda, shown at every stage of the controversy, and
whom such attacks from the rival notary only drove to
greater disquiet—did more, perhaps, than any thing besides
to help the object of Nicuesa. The solid considerations of
interest, however naturally imposing to most men, are not
unfrequently set aside and disregarded by the rough citizen
of the sea, when opposed by influences which touch his
humour, or provoke his enthusiasm. The agent of Nicuesa
beholding the effect of what he had said upon his audience,
took up the cue, and proceeded upon the same hint.

“The Señor Diego owes money, it is true, my masters,
—he hath no occasion to deny it; but his creditors doubt
nothing of his ability and willingness to repay them in
due season.”

This, perhaps, was not altogether true. There was
more than one testy creditor present who could not so
easily be persuaded of the stability of Nicuesa any more
than that of Ojeda, and who did give him some considerable
anxiety and trouble before he set sail for his government.
But at this moment there was no need, and no one
willing to gainsay the assertion, unless it were the rival
notary; and, to his words—his vocation being known—
none of these, not more familiar with the fact, gave any
sort of credence.

“And what less can be said, señor, of the credit of the
gallant Alonzo de Ojeda. That he hath debts, he does not
deny.”

“He cannot!” was the cry of more than one voice in

the assembly. The little warrior grew more restless than
ever and mounted behind his notary.

“He hath no wish to deny,” said the notary.

“Would he had wish to pay!” were the distinct words
of one from among the crowd.

“Who dares doubt it!” was the fierce demand of Ojeda
himself. “Let him come forth that does, and I will make
him eat my sword handle this instant.”

“That were no payment,” said the voice. “I stipulated
to be paid in silver and gold and not in steel.”

The laugh was universal against the little warrior. He
became furious in consequence. Leaping down from the
scaffolding of the notary where he had been standing
at the utterance of the jibe, he darted into the thickest of
the crowd, pursuing the direction from which the impertinent
sounds had arisen; but the voice was now silent, and
the speaker was evidently concealed by those around him,
whose ill-suppressed chucklings, as he drew nigh, in no
small degree heightened the anger of his disappointment.
The incident told very much against Ojeda, who had
shown himself so sensible to a taunt, which had only provoked
the good humour of his rival. The notary of Nicuesa
did not fail to improve the impressions of the audience
on this subject.

“It is easy, after this fashion,” he said, “to pay one's
creditors. By'r lady, if the Señor Diego could be persuaded
to adopt this mode of stopping the mouths of those
who trust him, there should be free discharge for him in
Santo Domingo. He should want neither men nor money
for his venture; but he wastes his valour not upon his
friends—only upon his foes;—not upon confiding creditors
and generous Spaniards, but upon the Anthropophagi, the
foes of man and our blessed religion. His valour—”

“Speakest thou of the valour of Diego de Nicuesa,”
cried the rival notary, “in the same day with that of Alonzo
de Ojeda?”

“Ay, in the same hour, and in the hour before it. I
speak of the valour of Nicuesa as a refined and Christian
valour, that strikes with judgment and skill, not less than
with force; that shuts not the eye in seeking out the
enemy, rushing with down-head, like the bull upon the
barrier; but with the keen sight and graceful advance of the
cavalier, who has learned to joust after the manner of the

Moresco—so as to surpass even him in the tilting match—
who goes towards his foe like one sent from heaven with
commission to overcome. Know you not, my masters,
that he can send his horse into battle to the music of the
viol; that he hath taught him to caracol to sweetest music
while he flings his heel into the face of his enemy? You
have many of you seen this horsemanship of the Señor
Nicuesa.”

“Ay, and the heels of the horse hath also more than
once saved the head of the rider,” said the notary of Ojeda.

“He hath never shown his back to the Indians as the
Señor Alonzo did at Cumana.”

“Nay, there thou liest, slave!” was the fierce apostrophe
of Ojeda, coming forward as he spoke; “thou liest,
and I should this moment chastise thee—but that thou
standest in the place of another, who shall be accountable
for thee. Ho! Señor Diego, dost thou hear thy notary;
thou shalt render to me for his lying insolence. If thou
art the man and the soldier he hath declared thee to be, I
look to find thee instantly ready.”

The fierce little warrior was happy to seize an occasion
to expend some of the rising choler which had been
accumulating in his breast for the previous hour; and it
was no less grateful to him, though by a strained construction
of his rights, to single out his rival as the most
conspicuous medium for his relief in this respect. The
taunts of the notary, echoed as they had been by more
than one in the assembly, had goaded him to a pitch of
feverish rage that baffled and banished every restraint of
reason, and without regarding the possible evil effect which
his course might have upon his objects, he uttered his demand
to Nicuesa in such a manner that it seemed to place
it beyond the power of the latter to evade the issue. The
reply of Nicuesa was sufficiently prompt.

“As thou wilt, Señor Alonzo—as thou wilt. I trust
ever to be sufficiently ready for all who seek me, whether
in love or anger—unless it chance to be one of these same
creditors of whom we spoke but now; I am sometimes
exceedingly loath to encounter such as these.”

“It is well—I rejoice me that thou hast spirit to maintain
the false assertion of this knave of thine. I will be
with thee on the instant.”

This was spoken by Ojeda while at some little distance

from, and while the crowd stood, a solid mass, between
him and his rival. Without the deliberation of a moment,
he began pushing his forward progress, and the idea of
such a conflict, at once appealing to the desire of many,
and, perhaps, to the tastes of most, in the assembly, the
crowd readily gave free passage to the small but restless
body of the fiery warrior.

“You will not—it will ruin you with all your creditors!”
was the expostulation of Juan de la Cosa, the lieutenant of
Ojeda, a cool, experienced veteran, whose calm good sense,
was required continually to be in requisition, to keep his
captain out of mischief. But his words were unavailing
now. He rejected the expostulation of La Cosa with scorn,
and pressed on his way to the spot where Nicuesa stood,
perfectly quiet, at the foot of the ladies' scaffolding, regarding
the scene with as much seeming composure, as if he
had no sort of interest therein.

“I care not if it ruin me with all the world, I will submit
to no insolence like this; I will suffer no wrong from
man. Nicuesa shall answer me for this insult, though I
perish the instant after.”

“Thou wilt not fight with him on such a quarrel,” was
the expostulation of Vasco Nunez to Nicuesa.

“Give the matter no heed; I will trouble him with conditions,”
was the smiling answer.

“Ho! Señor, thou art not ready! Why dost thou not
breathe thy weapon,” demanded Ojeda, confronting Nicuesa.
“Give it air, I wait thee at the entrance.”

“All in good time, Señor Alonzo,” calmly responded the
party addressed. “If I fight with you according to your
desire, there must be terms between us—there must be
some composition.”

“What terms—what composition?” demanded the other
impatiently.

“I owe certain moneys in San Domingo, Señor Ojeda,
and until these are paid, I have no right to risk my life,
save in the labour necessary to promote the interests of
those who have so far honoured me with their confidence.
It would be a serious risk of life, were I to engage in fight
with one of thy known excellence in the use of thy weapon.”

“Of a truth would it,” was the somewhat exulting reply.

“Thou wilt not fight me—thou fearest me, Señor
Diego?”

“I have not said so, Señor Ojeda,—thou art but too precipitate
in thy valour. I will fight thee, for though I acknowledge
thee brave as any in San Domingo, be sure that Diego
de Nicuesa holds thee in no sort of apprehension.”

“Draw then, I pray thee—I grow impatient; if thou
wilt fight, fight!” cried the fierce Ojeda, with increasing
anger.

“Ay, but as my life is fairly the right of my creditors,
I dare not risk it unless with some hope of profit. Stake
thou then five thousand castellanos, Señor, Alonzo, and I will
place a like sum at issue, and whoso shall survive our combat,
he shall possess the ten. Five thousand castellanos
will compound with those I owe, and leave me free to play
at hazard with a life, which is now rather their property
than mine own.”

An offer of this sort, while it confounded the hasty Ojeda,
filled the whole assembly with merriment. All persons
knew the strait for money in which Ojeda stood, and as
they as well knew how such an overture would work upon
his fiery temper, they received it with shouts of applause.

“Lay down thy castellanos, Señor Ojeda,” cried one;
“let not the combat wait because of thy slackness.”

“He hath to make the voyage first to Paria,” cried another,
“and then it may be that the vexed waters of the
gulf will suffer none of his divers to go down.”

“But can it be that so worthy a captain should lack a
loan in San Domingo to so small an amount? Thou wilt
lend him, Señor Davila,” cried another.

“Not a maravedi;” cried the miser hastily, in reply to
this suggestion. “By'r Lady, I have but too much already
at risk in the hands of these captains of the ocean sea.”

“I thank you, I thank you friend—worthy friend!”
cried Ojeda, when he could recover breath, and trying all
the while to suppress those outpourings of his wrath in
words which he manfully resolved should find their sufficient
utterance in deeds. “I thank you, but it needs not.
The Señor Diego is a man of honour, and will not shrink
from combat on so poor a pretence. He must know that he
cannot now avoid the combat, which as an honourable cavalier
of Spain, I do most earnestly insist upon.”

“Ay, but I do, save upon composition, as I before said,
Señor Alonzo,” calmly replied Nicuesa.

“You shall not evade me on any such pretence,
Señor —”

What more Ojeda would have urged to press the combat,
or whether he would have confined himself to words only,
cannot be said, as he was at this moment stopped by one
who laid a resolute grasp upon his shoulder, and whispered
in his ear the following words:—

“Press this matter, Señor Alonzo, and I compel the alcalde
to do his duty in the affair between us. The Señor
Diego is my debtor as well as thou, and he hath rightly
judged of my rights. Nor he nor thou shalt cast away life,
if the power be with me to arrest the folly. Pay the castellanos
which thou owest me, and thou mayst fight any
who owe me nothing. Offer again at this strife, and by the
Holy Mother, I cast thee into prison, and thou shalt never
set forth upon this voyage, for which thou art so prompt to
quarrel.”

There is something proverbially humiliating in debt, and
the fiery spirit of Ojeda, which neither the poisoned darts
of the savage, nor the keen thrust of the Spanish sword,—
no, nor chains could subdue—was at once spelled into quiet
by these few but impressive words uttered in a whisper,
the import of which the audience might have guessed, but
did not hear. He turned upon the speaker, who was a
withered, but a stern old man, and looked at him with an
eye that seemed to shoot forth shafts of fire to wound and
to consume; but he was prudent enough to resist the impulse,
which, in his soul he entertained, of defiance to the
last. But the angry reply subsided in his throat, in a hoarse
murmur, and he turned his wrath upon his lieutenant, De
la Cosa, who stood at a little distance behind him, looking
exceedingly well pleased at the arrest of the brawl, even
by such humiliating means.

“It is thou that hast done this, Juan,” he said, in hoarse
accents, to the sturdy mariner, upon whom he seemed for
the moment disposed to wreak the fury which had been so
suddenly restrained in other quarters.

“Thou hast said rightly, señor,” was the reply. “I saw
thee madding, to the detriment of all of us, and knew no
course to stop thee save by threat of alcalde and griping officer.
The broil is now fairly over, and, let me tell thee,

thou hast no cause of quarrel with the Señor Diego. By'r
Lady, if ye were both bound to answer for such rogues as
ye have to speak for ye, there were neither credit nor character
left for either of ye in San Domingo. Let us go
aside, I have something for your ear; and you, Antonio
Guerro, go on with your business—ye have made but little
speed to-day, in the matter which you have in hand. You,
Padre Medina, have need to do likewise; and, hark ye,
when you speak forth your own follies, mingle them not up
with the names and words of the honourable cavaliers who
employ you; they have follies of their own enough to answer
for, without drawing weapon for such idle words as
yours.”

“Juan de la Cosa! Juan de la Cosa!” was the cry of
the multitude.

“Thou hast rightly enough spoken, Juan de la Cosa,”
replied Antonio Guerro, “yet not with thy usual wisdom.
Thy master had no need to move in the matter of which I
spoke; and if my speech could make a fool of him, it were
no foolish speech. But he puts on his own bells, and I but
ring them. Let him keep his cap under his arm, when he
comes next into the Plaza, and no one will then see with
what it is laden, nor hear the jingle of the bells thereof.
Art thou answered?”

The tetchy Ojeda was on the eve of breaking forth anew,
at this renewal of the attack, which seemed to be very well
received by the vulgar part of the audience; when he was
anticipated by his more cool and impenetrable lieutenant.

“Thou hast said sensibly enough, for that calf's head
of thine. It were better if our captains left this business
to us altogether, since they seem only fit to lead when the
savage heathen is ready with his dart. It is a fault with
such men as the Señor Ojeda, that they are only too valiant,
and the valour which makes them overcome the Indian,
makes them but too heedless of quiet among those who
would be at peace. But the fault is a good one with those
who seek for pearls at Cumana. That same fault, my masters,
saved the life of many a good Catholic, who, but for
the valour of Señor Ojeda, which would seem rashness
here, had been sent to purgatory before their time, and with
great peril to their Christian souls. Come, señor, let us
leave the business to the notaries.”

There was much in this speech to mollify Ojeda, and

conciliate the seamen lacking service; there was much in
it besides of truth. The valour of the captain had more
than once been the shield of his men; and those who listened
to the eulogium, and felt that it was deserved, did not,
at the moment, remember that the dangers of his followers
had more than once been ascribed to the fatal rashness of
that same valour. The popular mind is essentially generous,
and its impulses are most apt to find a generous direction.
You could hear on all sides little recollections of this
and that individual, of particular instances of Ojeda's prowess.
One could tell of a saving blow struck for himself, in
Maracapana, when, but for Ojeda, a fierce savage would
have slain him. Another had been actually saved from the
cannibal repast of the Charaibees, to whom he had fallen
prisoner in a previous expedition, and who were fattening
him for that horrible feast, in which, like Polonius, he was
not to eat but to be eaten. These little recollections made
it needful that the agent of Nicuesa should bestir himself.
The tide seemed to be setting against him. But a few minutes
before, the gallant cavalier seemed to be carrying all
suffrages, by his frank, fearless and noble manner. The
little clue to their sympathies, to which the rough skill of
the veteran pilot had guided their thoughts, seemed,
however, to effect a marvellous diversion in behalf of Ojeda,
and it was with some anxiety that Antonio Guerro prepared
to renew the controversy. This he did in a manner as adroit
as unexpected. It will scarcely be believed, that, in order
to recruit seamen for a voyage of peril, he should insist
upon the commander's excellence in playing the guitar;
yet such was the case; he not only dilated in the most enthusiastic
language upon his ability in this respect, but he
avowed the readiness of his principal to give them proof
of it.

“Now, what would the fellow?” exclaimed Nicuesa.
“Does he mean that I should take the instrument and play
for this company?”

“Of a certainty he does, Señor Diego,” said the beautiful
Teresa Davila, to whom his observation had been made.
“And we, who know thy excellence in this gentle art, will
not suffer thee to refuse performance.”

Her words were seconded by all the ladies. It was their
turn to become parties to the proceedings. They had not
scrupled to express themselves before, in all matters that

were going forward, but their voices now assumed a voluminous
fulness, which fairly gave them the ascendency,
and made them heard, in spite of the buz and confused
sounds which arose from all quarters of the Plaza.

“Thou wilt have to play, Diego,” said Vasco Nunez,
handing him the instrument, which had been passed from
hand to hand over fifty heads.

The knight took the guitar, with an air of inexpressible
dismay in his countenance, which was no doubt assumed
for the occasion. Nicuesa knew his own ability too well
to entertain any real reluctance. He took the instrument,
which he tuned in the course of a few prelusive notes, and
then began a little Indian air, the beauty of which had already
inspired the Castilian muse, and had been linked, by
a Spanish poet of some repute, to words of his own language.
The poem was of the ballad kind, and founded as
it was upon one of the frequent superstitions of the time,
and more particularly of that class of reckless adventurers
whom it was more especially his policy to secure, it commanded
a degree of attentive consideration, which, perhaps,
would have been withheld from performances of far greater
merit.