 | CHAPTER XXX.
VASCO NUNEZ IN POWER—ZEMACO PREPARES FOR BATTLE. The damsel of Darien |  |
30. CHAPTER XXX.
VASCO NUNEZ IN POWER—ZEMACO PREPARES FOR BATTLE.
“Behold now,” says a venerable historian of that period,
“the surprising changes of that fortune which befel
Vasco Nunez. Behold him now, so late an outcast from
all favour, and an outlaw under fear of punishment, lifted
on a sudden into the high places of authority, and transformed,
from a rash soldier of fortune, into the captain of as
brave a troop as ever followed leader in the paths of Spanish
conquest. Truly, it would seem that Micer Codro had
not idly spoken in the matter of that star!”
With the first possession of his new authority, Vasco
Nunez proceeded to make such regulations and enactments
as seemed most necessary for the promotion of order in the
colony. He subjected his followers at once to active employments,
under different heads, that they might the more
quickly forget the temporary authority which they had
themselves exercised with so hasty a hand. His next step
was to despatch a vessel to the shores of Nombre de Dios,
to bring away the miserable remnant of Nicuesa's colony
in that place; which, he rightly judged, wanting their commander
and destitute of provisions, such only excepted as
they could wrest in bloody conflict from the natives, must
be in a still more deplorable condition than when Nicuesa
left them. With a degree of generosity which was equally
a matter of surprise to all, the person not excepted whom
it most concerned, he released his mortal enemy, the Bachelor
Enciso, from the prison to which the violent judgment
of the people had consigned him. With a cringing
aspect, the Bachelor came before him to acknowledge his
generosity, and emboldened to implore some further extension
the colony and return to Spain, and this he urged with
words smoothly chosen to flatter the man he once would
have destroyed, but whom he failed utterly to deceive.
Vasco Nunez smiled scornfully as he hearkened to the insidious
prayer of his enemy, but he showed no other token
of his suspicion. Well knowing the insincerity of the
Bachelor, the friends of Vasco Nunez counselled him to
refuse his application.
“He will appear before the Court of Castile with evil
report of your doings, my son,” said the astrologer—“he
will do you hurt with the sovereign.”
“Nay, I will strive to guard against his devices. Zamudio
shall accompany him in the same vessel, who shall
bear my own despatches to our sovereign, and make of
himself true reports of all particulars, by which this cunning
villain shall be defeated. Better that he should be
made to confess that I freely gave him permission to depart
for Spain, than that it should be said I held him in
bondage in Darien, fearing his ill report of my injustice.”
Governed by this policy, the most liberal and noble, if
not the most shrewd and cautious, the cavalier assented to
the prayer of the Bachelor, who, in his heart, all the while
meditated a bitter revenge upon Vasco Nunez, for all the
injustice of his companions. To him he ascribed the falling
off from him of the regards of his followers, and he resolved
that his single head should feel the whole weight of
that bitter revenge which lurked within his bosom, the natural
progeny of all his defeats, shame, and disappointment.
But, though Vasco Nunez well conceived the feeling in the
mind of the Bachelor, he saw him depart without apprehension,
or, indeed, any feeling but scornful indifference.
He had provided, as he thought, against any evil result
which might be feared from the revelations of his enemy.
He had instructed Zamudio in all the particulars of his
own connexion with the colony—particularly in having
conducted it to Darien, and led the attack on the cassique
Zemaco. These and other facts were written down for
the guidance of his representative in answering the
charges of the Bachelor; and a more imposing argument
still was put into his hand, in the gold and pearls
gathered at Darien,—a large portion out of which had been
set aside as customary for the treasury of the Crown. To
invested with the extraordinary power of commissioning,
he sent a liberal present in gold by the hands of the Regidor
Valdivia—a politic gift, which, we may say in this
place, had the desired effect of bringing him, some time
after, the appointment of Captain-General of the Colony.
With these precautions, Vasco Nunez saw the departure of
Enciso with unconcern, and proceeded with the calm deliberation
of a mind entirely at ease, to commence those
toils of conquest, from which he promised himself an
eternal fame. The hope of Vasco Nunez, superior to the
miserable love of gold by which the ordinary leaders of the
time were wholly governed, imparted to his air, manner,
and address, a loftiness and dignity which impressed his
followers with something of that feeling of veneration
which the Spanish seamen, even at that early day, entertained
for Christovallo Colon. It is not improbable, indeed,
that the high purpose and holy resolve of the latter, had
not been without its due weight in forming the present character
of the former. The overthrow of the miserable savages,
with whom battle, in ordinary cases, was a sort of
sport among the Spaniards, gave him little pleasure, as he
felt that it could yield him little fame; and in the struggle
to win, and the eagerness to divide, the golden spoils, for
which nearly all Spanish adventure was undertaken, he
took little part, save when it subserved that great interest
which was the leading object of his aim. While, therefore,
he sent forth small detachments in various quarters to
explore the country, he ever kept in view and in secret the
one sole and singular purpose of his mind. To the astrotrologer
alone he poured forth his hidden soul, and gave
vent to those bright dreams of his imagination, which had
for so long a season cheered him amidst suffering, and sustained
him under disappointment. Nor did his fancy lack
aid and sustenance in this vision of greatest glory, from the
dreamy temper of the astrologer. His predictions hourly
grew more fruitful of great results—the star to which his faith
was given looked down with an effulgence nightly increasing;
and those strange chances by which the cavalier,
from being a miserable fugitive, at the mercy of so base a
creature as Enciso, became the leader of a fearless band of
warriors on the very shores which he had so long desired
to obtain, was of itself a circumstance which seemed to
wild and extravagant.
But events did not allow Vasco Nunez to remain idle,
indulging in the vain hope that he should be suffered without
obstacle to win the secret path of his high ambition.
Shortly after his elevation, and ere he had so far subdued
the disorders of his colony as to permit of his own departure
from it, a detachment which he sent forth under
Francisco Pizarro—afterwards the conqueror of that golden
region to which Vasco Nunez pointed out the way—was
defeated by the implacable cassique Zemaco, and Pizarro
himself, sorely bruised and wounded, made his escape with
difficulty, leaving one of his followers, not slain, but disabled,
on the field. The anger of Vasco Nunez was
awakened by this latter circumstance. “Go back,” he
exclaimed to Pizarro—“it were to thy eternal dishonour
if thou leavest one of thy followers in the hands of the
savage!” The lieutenant obeyed, and was successful in
rescuing the disabled man; but the ready and watchful
hostility of Zemaco, thus promptly manifesting itself, made
the necessity obvious to all for his instant overthrow or removal.
Addressing himself, therefore, to the present necessity,
Vasco Nunez at once proceeded to put his people in
readiness to march. The hills, at the foot of which the
colony had entrenched itself, were, he now discovered,
filled with enemies, bold, resolute, and distinguished by an
obstinate courage which made them a very different sort of
foes from those to whom the Spaniards had been accustomed
among the Antilles. They were capable of great
endurance, long privation and fatigue, and in battle shrunk
from no exposure of their persons, and had no fear of death.
Under a cassique like Zemaco, whom they loved as a man,
and obeyed with a full confidence in his skill and prowess
as a leader, they felt themselves capable of great achievements,
and realized, from the confidence in themselves and
chief, an addition to their habitual courage which made
them anxious for the moment when their leader should
give them the signal for descending upon their enemies in
the plain. It was while Vasco Nunez was making his
preparations to anticipate them in their attack, and at the
moment when the warriors of Zemaco, having tasted already
of Spanish blood, were growing impatient of the cautious
but inactive policy of their chief, that the latter
which was calculated, in many particulars, to affect the
mode of warfare which he pursued.
On the evening of that day when the colonists appointed
Vasco Nunez to the chief command over them, there came
within the circle of the cassique's encampment, the two
strange Indians whom the cavalier had discovered as they
disembarked from the sea. The reader has already seen
who they were. The appearance of Caonabo among the
people from whose race he sprung was productive of as
much surprise to them as would have been his presence
to the Spaniards. When arrested by the watchful spies of
Zemaco, and closely questioned as to his objects and origin,
he haughtily threw wide the cotton garment which
covered his breast, and revealed thsoe peculiar marks of his
nation and their own, made in childhood, which satisfied them
of a common paternity. Then, in their own language, he
bade them conduct him to their chief.
It were needless to go through those minor details by
which Caonabo convinced Zemaco that his counsel was of
the utmost importance to his kingdom in carrying on the
conflict with the Spaniards. He described to him the capacities
and the character of that feared and hated race, in
the succinct and clear narrative which he gave him of the
miserable fate which had befallen the unhappy people of
Hayti. His own history formed no small portion of a
story, crowded with details of blood and persecution, of a
character so brutal as to startle and confound his savage
auditory, to whom the sprinkling of a parent's blood upon
their heads in infancy,—according to the custom of the
Charaibee—would seem calculated as the precursor of a life
in which no atrocity could be found too outrageous for indulgence.
The arms of the Spaniards, their skill in warfare—their
horses, and above all, the cruel bloodhound,
whose unerring nostril no vigilance, unless divided from
him by the running water, could well elude—all these were
described to the listening cassique by one whose intimate
experience of the enemy whom they feared, enabled to
speak with effect and certainty. Caonabo concluded by
counselling Zemaco to retreat before the invaders, laying
the country waste as they advanced, and leaving them destitute
in this manner of all sources of supply. But the
thus to the cautious counsellor.
“Does my brother know the power of Zemaco? Let
him look upon these hills. They hide a thousand warriors.
They have a thousand brothers. The hills behind
them have their thousands. I cannot see the end of my
people, though I stand on the highest mountain of Darien.”
“The heart of Caonabo was once proud like thine, my
brother,” was the reply. “On the hills of Hayti I too
had my thousand warriors. But they perished even with
the coming of the Spaniards. They carry a swift lightning
which strikes down the brave man, though he outrun
the swiftest and overthrow the strongest, by reason of his
greater strength.”
“Does my brother speak of the warriors of Hayti—they
were women,” was the reply. “Had they been men like
thyself, they had also lived like thee. My young men fear
not the lightning of these bearded people. They cry aloud
that I should command them to devour their enemies.
Their teeth gnash for prey.”
“Heed not the young men, my brother. They know
not the strength of the Spaniard—they only know their
own. They are swift of foot—let the Spaniard hunt them
among the mountains and the thick woods till he grows
weary by the wayside. When he is weary let the young
warriors strike.”
“The young men of Darien fear not death. They will
go down to the valley to-morrow and shoot their arrows
into the dwellings of the Spaniards. They are numerous
as the trees, and they promise me a thousand white teeth
of the enemy to hang in the great temple of Dobayda.
Thou shalt see them to-morrow, my brother, when they
strike the Spaniard—thou shouldst have had such warriors
with thee in Hayti!”
Caonabo saw that the moment had not arrived when,
sobered by misfortune and frequent defeat, the proud cassique
would hearken to those counsels of caution which
could secure him success in conflict with the Spaniards.
He strove no farther, particularly too when his own blood
grew warmed with the clamorous valour of the warriors
who gathered around him. The strength of their bodies,
the courage of their souls, the dexterity with which they
the hope that much might be done towards victory in the
proposed onset of the morrow. To Buru, that night when
they were alone together, he betrayed more of the exultation
of spirit which he felt than he suffered Zemaco to behold.
“These are men of war, Buru—men of strength—and
they will make their enemies tremble. They will fly from
the Spaniard, but they will shoot as they fly—they will
perish, but they will perish like men. Zemaco hath given
me a lead among them—an hundred warriors will hearken
to the cry of Caonabo. Then, as thou lookest from the
heights when the battle is going on, thou shalt see the
valour of the Carib. In thy heart, when thou beholdest
the fall of a Spaniard, thou shalt rejoice and say, Caonabo
will avenge the blood of Zemi, our boy.”
“Alas!” exclaimed the woman, “but there is no rejoicing
for Buru. The blood of the Spaniard brings not
back the boy that is perished. He sleeps under the reedy
waters of the gulf, and the fat turtle makes his bed beside
him where the green weeds are softest. Ah, father, chief
—must there be more fighting and blood? May we not fly
as thou saidst, to a far mountain in Darien, to which the
Spaniard can never come?”
“As well hope to fly from death, woman, as to fly from
tyranny. You cannot fly from the tyrant. He must be
met with a hatred keen like his own—he must be overcome
and slain. But should Caonabo fly when Zemaco
stands up for the fight. Shall the chief run back into the
mountains skulking in fear, when the young warriors go
down into the valley with sounding conchs, and clashing
their spears for battle. It is time that thou shouldst sleep,
Buru—go to thy rest. These things are not for the Haytian
women. Let her trim the buskin of a chief for battle,
or bind his hurts when he is wounded, or feather the long
arrow, or give it to the hardening fire—it is all that the
trembling woman of Hayti may do for the warrior. But
when the strife comes close to the bohios of the tribe, then
shalt thou see the woman of the Carib do braver deeds
than were ever done by the Haytian man. Thou shalt
see her fling the javelin like a warrior and cling to the
legs of the enemy, even when he strikes her down to his
feet.”
“Alas, for Buru, she will die for Caonabo, but she cannot
when the stroke is given. She grows weak at the clashing
of battle—she faints when the blood streams from the
stricken man. Let not Caonabo hate the poor Buru for
that she is of Hayti, and weak like the people of the
sunny island.”
The prayer of Buru fell like a reproach upon the ears of
the awakened warrior.
“Said Caonabo that he loved not Buru, because she
fought not like the Carib warrior? When did he need the
arm of Buru in battle? Go! Go! When that day comes,
Caonabo will be glad to die. Wherefore should he live
when he must say to the mother of his boy, `take up thy
arrow, woman, and keep thy husband from harm—go forth
and meet mine enemy so that he slays me not.' When
did Caonabo speak these words in the ear of Buru. Go!
Go! Thou wilt sleep safely, for Caonabo walks the hills
that lie between thee and the Spaniard.”
Thus saying, the Carib chief went forth in the transparent
starlight, and with light and fearless footsteps, stole
down the heights that led to the encampment of the Spaniard.
This he surveyed with the keen eye of thought no
less than valour. He looked upon the method of the temporary
wooden fortress, the palisades, the ditches and the
dwellings, so incorporate that they answered all the common
purposes of defence. From the point at which he
gazed he could behold the distinct form of the soldier,
rising into sight at intervals, his bright weapon glittering in
the starlight as he trod his rounds with the regularity of an
assigned duty. Then came to his ears sudden voices of
command and answers of obedience, followed by the heavy
ring upon the ground of the arquebus—the clash of steel,
the clink of the hammer upon armour, and occasionally the
deep bay of the unerring hound, whose sudden tongue sent
a chilling sensation even into the bosom of the fierce warrior
who listened. All things betrayed an order, compactness,
and guarded care, which, while they impressed the
Carib with admiration, were no less calculated to move him
with many apprehensions touching the result of the conflict.
He had a sufficient knowledge of the Spaniards, to know
how idle would be the prowess of the naked warriors of
Zemaco, though fifty times their number, against their mail
clad and measured order; and when he remarked the condition
where their horses might move with freedom, and the baldness
of vegetation which left the Indians without the cover
under which they were wont to fight, and by which alone
they could hope, in some little measure, to neutralize the
advantages which their foes possessed, he could not but
feel increasing apprehensions with regard to the approaching
issue. But the immense numbers which Zemaco commanded
reconciled him to the conflict, which, indeed, was
beyond his power to control. The Spaniards were few,
and Caonabo deemed it not improbable that the native
valour of the Carib, stimulated by the excited temper of
their minds under the restraints to which they had been
for some time subjected, would prompt them to a degree
of fury, which, above the fear of death, would overcome
their enemies by the sheer exhaustion following the continued
press of numbers, and a long protracted conflict
with newly arriving warriors. His close survey of all
objects upon the plain, its inequalities, places of retreat and
shelter, together with the few covering points which it
possessed, enabled him to form some general plan as to
the mode by which to conduct his own share in the coming
battle. This achieved, he returned to the heights on
which no watch was maintained. The warriors slept in
scattered groups along the hills, and none of them beheld
his departure or return. But the eye of Buru was watchful,
and her mind filled with sorrowful and trembling
thoughts, allowed her no sleep till the return of the chief;
and even then, when more assured she lay upon his arm
and slumbered through the night, his ears still caught the
deep moaning of her lips, at moments, which told him that
the sleep of the sorrowful is itself a sorrow. Then, with
the gathering and cruel fancies which precede the strife in
the bosom of the warrior, and though panting for that vengeance
which is holy when it is the only condition by which
liberty can be won or rendered secure, the chief yet felt
deep pity for the timid, the gentle, the suffering woman at
his side.
“Would it were,” he muttered to himself, as he listened
to her unconscious moanings—“would it were, if for thy
sake only, that I could bear thee to some far mountain, or
some lonely island, such as the valour of the Carib once
made sacred against every foe. But where is the mountain
or where is the island that his mighty ships may not find
in the open paths of the ocean. The valour which made
the home of the Carib sacred before, whether upon the
mountain or amid the sea, can alone preserve it now; and if
we blind not ourselves—if we look calmly where to strike
between the armour, and rush not madly into the arms of
defeat and death, it may be that we may preserve it now.
But thou, at least,” he continued, looking down upon the
melancholy face of the sleeper, “thou, at least, shalt never
again bear the burdens of the Spaniard. I will save thee
from him while I have life to strike, and the dagger which
cannot destroy the tyrant, shall at least deprive him of his
slave.”
He kissed the weapon which he had drawn from his
bosom while speaking these words, then throwing the
hand which grasped it over the neck of the unconscious
sleeper, he resigned himself to a like repose.
| CHAPTER XXX.
VASCO NUNEZ IN POWER—ZEMACO PREPARES FOR BATTLE. The damsel of Darien | |