University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.
HATE AND JEALOUSY PRESIDE IN JUDGMENT—THE DOOM
RECORDED.

With a degree of hypocrisy which was surely unnecessary,
and uncalled for by any of the circumstances of
the transaction, Don Pedrarias concealed the exultation
which he felt at finding his enemy within his power. He
sought him in prison, affected deep concern at being
obliged to treat him with such rigour, and uttered the most
earnest wishes that he might establish his innocence. This
conduct denoted a consciousness of injustice on his own
part, which leaves it doubtful whether he ever contemplated
a sincere union of interests with one against whom,
from the first, he seemed to have adopted all the hostility
of a rival.

“Be not afflicted, my son,” he said with an air of the
tenderest concern; “an investigation of these charges will,
I doubt not, serve to acquit you—nay, if it be as I imagine,
they will do you great service, by rendering your loyalty
and zeal towards your sovereign more than ever conspicuous.”

“But who are my accusers, Don Pedrarias, and what
are the crimes which they allege against me?” was the
demand of the prisoner.

“Alonzo de la Puente, the royal treasurer, is one of
them; Pedro, late your secretary, another—”

“Ha! that youth! There is a mystery about that matter!
Don Pedrarias, this youth sought my life, when I
slept in my own tent on the shores of Isla Rica. Evidence
from him cannot be regarded under such circumstances;

and he, indeed, for such a crime should be held to answer
for his own life.”

“Make that which you relate appear, and he will be,
my son,” replied the governor; he continued, “there is
yet another witness named Lope Sanchez, a sentinel,
who—”

“But what is it that they charge against me, Don Pedrarias—of
what crime am I supposed to be guilty, which
can justify the incarceration of a man high in favour with
our sovereign, and in command of his armament?”

“None other than treason to him, my son. It is charged
that you have designed a treasonable conspiracy to throw
off your allegiance, and assume an independent sway on
the borders of the Southern Sea.”

“This is sheer folly, Don Pedrarias—you cannot surely
believe it. Let me be confronted with these accusers—
with that miserable boy, who hath so strangely sought my
life, and seeks it now with such vindictiveness—he whom I
have ever favoured—whom I have taken into my counsels,
into my confidence, and now to play thus falsely with my
honour and safety! I pray thee, my lord, let this examination
proceed instantly, that I may fling off the sooner
this cruel aspersion.”

“I trust me, my son, that thou canst do so,” replied the
hypocritical governor.

“Doubt it not, Don Pedrarias, I pray thee—I have
neither doubts nor fears on this subject. My conscience
acquits me of thought or deed which should make me
liable to the anger of my sovereign, and this thou shalt
thyself see when I put mine eyes on these base accusers.
But let me not forget other feelings in mine anger. The
Señora Teresa—is she not in Acla, my lord?”

“She is, my son, but it were not well that she should
see thee while this accusation hangs above thee. Nor
should I seek thee here myself, since it would seem to
denote my too great partiality to one accused of such
heinous offence, but that I have no fears that you will not
easily establish your innocence. This shown, my son,
Teresa Davila is yours.”

“Once more, my lord—a question, a single question
would I ask of you,” said the prisoner, with a trembling
eye and quivering lip, as if he dreaded the answer which
he yet demanded—“this letter,”—showing, as he spoke,

that of the maiden, which he that moment drew from his
bosom, “this letter, written by Teresa to summon me to
Acla—knew she when she wrote, my lord, of these
charges against me?”

“Not a word, my son,—to the last, I was bound in duty
to my sovereign, no less than to you and to herself, to
keep this from her knowledge.”

The prisoner seemed relieved as from a heavy weight
upon his breast. His breathing became freer, and a voluntary
exclamation of thanks to the Virgin, attested the pleasure
which he felt in escaping from that crushing doubt
which assailed him, that she, upon whom his every hope
in life was now set, and for whom he had made such a
painful sacrifice, should have become the willing agent of
that treachery which had beguiled him to a prison. There
was little more than this, that passed between the governor
and his still unconscious victim. The latter simply urged
that his examination might soon be had, and the former,
with the same hypocrisy which had distinguished his conduct
throughout, left him with loud encouragements, and
the utterance of the most fervent hopes that he might soon
succeed in establishing that innocence of which he professed
to have not the smallest suspicion.

The trial was accordingly urged forward with a degree
of haste at once equally satisfactory to the prisoner and
grateful to his enemy. The charges were principally sustained
by the evidence of the secretary—the fragments of
papers and notes which he produced of Vasco Nunez;
and by that of a soldier, who stood sentinel one night near
the tent of the adelantado at Isla Rica, and overheard a
conversation between him and certain of his officers,
wherein he declared his resolution to put to sea, in the
event of certain circumstances, on his own account, and to
set the governor at defiance. This testimony, according to
Las Casas, arose from a misconstruction on the part of the
sentinel, who heard but a part of the conversation, which
related to his intention of sailing without orders, in case a
new governor should arrive to supersede Pedrarias—an
event which had been reported to Vasco Nunez as really
about to occur. Upon these charges, vague in some respects,
and scarcely conclusive in any, the prosecution
rested. The defence of Vasco Nunez was that of indignant
innocence. He met his accusers with an eye at

once fearless and frank, and in turn became the accuser,
when the secretary stood before him with his part of the
accusation.

“This unhappy youth should not be heard in this presence,”
he exclaimed, as the other was about to give his
evidence. “he is governed by malicious motives, so bitterly
felt and meditated that he hath even gone so far as to
assail me with his dagger while I slept. Can it be that
you will listen to the accusation of an assassin?”

“Where is the proof of this, Señor Vasco?” demanded
the alcalde mayor, Espinosa.

“Alas! this is another part of my sorrow—the deepest,
keenest sorrow of all. I could bear the ingratitude of this
boy, who hath been taken to my bosom, and who hath
proved a festering serpent even while I warmed him—I
could defy the malice of all this accusation—and scorn the
accusers who denounce me as disloyal to a sovereign who
hath favoured me with his smiles, and crowned my deeds
with his honours—but the consciousness that I have been
disloyal to another, and that my disloyalty hath been her
destruction, is beyond my strength to bear. The witness
for whose favouring voice you ask, is, alas! no more.
The poor Indian woman who baffled his dagger when it
hung above my breast—she who could have confounded
him with her look and word—she whom I should have
lived for and died for—who loved me, and has been ever
a Christian when Christians have shown me the teeth of
the savage—to her alone have I been disloyal—to her
alone have I broken my plighted faith. She who alone
could justly accuse me of treachery, and who, alone, could
shield me against the treachery of that miserable boy, she
sleeps in death, beneath the broad bosom of the southern
sea.”

“She lives! She lives! She is here, my lord, my
dear lord! She is here to speak for my lord, and to tell
the blessed truth in his behalf! Oh, my lord, my dear
lord! I thank thee for those sweet, kind words, thou hast
spoken for the poor Careta. She is glad now that she
lives, since she can speak for my good lord.”

The intruder at this moment was, indeed, the poor Indian
girl. Her beauty, her humble yet fervent devotedness,
as, rushing forward into the court, and heedless at first of
the presence of the surrounding men, she flung herself at

the feet of the prisoner and caught his hands in her own—
drew tears to more eyes than those of the one man whom
she sought, and for whom her words were spoken;—but the
cheeks of the secretary grew suddenly white, and those
of the governor exhibited the deep flush of anger, at an
interruption to the progress of those proceedings which
were destined to destroy their victim. Her presence, she
accounted for, after the first ebullition of her emotion had
subsided, in a very simple and characteristic manner. She
had thrown herself into the sea, at first meditating suicide,
but the instinct of life had prompted her to use that art
which all her people possessed in perfection, and, swimming
to the shore, new thoughts suggested themselves to her
mind as she lay in concealment among the thick mangroves
along the banks. She resolved to follow the man whom
she so adored, to Darien; and to behold with her own eyes
those charms of her rival which had been so cruelly preferred
to her own. In this plan she had found little difficulty.
She had never been far behind the party which
she followed, and practised, like all her people, in the
woods and among the hills, she had neither faltered nor
fainted by the way. Wild roots and berries had been her
only food, and unseen and unsuspected by the Spaniards,
she had beheld all their movements, nor at any time suffered
them to advance so far beyond her, as to make it a difficult
task to overtake them. In the neighbourhood of Acla,
among some of the ruined cottages of a former tribe of
natives, had she concealed herself, and by occasional communion
with the Indian slaves of the town, she had gained
that knowledge of events which had enabled her to time
her visit to the place of trial, so as to witness the whole
proceedings. This she had done in silence and trembling,
crouching in a recess of the court-room, until that moment
when Vasco Nunez spoke of her as sleeping in death beneath
the waters of the sea. She could then contain herself no
longer. The tender eulogy which he had uttered upon her
virtues—the fond tones of his voice, so like those which
he was wont to use in the first days of their communion—
warmed her heart and made her blood, like a fountain escaping
from the earth, well up in a sudden gush of impulse,
that defied the restraints of fear and prudence; and her lips
poured forth the abundant feeling of her bosom, in an
utterance which prevailed, for the moment, over all voices
and every will in that presence.

“Can it be, Careta—dost thou indeed live—art thou here
to speak for me, and to confound that false and perjured
villain, from whose dagger thy fond love preserved me,
and from whose sharp perjury thy truth will no less suffice?
Jesu be praised, thy blood is not upon my soul.”

Such were the words of Vasco Nunez when he recovered
himself sufficiently from his surprise at her unlooked-for
presence to speak to her. He would have raised her from
the floor, and placed her on a seat beside him, but she
clung to his knees, and would not be removed. Her long
raven tresses, loose and flowing, covered her shoulders and
swept the floor, while her eyes, turning now from his face
to those of the judges, gradually began to assume their
wonted timidity of expression, which the enthusiasm of
her first impulse, on rushing forward from her place of concealment,
had for the moment banished.

“Oh, yes, I am here to speak for my dear lord. I will
tell Don Pedrarias the truth. I am so glad I did not let the
waters go over me, but tried to gain the shore, though it
did not seem to me as if I cared any thing for life. I did
not think of life. I thought only of my lord, and I felt
that I could not leave him, though he was willing to leave
me. My dear lord will not leave the poor Careta any
more.”

“What woman is this, Señor Vasco?” demanded Pedrarias
sternly.

“The daughter of the Cassique of Coyba,” was the
reply, “whom I look upon with no less joy than shame.
It is my joy, señor, that she lives, when it was my fear that
my injustice had destroyed her—my shame, that she lives
a memorial of my disloyalty and broken faith to her,
though she can well establish my truth to my sovereign
and to thee. She can prove this youth, Pedro, to have
aimed his dagger at my life.”

“Her words avail nothing here,” replied the alcalde,
“her testimony may only be received against her own
people—not against that of a Spaniard. Hast thou no
other witness, Señor Vasco?”

The cloud was increasing—the transient gleam of hope
which was produced upon his mind by the unexpected appearance
of Careta, was as suddenly swallowed up in the

decree of the judge by whom her testimony was rejected;
and the indifference of despair was in his voice, as he replied
to the question—

“None! none!”

“Then,” said the governor, throwing aside the mask of
hypocrisy which he had so unnecessarily and ostentatiously
worn—“then, Vasco Nunez, do I discard you from my
affection. Hitherto, I have looked upon you as loyal to
your sovereign, and to me, as his representative—I have
accordingly treated you as my son, and it was at one time
my wish that you should become so. Now, guilty, as you
clearly are, of meditated rebellion to the crown of Castile,
I cast you from my care, and shall henceforth hold you as
my enemy, no less than the enemy of our king.”

Vasco Nunez rose to his full height as he listened
to this language. Hitherto he had been cowed and
oppressed by circumstances. The consciousness of his
guilt to Careta—his belief in her death—the degradation
of the arrest to which he had been subjected—all wrought
together to produce in his mind a downward tendency of
thought and feeling, which took the fire from his eye, and
the life from his movement, and that proud, commanding
energy from his voice, which, in his days of greatness and
glory, had been among his most distinguishing exterior
attributes. At this instant he seemed to resume them all
—the presence of Careta, restored to life, had given a new
strength to his heart; and his conscience had somewhat relieved
itself, most probably, in the return to his bosom of
some of those more generous—just, we should say—emotions,
which his wild and maddening passion for Teresa
had for a time banished. He now met the insolent gaze
of Pedrarias with a glance of defiance. His words were
fearless, and denoted the innocence which they were not
permitted to prove.

“Your sentence makes me not guilty, Don Pedrarias,
nor does your readiness to believe me so, altogether fail to
convince me that it is not your desire that I should appear
so. To other minds and times, I fear not to leave this
charge, for judgment; satisfied, as I am, that, on the bare
face of the circumstances, no honest judgment will condemn
me. Had I been conscious of any guilt, would I have
been simple enough to come here at your bare summons,
and surrender myself into your hands? Had I meditated

the rebellion which you place to my charge, what could
have prevented me from lifting the banner, and pressing on,
with full canvass, over the broad ocean spread out before
me? Not all your force, led, though it might have been, by
those whom I have lifted into confidence, and regarded
with a favour for which they have made such foul return,
could have stayed my progress, and baffled my insurgent
arms. I had four gallant ships at anchor, three hundred
brave men, to whom my word had been law, and the very
waving of my sword, a summons to victory. They had
followed my bidding through life, and into the very jaws
of death. What had I to do but to press forward? Rich
lands, vast empires, inviting rivers, that run over golden
beds, wooed me to this course, and furnished arguments
for independence, stronger than any that could have fallen
from the lips of counsellors, or ever found an echo in my
own heart. Homes on every hand implored my presence,
—the savage, wherever I went, became my friend, and
proffered me his homage—I had found a land, with little
toil, sufficient for me and mine, and far beyond any control
of yours, had such been the desire of my heart. But
such was not my desire. You had proffered me a gift,
which I too readily accepted—one which promises to be
as fatal to my life, as it was fatal to my independence. In
my confident innocence, I came at your summons—the
summons of the friend and the father, rather than the ruler
and the chief—and lo! these are my rewards!—these chains,
that dishonour you no less than me, have met me at my
coming. Instead of love and friendship, I have found nothing
but slander, indignity, and bonds.”

This speech, fearless and ingenuous, whatever might
have been its effect upon the disinterested portion of the
audience, had no power upon the vindictive Pedrarias, and
as little upon the pliant Espinosa. A verdict of guilty
was rendered against the prisoner, coupled with a recommendation
to mercy, in consideration of past services;—but
this recommendation was rejected, as soon as made, by the
merciless governor.”

“No!” he exclaimed. “If he merits death, he cannot
merit mercy. Let him suffer the doom to which you have
consigned him—the keen axe and the solid block. Let
him die.”

Nowise moved, but stern and collected to the last, the
voice of Vasco Nunez was heard immediately after—

“From this bloody and unjust judgment, Don Pedrarias,
I appeal to the king. The sovereign of Spain shall hear of
this.”

“Ay! he shall hear of it, but when he does so, it shall
avail you nothing. So resolute a traitor shall not be suffered
long to hatch new treasons, or complete the old. Let
it be known in Acla that the rebel Vasco Nunez dies to-morrow
on the block.”

One shriek—one long, piercing shrick, and the hitherto
breathless Careta fell prostrate on the floor—her hands uplifted
to the cruel judge, but her lips incapable of giving
utterance to the agonizing prayer which their action was
intended to prefer. Vasco Nunez raised her, with unshaken
nerves, from the floor, and bitter was the pang of
that self-reproach in his heart, which reminded him that he
had thrown away, not merely life, but the richest jewel
among heaven's gifts of mercy, by his improvident return,
under the seductions of that fatal letter, to chains and death
at Acla. His eyes met those of Micer Codro, whose efforts,
it may be said here, however ineffectual, had been
made without ceasings in his behalf. His evidence could
disprove nothing, and his misery throughout the trial had
been far greater than that of him whom it most endangered.

“Take her, Micer Codro—take her—remove her from
me now, while she knows nothing. Preserve, protect,
provide for her, my father. I have now no power to make
her other reparation; but I pay too dear a penalty for the
one error which did her so much wrong, not to be secure
of her last forgiveness. Quickly, quickly—she awakes.”