 | CHAPTER II.
CARETA. The damsel of Darien |  |
2. CHAPTER II.
CARETA.
The Indians disappeared from the surrounding heights
with the events of that bloody day, and the path of discovery,
for a brief distance, lay open to Vasco Nunez. But
as yet the brave cavalier could undertake no conquest or
enterprise of moment, from the limited character of his
resources, and the small number of soldiers which he
commanded. Some of these were slain, and more wounded
in the battle, and many more were sick in consequence
of great fatigue, inadequate food, and diseases peculiar to
the climate. The provisions which they had obtained
from Hispaniola had long since given out, and their only
food was found in such scanty supplies, as they gleaned
from the savages by the terrors of their arms. Impatient
to proceed on his path of conquest and renown,-Vasco
Nunez was yet too wise and thoughtful to push an enterprise
which called for adequate preparation. A premature
attempt he well knew would only result in disappointment,
and would, most probably, impair his own reputation to
so great a degree, as to lose him the confidence and command
of his followers. Thus straightened, he reconciled
himself, as well as he might, to the necessities of his situation.
He strengthened his colony by additional entrenchments,
built houses for his people, and laid out
gardens for the cultivation of grain and vegetables. A
portion of his men, the feeble and unenterprising, were
employed in these necessary labours; while the rest were
despatched on various missions, either of conquest or discovery,
along the neighbouring coast and throughout the
country. He himself seldom left the colony, reserving
the greater objects, necessarily implied the greatest
dangers. Between the mountains before him and the seas
behind him, the glance of his eyes and the expectations of
his heart were equally divided. The one rose between
him and those meditated conquests, which he might not
hope to obtain without that succour which he knew could
only reach him by the other; and anxiously, indeed, did
he pray for the success of his messenger in Spain, who
was to defend his conduct before his sovereign, and provide
him with those supplies which he fondly hoped were
to acknowledge his past, and facilitate his prosecution of
new, achievements. His men saw nothing in the countenance
and conduct of their leader, but the firm enthusiastic
courage and confidence of a spirit born for success,
and pursuing the only paths by which he might command
it; but pacing the melancholy shore, looking wistfully
over its chafing waters, a gloom, like that which broods
over their solemn waste, gathered new strength in his
bosom with every added moment of his watch. There,
or along the mountain paths, over which he sometimes
clambered to muse in secret upon his more than mountain
projects, dark clouds gathered upon his brow, the certain
token of those doubts which for ever haunt the path of
human ambition, and gather above the summits of its loftiest
hopes. It was in vain that the astrologer renewed
his glowing promises, and dwelt upon the favouring aspects
of his star. It was in vain that he reminded him
of what had been already achieved, seemingly in his own
despite, and certainly against his own hope, to give him
the elevation he desired. He who has lofty purposes and
hopes, has fears and doubts of corresponding depression,
and it is no disparagement of genius to say, that a certain
humility—the result of a due conviction of its own human
incapacity—must sometimes make it tremble for the success
of those designs, which a godlike imagination conceives,
in aid of the more slow and creeping experience.
Meanwhile, the Cassique Zemaco was not idle, though
dispirited by his late defeat. The result of the action
with the Spaniards had tended in no small degree to elevate
the judgment of Caonabo in his mind. He felt the
force now of all those arguments which his vanity had
before rejected; and the policy, while avoiding all general
his path, placing ambuscades for his march, laying waste
the country, and cutting off his detachments, he determined
to adopt after the counsel of the fugitive. Spies
were placed upon all the movements of the Spaniards—
emissaries sent to all the minor chiefs of the country; and
their canoes, formed to ply the rivers and along the bays
and indentations of the coast, stole along by night, even
among the brigantines of the invaders, and ascertained
their condition and reported their objects. This espionage,
which the great numbers of his followers enabled
Zemaco to make singularly effective, had the most important
and paralyzing effect upon the fortunes of the Spaniards.
Few of the enterprises which they undertook,
though under such captains as Pizarro, Colmenares, and
Valdivia, were entirely successful, and some of them were
defeated with loss and discredit. Such results as these
aroused Vasco Nunez to the necessity of undertaking the
minor adventures himself; and some information which
he obtained from two of the men whom Nicuesa had left
at Nombre de Dios, determined him upon a journey of
greater peril and extent than any that had been made
before. These men, to escape some punishment, had
fled from Nicuesa upon his first arrival in the country,
had wandered off into the forests, and finally fallen
into the hands of the Cassique of Coyba. Though prisoners,
they had been treated kindly, and had remained
with him in a sort of honourable captivity long enough to
see into the condition of the land. Of its wealth in gold
they gave a glowing account to Vasco Nunez, and spoke
of immense and secret stores of provisions to which they
could guide him without difficulty, pledging their lives for
the success of any enterprise against his dominions.
This offer, and the intelligence which they conveyed to
him, determined Vasco Nunez upon his course. Choosing
a hundred and thirty men, from the most resolute of
his command, he at once set off for the province of Coyba.
But the wary and wily enemy who had so long watched
his movements, hung around them still, and though
he suffered his march to remain unmolested, he noted
every step in his progress, and the Cassique of Coyba was
duly informed of the approaching foe. He was enabled
to conceal his treasures of gold and grain, and to prepare
entered the town where he had entrenched himself,
by storm and in the night. A desperate fight ensued in
the darkness. The Cassique fought bravely against a foe
of whose savage cruelties he had heard an account no
less appalling than had been told him, with more truth, of
his overwhelming powers; and with the high-souled
desperation of a prince, willing to sacrifice himself for his
people, he sought out the leader of the Spaniards, by the
blazing light of his habitation, which his own hands had
set on fire. But all the accounts which had been brought
him of the superior prowess of the invaders fell short of
the truth as he realized it in the encounter which he
sought himself. A single moment sufficed Vasco Nunez
to destroy the hope of the cassique. His spear, severed
at the first stroke of the Spanish sword, left his head unguarded
for the second, while his prostrate form lay beneath
the feet of the cavalier. Angry with the strife, and
roused to all that minor sort of madness, without the
blinding influence of which man would probably seldom
strike his fellow-man, Vasco Nunez prepared to repeat
the blow which must have severed the head from the
shoulders of his opponent; when, as they beheld the danger
of their chief, the Indians, to a man, threw down their
weapons, and sunk with an appalling shriek of terror to
the ground. At the same moment, while the yet uplifted
sword of the cavalier hung threatening above the head of
the prostrate warrior, a girl, scarcely more than fifteen,
darted between the combatants, and throwing herself
upon the body of the cassique, clung to his neck with the
fondest devotion, seeking with her own slender and
sylphlike form to cover and shield it from the impending
weapon. Vasco Nunez was charmed by this unexpected
apparition. Never had so bright and ethereal a creature
descended before his eyes. Matchless in grace, as she
lay before him, one arm around the cassique, one lifted
imploringly to the conqueror, while her tearful eyes
pleaded with the more eloquence that her lips were silent,
he thought her one of those heavenly visions which sometimes
hallow and delight even the dreams of the unrelenting
soldier, and move him to momentary feelings of
gentleness and love. Her face was girlish, almost childish,
as, indeed, belonged to her years; but there was the
the affections which belong to all ages, and lift any
into nobleness and beauty. Fairer than her people, her
cheek bloomed with an olive lustre such as the Spaniards
loved to applaud in the beauties of their own nation. Her
forehead was high and narrow—her mouth small; and
while it quivered with the nameless terrors which were
struggling in her heart, the tips of the white teeth gleamed
at intervals through the parted lips, from which the natural
red had taken flight, though to return again, the moment
after, with accumulated richness. Voluminous and
of a glossy black like that of the wing of the raven, her
hair covered not only her own shoulders but the bosom
of her father—for such was the cassique whom she strove
to shield from the rage of his conqueror. But the rage
of the conqueror was already subdued. He looked on her
pleading and tearful eyes, and his heart melted within him.
He commanded his followers to stay the sword; and lifting
the damsel herself from the form of him whom she had
so opportunely rescued from the fatal stroke, he bade the
cassique, in tones of mercy and forbearance, arise from
the earth,
“What have I done to thee,” said the cassique, as he
stood in the presence of his conqueror—“For what crime
is it that thou hast served me in this cruel wise. I have
fed thy people when they were hungry, I have helped
them when they were weary and athirst. I have ever
treated the stranger with loving-kindness. Hadst thou
sought me for food, I had given it—my people should
have brought thee grain—my women should have
strengthened thee with a pleasant beverage. I would
rather meet the stranger with fruits than with a javelin;
but thou hast yielded me no choice. Thy coming was
in wrath and thunder. Thou hast stricken my people,
and brought ruin to our dwellings. Wherefore hast thou
come in war, when thou shouldst have come in friendship.”
Vasco Nunez, if a common rude soldier, might have
found some difficulty in replying to so pathetic and well-grounded
a rebuke. But it is recorded as another remarkable
accomplishment in the cavalier, that he had a
wonderful skill in winning the affections of the savages.
He was touched with the appeal of the cassique, and
He ascribed his assault entirely to the necessities of the
Spaniards—their absolute want of food which could not
well be procured for present consumption in any other
manner. With arguments like these, and by a grace of
manner, which, in a being confessedly so superior, was
beyond any argument beside, Vasco Nunez soon conciliated
the favour and removed the anger of his savage
host.
“There should not be strife between us,” replied the
cassique—“and it were madness in me to hope to contend
with a warrior who wears such a weapon as this,”
touching the sword as he spoke—“and can cleave a man
in twain at a single stroke. I would have thee as a
friend—thee and thy people.”
“I do not seek to harm thee,” replied Vasco Nunez, “it
gives me no pleasure to destroy and slay, nor, indeed,
should I have descended upon thee in anger as I have
done, but that I know thou hast taken counsel from the
Cassique of Darien, to withstand me with thy warriors.
What pledge wilt thou give me that thou wilt give no
farther heed to the words of Zemaco?”
“My warriors shall follow thee,” replied the cassique,
“thou hast demanded of me the knowledge of the land—
my people shall show thee their riches. I will provide
thee with food, and that thou mayst the better believe the
sincerity of my heart, lo! here is my daughter—my best
beloved Careta; thou shalt take her to thy bosom as thy
wife. She is good, and thou seest that she is both young
and beautiful. She shall be a bond betwixt thee and me,
a pledge of the fidelity of her father and her people.”
The eye of Vasco Nunez turned anxiously and sadly
upon the downcast features of the shrinking damsel, who
clung to her father's arm as if dreading her instant removal.
For a moment the lips of the cavalier were
closed, compressed, as if to quell and silence certain unbidden
feelings in his soul. Then, calmly approaching,
he laid his hand gently upon the arm of the maiden, while
he asked—
“Wilt thou go with the strange warrior, Careta—wilt
thou leave thy father and live with me?”
She shrunk back, and trembled with an undefinable
struggle. But though she shrunk, she looked up, as the
dewy eyes encountered the keen, earnest glance of his.
In an instant they were cast down, while her face was
suffused with blushes.
“Enough! thou shalt go with me, Careta—thou shalt
be the wife of Vasco Nunez.”
A piercing shriek escaped her at these words, and
throwing herself upon her knees, she grasped those of the
cassique, and wildly addressed herself to him.
“Wilt thou say it, my father,—wilt thou send thy
child, thy Careta, from thee, to the far home of the pale
warrior? Ah, my father—no!”
“The pale warrior will be the friend of thy father,
when Careta sleeps upon his bosom. He will help thy
father to strike his enemies—he will protect him with his
mighty men from Ponca and Comagre. Will Careta
make the pale warriors angry with her people?”
The girl rose meekly, and crossing over to where
Vasco Nunez stood, put her hand in his with all the confiding
trust of the innocent and hopeful child.
“Careta will go with the pale warrior. She will bring
him drink when he is weary, and watch over him when
he sleeps. Let the pale warrior be good to her people.”
With emotions, strange and insuppressible, Vasco Nunez
took the girl in his arms and folded her to his mail
clad bosom. The hand of the astrologer was laid upon
his shoulder.
“Nay, Micer Codro, I know what thou wouldst say,
but it availeth nothing. I tell thee, my friend, that the
pure heart of this heathen maiden is at this moment
dearer in the eyes of Vasco Nunez than all the gifts of
glory ever promised by the stars.”
“Ah, Vasco, my son, couldst thou see with eyes like
mine; already art thou far advanced on the path of thy
greatness, and the danger that awaits thee is still the
danger from a woman.”
“It cannot be, Micer Codro, that this heathen damsel
should be the woman of whom thou speakest. Is there
not one—one that thou knowest?—are there not other
women? The stars themselves could not make of this
pure-hearted and trusting damsel an enemy of Vasco
Nunez.”
And he again clasped the maiden to his bosom at these
who had beheld in him only the stern warrior before.
“Shall I have no life but that of glory, Micer Codro?”
continued the cavalier, “I tell thee, my father, even that
life is not perfect if love hallow not its achievements.”
“Love!” replied the other, “didst thou not love Teresa
Davila?”
The cavalier turned as if a viper had suddenly stung
his heel; he pushed the wondering girl from his arms,
then as suddenly reclasped them around her, while he
replied sternly to the aged man in accents of quick reproach.
“Speak not of her, Micer Codro! why shouldst thou
seek to torture me with these cruel memories? Enough!
when I knew Teresa, I ceased to love her. Shall the lip
that has tasted a fruit which is bitter be denied to think
that another may be sweet?”
“Alas! my son! Even the sweet may have its sorrow
with the bitter. But I would not vex thee. Enough, that
whether the damsel be thy enemy or not, thou hast none
other than a friend in Micer Codro.”
“I know it, father,” cried Vasco Nunez promptly
giving him his hand, “and thou shouldst know that I
feel it even when in my impatience of rebuke I should
seem to forget. But no more of this—there are other
matters.”
Then turning to the cassique he said—
“Coyba, our interests are one. Thy daughter shall
be a tie between us, which shall bind us in strength and
amity together. Bid thy warriors refresh themselves with
sleep, for with the dawn of light to-morrow, it is my purpose
to advance upon Ponca thy enemy. Micer Codro,
it will not be many days ere we get tidings of that
southern sea.
| CHAPTER II.
CARETA. The damsel of Darien | |