 | CHAPTER XXIX.
DEMOCRACY IN DARIEN—THE CARIBBEAN REBEL. The damsel of Darien |  |
29. CHAPTER XXIX.
DEMOCRACY IN DARIEN—THE CARIBBEAN REBEL.
When the vessel which bore the ill-fated Nicuesa, had
disappeared from the shores of Darien, the community,
now without any head, relapsed into its former factions as
to who should have authority over them. One party insisted
upon the claims of the Bachelor Enciso, as better
founded than those of any other, he having the appointment
of Alonzo de Ojeda, who had been specially deputed
by the king himself to the command of one half of Veragua.
Another party, and by far the most numerous, ridiculed
this claim as being of force only within the limits of
that half of the country which had been given to Ojeda;
but their ridicule was perhaps better placed when it was
aimed at the legal scrupulosity of those who took such
ground, and who had just joined, tooth and nail, in expelling
the undoubted governor of the soil, also claiming under
direct appointment of the king.
“But what to us,” continued the latter party, “what to
us in the wilderness are the appointments of Ferdinand, or
rather of Fonseca. How can they know the sort of man
who is best calculated to promote our conquest of the
country. They give us Ojeda, who is mad with his own
ungovernable temper; and Nicuesa, who is no less mad
with his own ungovernable self-conceit—both of them
leading us into danger, having no skill to relieve us when
they do so. Our lives are to us of more value than they
can be to king or bishop, and these give us the right to
choose for ourselves the sort of captain who shall the better
preserve them in pushing the conquests we intend.
We will choose our own officers, as it is fitting we should;
we only being required to obey them, and it being to our
loss and misfortune only, if they prove not to be good ones.
for another reason. We have experience of their abilities,
we have seen the most famous exploits of Ojeda, and of
Nicuesa, and of many others; and it cannot but prove the
truest policy, when the greatest number of our voices unite in
favour of one man, if we choose that man to be our leader.”
This was wholesome democratic doctrine, and was
urged with all the vehemence natural to men who were
removed thousands of miles from the accustomed restraints
of the law. But the ambition of the Bachelor Enciso and
the great interest which he had in the expedition from the
first, awakened all his loyalty and legal acumen, and being
a better pleader than a soldier, he stoutly declaimed against
the treasonable countenance which they maintained to the
royal authority. They heard him with some patience for
awhile, as one of their companions, but when the worthy
Bachelor, who, if talented, was any thing but discreet or
wise—deceived by their indulgence, and thinking he had
gained some ground in the argument, proceeded to denounce
individuals, and threaten them all with royal indignation
and punishment—they routed him as rudely as they
had done Nicuesa, and in their fury, invested as they assumed
themselves to be with a sovereign power which was
utterly new to Enciso, but which, according to our modes
of thinking, and their arguments, was quite as legitimate as
any other, they thrust the ambitious Bachelor into prison,
and confiscated all his effects to the common use. This
done, they proceeded almost in the same moment to declare
Vasco Nunez their leader, and to confer upon him
that power of which they had just before made so unscrupulous
and violent a use.
“The fruit is now ripe, my son.”
These were the words of Micer Codro, as he bore to the
cavalier the first intelligence of the proceedings of the people.
Vasco Nunez, from the moment when he found that
all his entreaties had failed to produce any change in their
resolves with regard to Nicuesa, had studiously, and with a
sad heart and vexed spirit, withdrawn himself from among
them, and was now wandering along the shores of the sea,
contemplating the backward route taken by the unhappy-adventurer,
and conjuring up, with a mournful prescience,
those aspects of evil to himself, which seemed so naturally
to follow the fortunes of the adventurous and brave.
“Micer Codro,” said the cavalier, “it is but a few
months, thou rememberest, when the accomplished Señor
Diego sailed with a noble fleet and a brave and numerous
crew from the port of Santo Domingo. The fruit was
ripe for him—yet where is he? The same people who
offer me command were too happy to serve under his banner.
They took his gold, they swore to follow his fortunes,
yet, in a sudden mood of anger or caprice, they forget
the solemn faith they swore, and pursue him with a
malice which would seem to call for the sanction of some
surpassing crime or cruelty of his commission; and yet,
my life on it, the Señor Diego hath been only too indulgent
to their wishes—too blind to their faults and excesses
—too liberal to their vain follies and impatient desires.”
“My son!” replied the astrologer, “the part which
thou hast taken in behalf of the unfortunate Señor Diego,
is becoming the generous rival and the noble gentleman;
yet dost thou think that, had he been suffered to remain at
Darien, he could have kept the command?”
“He freely offered to renounce it—he prayed only to
be admitted as a companion.”
“True, but this was only at the moment of his utter
desperation. Dost thou think that, had he been suffered to
remain as a companion, he would have been content with
such a position, in the very armament he himself had
fitted out. Dost thou not believe that, when the first feelings
of his apprehension had disappeared, and he had
learned to forget, in the better fortunes of the people, the
miseries of Nombre de Dios, he would have stirred up a
faction against the leader, and if he did not succeed in casting
him down and setting himself up in his stead, would
have withdrawn his faction, and by a separate command
have divided the people to the destruction of both parties.”
The cavalier was silent. The astrologer continued.
“It would have been ordinary human nature to have
done so, and such certainly would have been the case had
the Señor Diego been suffered to remain in any capacity.
He was a man easily cast down by bad fortune, and as
easily lifted into forgetfulness by good. He lacked equally
the firmness to bear patiently under evil, and the humility,
which is the noblest wisdom, to maintain an equal patience
when success smiled upon him. Misfortune made him
base—a slave, impotent, feeble and complaining; while success
That he could not have remained at Darien without
striving to command, I have already shown thee, and, indeed,
thou knowest this truth already, from what thou
knowest of Nicuesa. That he could not have commanded
successfully any more than Ojeda, there is sufficient proof
in his melancholy progress, as it is already known to us.
The very picture thou hast drawn of the noble fleet and
numerous crew with which he set sail a few months ago
from Santo Domingo, when contrasted with their present
condition, and the miserable remnant which is left at Darien,
is the very best justification of the people. Their
very lives—I speak not now of their fortunes—depended
upon their driving away Nicuesa and Ojeda, and all those
assuming and insolent, but incompetent commanders,
who have already brought them from misery to misery,
until they tremble now upon the very verge of ruin.
Without provisions, few in number, vexed by their striving
factions, and confused and agitated by the possession of
their own powers, unless thou takest the rule upon thee
as it is offered thee, they must fall a prey to the fierce
cassique Zemaco, who hangs over, watching them like a
bird of prey from the hills. Thy own safety and mine,
Vasco Nunez, not less than theirs, commands thee to take
this rule upon thee. But there is yet a stronger argument,
my son, in the blessed chance which this election gives
thee of carrying out the promise of thy star. Nay more,
in all this business—in the toils and misfortunes—the defeat
and banishment of Nicuesa and Ojeda—the finger of
thy destiny hath been at work. Look back, my son, to
the day when the hurricane seemed to have swallowed up
thy fortunes, when it swallowed up thy barque. Then thou
stoodst, the most hapless man of all the three whose proud
vessels covered the bosom of the Ozama. Now, where
art thou? The proud fleets of Ojeda and Nicuesa—where
are they? These captains, where are they? Thou seest
them all here, at Darien—all that remains of the proud
armaments of thy rivals—they are broken in spirit and fortunes—gone
from thy path for ever, and their troops, of
their own head, pronounce thee with unanimous voice
their captain. Truly the hand of heaven is in this business.
Thy star hath guided thee aright, and the force that
is left to thee, if small, is hardy, and hath been taught lessons
most necessary for the men to know, who aim to explore
these mountains of Darien, and overcome the fierce tribes
that inhabit them. The hour of thy glory and thy triumph
is at hand, my son;—let not, I pray thee, the golden
chance pass by. Now is the time—the fruit is ripe and
ready for thy lips.”
“Stay! seest thou nothing? there, in the little bay,
scarce a mile above us, into which the waves glide softly
and without surf—seest thou not a boat, Micer Codro?
Seest thou not a long narrow canoe, such as the natives of
the islands make. There, beyond the point, Micer Codro?”
“Mine eyes are older than thine, my son—I see nothing.”
replied the other.
“It is gone—it is hidden by the rushes that skirt the
bay. Let us move towards it, Micer Codro, it may matter
something to our fortunes. Zemaco rests on the hills
below—wherefore should this canoe, if it comes to him,
find its way so far above. Let us look to it, Micer Codro
—thou hast a weapon, and mine is ready—besides, here is
Leonchico—himself a host. Ha! ha! Leon! Ha! ha!
Set on, Set on!”
The dog, obeying the well-known command, sprang forward,
and was followed by the two. They proceeded
with all haste towards the spot where Vasco Nunez had
seen the boat disappear, which they found to be an indentation
of the shore, having the appearance on three sides of
a capacious basin, but without receiving the tribute waters
of any river. The land was so low, however, that the
tides covered a long stretch of it at high water, and thick
beds of reeds and a high grass grew so luxuriantly over the
surface, as to form an almost impassable barrier to the direct
approach from either side. For a time they saw
nothing of the canoe. The waters of the basin flowed
smoothly in almost without a ripple, and seemed never to
have borne the burden of a vessel or the dip of an oar.
But a patient watch for a while longer enabled them to detect
a movement among the thick reeds upon the opposite
shore, and following the motion of their slender forms,
they beheld the stern of the canoe protruding slightly from
beneath the stems which it divided in its passage, and
which vibrated fitfully in accordance with its upward progress.
while they stood watching and wondering at the appearance
in that quarter of such a vessel, they beheld two persons
emerging from the rushes in which they had lost
sight of the canoe, and after leisurely surveying them with
a gaze seemingly as curious as their own, ascending the
hills which bounded the view on the southwest. They
were both Indians, one of them a man, evidently from his
form and carriage of the Caribbean race. He was tall,
straight, and strongly made. He carried a bow in his
hand and a well-filled quiver on his shoulder, and walked
with the ease and haughty erectness of one accustomed to
command. His companion was a woman; she followed
closely behind him with an air of respectful deference that
was perceptible to the Spaniards even at the great distance
from which they watched. The man, after the first survey
which he made of them, turned his eyes away and went
toward the hills without bestowing upon them a second
glance. Not so with the woman. Though following her
conductor closely with unfaltering footsteps, she stole a
frequent look behind her, and then, as if fear followed her
survey, her speed would be increased until she again drew
nigh to her companion. In this way they soon passed
from sight among the rising hills that deepened in the distance.
The appearance of these Indians on that part of
the coast, so far from that where Zemaco maintained his
forces, in a canoe of such unusual magnitude, and which
had evidently just come from the sea, was necessarily a
subject fruitful of conjecture in a mind so earnest and
inquiring as Vasco Nunez; though, little did the cavalier
imagine among his many speculations, the vast voyage
which that frail vessel had made, and the character of her
inmates. Little did he think that, favoured by a Providence
whose ways are no less wondrous than inscrutable,
that strange barque, borne by the capricious winds from
point to point, and island to island, had at length crossed
the Caribbean seas in safety, and that too at a season
when the returning brigantines of Ojeda and Nicuesa had
met with nothing but tempest and disaster. For five hundred
miles of ocean had the Indian adventurer, whose fortunes
lay in that small vessel, preferring any fate to the tyranny
which had hunted him like a beast of prey from mountain
to mountain, given himself up to the mercy of the winds
and triumphant hopes filled his mind and heart, when his
eyes at length surveyed the native regions from which he
had been torn in youth; but, when he beheld, the first moment
of his arrival, the aspects of a race from which there
seemed no hope of flight, a withering doubt arose in his
bosom whether he had not braved the perils of the seas in
vain. For a moment, while he gazed, his heart sank
within him at the idea that he had fled from the tyranny of
Hayti only to find it under renewed forms of terror in full
activity at Darien. But the proud spirit of the warrior
grew predominant as he turned away for the hills.
“At least,” he exclaimed, “here dwells the Caribbee.
It is no weak and timid Haytian, to bow down to the
Spaniard and dig for him in the earth, and plead for life
when he should strike for liberty. The Caribbee is a
man, Spaniards—a brave warrior. He may die, but he will
die like a strong man, and brave must be the foe who
overthrows him.” These words, only half spoken aloud,
reached no other ears than those of the woman who followed
him, nor did the Spaniards behold the fierce gesture
which accompanied them.
He sank from sight, and the circumstance of his appearance
was soon banished from the thoughts, as well of
Vasco Nunez as of his companion, when the latter renewed
to him the subject upon which they had already spoken
so long. The astrologer was still apprehensive that the
cavalier, who was sometimes more prone to follow the
dictates of a lofty and romantic generosity than those of
deliberate prudence and a judicious policy, now proceeded
to array before his mind such other arguments as he
esteemed likely to effect his purpose; but Vasco Nunez
briefly cut short his pleading by declaring his resolution to
accept the appointment of the people.
“I will become their leader, Micer Codro, though I well
know that a single mishap would distroy their confidence
in my ability—or fortune, which is worse—and the arrival
of any fresh feathered popinjay from Spain or San Domingo,
will be the signal for the formation of a new faction,
hostile to my authority. My hope is, however, before
that time, to have crossed those mountains which rise,
stretching away, heaven knows how far, between our present
beyond them. That conquest made, what matters it if
Ferdinand bestows my power upon some gaudy courtier
more fit to tread a measure than direct a march? Nay,
what were the loss of life itself, when the objects which
life has lived and struggled for to its own constant peril,
are all achieved? That ocean at my feet—that empire
surveyed and won, and the life of Vasco Nunez can never
be lost, though his blood flows upon the scaffold as a
traitor to his sovereign!”
| CHAPTER XXIX.
DEMOCRACY IN DARIEN—THE CARIBBEAN REBEL. The damsel of Darien | |