University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

It is the province of romance, even more decidedly than history,
to recall the deeds and adventures of the past. It is to fiction
that we must chiefly look for those living and breathing creations
which history quite too unfrequently deigns to summon to her
service. The warm atmosphere of present emotions, and present
purposes, belongs to the dramatis personœ of art; and she
is never so well satisfied in showing us human performances, as
when she betrays the passions and affections by which they were
dictated and endured. It is in spells and possessions of this
character, that she so commonly supersedes the sterner muse
whose province she so frequently invades; and her offices are
not the less legitimate, as regards the truthfulness of things in
general, than are those of history, because she supplies those details
which the latter, unwisely as we think, but too commonly,
holds beneath her regard. In the work before us, however, it is
our purpose to slight neither agency. We shall defer to each of
them, in turn, as they may be made to serve a common purpose.
They both appeal to our assistance, and equally spread their possessions
beneath our eyes. We shall employ, without violating,
the material resources of the Historian, while seeking to endow

them with a vitality which fiction only can confer. It is in pursuit
of this object that we entreat the reader to suppose the backward
curtain withdrawn, unveiling, if only for a moment, the
aspects of a period not so remote as to lie wholly beyond our
sympathies. We propose to look back to that dawn of the sixteenth
century; at all events, to such a portion of the historical
landscape of that period, as to show us some of the first sunny
gleams of European light upon the savage dominions of the
Western Continent. To review this epoch is, in fact, to survey
the small but impressive beginnings of a wondrous drama in
which we, ourselves, are still living actors. The scene is almost
within our grasp. The names of the persons of our narrative
have not yet ceased from sounding in our ears; and the theatre
of performance is one, the boards of which, even at this moment,
are echoing beneath their mighty footsteps. Our curiosity and
interest may well be awakened for awhile, to an action, the fruits
of which, in some degree, are inuring to our present benefit.

It is just three hundred years, since, in the spring season of the
year of Grace, one thousand five hundred and thirty-eight, the
infant city of Havana resounded with the tread of one of the
noblest bodies of Spanish chivalry that ever set foot in our Western
hemisphere. That gay and gallant cavalier, Hernando De
Soto—equally the courtier and the soldier—having won wealth,
no less than fame, under Francis Pizarro in Peru, had now resolved
upon an independent enterprise, in another region, for himself.
This enterprise, in the extravagant expectations of that
period, promised to be of even more magnificent results than
those of his great predecessor and companion, already distinguished
by his sovereign as the Adelantado of Florida.

Florida—that wondrous terra incognita, which, for so long a
time, led the European imagination astray—our ambitious cavalier
was now busied in making the grandest preparations for its
conquest. A thousand soldiers, many of whom were of the
noblest blood of Spain and Portugal, had assembled at Havana
for this enterprise, swelling his train with a strength which promised
to make certain all his anticipations. More than one third

of this brilliant force—for such it was, if we compare it with the
small and ill-organized bands which were usually deemed sufficient
for the conflict with the Indian races of America—consisted
of cavalry;—belted knights, brave soldiers, already practised in
the wars of Mexico and Peru, and young, hopeful gallants, of high
blood, who had their fortunes to make, and who had expended
the last remains of their patrimony in the decorations, for this
enterprise, of their steeds and persons. The rest were stout bowmen
and arquebusiers,—men of tough sinews, and morals quite
as tough—rude, sturdy, desperate, in doublets of quilted cotton,
which were only not quite impenetrable to an Indian arrow.
Well might the ambitious spirit of Hernando de Soto become confident
of success as he reviewed his squadrons. Their numbers,
their manly vigor, their ardent enthusiasm, the splendor of their
armor, the admirable horsemanship of his cavaliers—all tended
to assure him of his future triumphs; neither Cortez nor Pizarro
had been half so fortunate in such an equipment; and our adelantado,
as he surveyed his forces, became impatient of the hour
when he should dart upon the conquest which he already regarded
as secure. Compelled, however, to await the tardy process of
getting ships and stores in readiness, he enlivened the interval of
delay, by exercising his gallants in all the military and social
amusements in which they took delight. While in Cuba, moved
by the policy of winning to his banner the wealth and enterprise
of the island, he cheerfully encouraged his knights and captains
to engage in all those exercises of chivalry which could possibly
beguile the affections of the people. The days were accordingly
consumed in tilts and tournaments, bull-fights, and other manly
sports. The nights were yielded to balls and masquerades, in
which the victor of the morning but too commonly found himself
vanquished by the feeblest as well as fairest of his foes. The
Spaniard, naturally a person of parade and pomp, but too frequently
sacrificed the substance of a life to the shadow which his
fancy loved. The resources of an entire household were sometimes
exhausted in making gay the graceful figure of its young
cadet. Beauty necessarily strove, with equal ardor, to render her
taste and treasure appropriate auxiliaries to her natural charms;
and thus it was that the brief interval during which our adventurers
lingered in the island, after reaching it from Spain, passed
like a dream of enchantment—one of those fairy tales of pleasure
that we read of in the romances of Arabia. But the time was
fast approaching when these gay scenes of pleasure—the relaxations
and the mimicry of war—were to give place to its absolute
and hard realities. The arrangements of our adelantado were at
length nearly completed. The ships had taken in most of their
stores, and two of them had been already dispatched with the
view to a better exploration of the coast of Florida, and in search
of a fitting harbor for the descent of the armament. But a few
weeks—perhaps days—would elapse, and the little city would
sink into its ancient dullness and repose. The sad thought of
separation from such delights as had been enjoyed by all parties,
could only be dissipated by renewed efforts at enjoyment.
Gloomy reflections were only to be banished by fresh indulgences;
and, duly, as the time lessened for delay, the plans and
schemes for pleasure were hurriedly increased. The young damsels
of Cuba put forth all their attractions to arrest the fugitive
hearts whose heroic influences had but too much touched their
own; and more than one brave cavalier was found to hesitate as
the time drew nigh for his departure. His imagination painfully
contrasted the pleasures which he enjoyed, with the toils and
perils which were in prospect. Care and anxiety naturally followed
such comparisons; and, though the sports of the island were
not forborne until the armament had fairly taken its departure,
yet were they felt to be more or less deeply shadowed by the
consciousness of the change which was at hand. The song was
growing much less lively than at first—the tinkle of the guitar
less frequent and merry—the voice of the singer more subdued,
while the tremulous sighs that mingled with its strain, and formed
its tender echo and fitting accompaniment, bore evidence quite as
frequently of the really saddened fancy, as of the beguiling artifice
of the fair musician.

The cares of Hernando de Soto were of a different character.

Though wedded to one of the most lovely of all the beauties of
Spain,—a princely dame, of family quite as distinguished as her
charms,—it was not the tender passion which disturbed his
fancies. Love satisfied—the early gush of youthful ardor lulled
to rest by gratification—and ambition, that sterner passion which
more particularly inspires the bosom of the matured man,
superseding all others, except avarice, took possession of his soul,
swaying it with little interruption or interval. He was only
anxious to be gone on his path of triumph; and every event
which was calculated to delay his departure was an additional
source of anxiety, and even bitterness. Of these delays, the
causes were frequent. The very sports and pleasures which he
encouraged sometimes embarrassed the toils of his subordinates
while diminishing his own resources, and the shows of reluctance
and hesitation on the part of some of his favorite officers, together
with certain awkward domestic occurrences, at which it is only
necessary that we should glance in passing, rendered active all
that was irritable and unamiable in his temper and deportment.
It is our fortune to place him before our readers at a moment
which found him particularly ruffled by the misconduct of one
favorite cavalier, and the expected falling off of another. In a
private chamber of the Governor's palace,—for he was Governor-General
of Cuba, as well as Adelantado of Florida,—he holds in
close conference one of his chief advisers. Hernando de Soto
was at this time about thirty-six years of age, in the very prime
of manhood, healthy, vigorous, accomplished, graceful in carriage,
commanding in deportment; above the middle height, of a
countenance dark and animated, and with a large and fiery eye.
Of noble family, a gentleman “by all four descents,” as was
the phrase, he had yet gone forth as a mere adventurer on the
conquest of Peru. There he had proved his personal merits to
be superior to those of birth; ranking next to Pizarro himself in
the use of lance and sword, and particularly distinguished by his
wonderful excellence in horsemanship. He might have retired in
ease and affluence on the wealth and reputation which he acquired in
Peru, but that the master passion of his soul forbade the sacrifice
of endowments, of strength, skill and courage, which were too
precious and too conspicuous to be consigned to inactivity. It
was a fate that brought him once more from his native country
in search of greater distinctions than he had yet acquired, in a
perilous strife with the fierce natives that occupied the melancholy
wastes of Florida.

His companion, at the moment when we seek to present him
to the reader, was a person of a very different mood and character.
Don Balthazar de Alvaro was a cold, dark, and somewhat
ostentatious hidalgo,—a man of passions rather more intense
than fierce,—subtle, yet tenacious,—capable of secret vices, yet
equally capable of concealing them,—a prudent man, in the
worldly signification of the term, yet a profligate in every better
sense. But he outraged few external proprieties. He had the
cunning of the serpent, without the dove's innocence, and possessed
the art of hiding the fang and venom from discovery, even
at the moment when he most harbored and prepared both faculties
for use. He had been for ten years a resident of the island,
was a man of large estates, and larger enterprises, with involvements
more than corresponding with the former, and such as
might well be supposed to follow from a somewhat reckless
indulgence of the latter. He was now forty-five years of age,
and remarkably erect and vigorous, had frequently distinguished
himself in war with the Indians, and it surprised nobody in that
day that he should eagerly prepare to embark his fortunes with
those of Hernando de Soto. The public voice imputed to him
and other cavaliers no higher ambition in undertaking this enterprise
than the capture of such a number of red-men of the
continent as would enable them to stock with slaves their vast
landed estates in Cuba. Don Balthazar was a widower, without
family, save in the person of a single niece, the only child of a
brother, who, with his wife, had been dead for several years. The
child had been thrown upon the care of her uncle from an early
period. She was now seventeen, with considerable estates of her
own, upon which it was shrewdly conjectured that her uncle had
trespassed frequently, and with no light hand. She was as beautiful

as young,—a tall, majestic woman, with pale but highly expressive
features, a deep, dark eye, full of tenderness and thought, with
an expression of melancholy in her countenance, which seemed
rather to heighten than disparage the eminent beauty of her face.
We shall see and hear more of her hereafter.

While the two cavaliers conferred together, De Soto paced the
apartment with an air of much vexation and anxiety. He showed
himself deeply chafed with matters, the discussion of which had
evidently occupied for some time before the thoughts and feelings
of the two. Don Balthazar kept in a sitting posture; he watched
the movements of his superior with eyes that sometimes gleamed
with a sinister expression. This seemed to show him not wholly
dissatisfied with the annoyances of the other; a slight smile at
moments played about his mouth,—but these were not allowed
to attract the notice of De Soto, who broke into speech occasionally
in regard to the subject of his vexation.

“Methinks, Don Balthazar, you make too light of this mischief!
You forget that it was to the particular care of my wife
that the Count de Gomera confided his daughter. What if she
were a natural child?—did he love her the less? Was she the
less honored by the people under her father's government? You
say that she had the mother's weakness! All women are weak;
and that she should yield when man persuades, is due rather to her
nature than to the vices in her heart. Her security is in our justice,
and if that fails, she fails also. But Leonora de Bovadilla should
have had additional securities in my household; and I hold it as an
outrage on myself, scarcely to be forgiven, with any atonement
made, that one of my own trusted Lieutenants should have been
the first to abuse these securities. It is a wrong done to my
wife's honor and mine own, which, but for the responsibilities of
this expedition, would impel me to punish the transgressor with
lance and sword, and compel him to make the last atonement
with his blood!”

“It is better that he should make atonement by marrying the
girl,” was the reply of the other. “I trow, it shall better please
one of the parties at least.”

“It shall please them both! He shall marry her, or he makes
of me such an enemy as shall make death itself a desirable release
to him from punishment.”

“He is prepared for this,” said the other. “Let your anger
cool. Saving the offence to yourself and your honorable lady,
there will be no wrong done to the damsel. He will repair the
breach in her condition, and make an honest woman of her; so
that no one shall have reason to complain. Nuno de Tobar is a
free gallant. What he hath done hath not been of purpose, but
in the warmth of a passion, that has rather found its countenance
in the easy nature of the damsel herself,—perhaps in her own
willingness,—”

“Nay, nay; I will not have it so, Don Balthazar,” was the
impetuous response of De Soto;—“this is too much thy irreverent
way of speaking where woman is concerned. The virtue
and modesty of the Lady Leonora were above reproach.”

“Well, I mean not harm, your Excellency; we speak of
women as we have found them. It has been your fortune to
meet only with such as are pure; but I—”

“Let it pass, Señor,” was the interruption. “Thou wilt see
Nuno de Tobar, and teach him my desires—my demands. Let
him marry the Lady Leonora without delay. Myself and the
Lady Isabella shall grace the nuptials, which shall not be slighted.
There shall be state in the arrangements, such as becomes the
daughter of the Count de Gomera; such as becomes a lady in
the guardianship of my wife. I will give him no countenance till
this be done! I will not see him till the moment when he unites
his hand with the maiden he hath wronged, under the sanction of
the Holy Church.”

The speaker was suddenly answered from another quarter,—

“Alas! your Excellency, but the offender must again trespass,
and again rely upon your generous nature in the hope for pardon,”
said the voice of a third person, who entered the door of
the chamber at this moment.

“How now, Señor! wast thou not forbidden this presence?”
demanded De Soto, angrily. The intruder was the offending

cavalier, Nuno de Tobar, whose liaison with the fair charge of the
adelantado had formed the subject of the preceding conference.
No more graceful or superb cavalier had ever found favor in the
eyes of woman; and, as now, with a softened demeanor, with the
air of a man conscious of offence, and sincerely regretting it, he
entered the presence of his superior, his frank and ingenuous
countenance, his noble though modest carriage, insensibly won
upon the mood of De Soto, and prepared him to listen patiently
to the apologies of the offender.

“I have erred,” he continued, “and I crave pardon for my
offence. I will make all the amendment in my power. Unhappily,
I can make but little —”

“Thou wilt wed with the Lady Leonora?”

“That were no atonement, your highness, since I shall esteem
it rather a reward for services yet to be performed, that you confer
upon me a prize the most precious to my fancy. That the
Lady Leonora has suffered me to know what is the power which
my heart exercises upon hers, rather commends her to my love,
than lessens the value which I set upon her. Believe me, Señor,
that, in giving me this lady, you offer the most powerful motives
to my courage and fidelity, in the progress which lies before us,
in the deep forests of the Floridian.”

This was so gracefully said that De Soto was disarmed. He
was only too glad of the opportunity, thus afforded him, by the
readiness of the offender to repair his misconduct, to take once
more into favor one of the most accomplished gallants in his
train.

“I have been angry with thee, Nuno de Tobar, but thy heart
has not meant to offend. Away with thee, then; I forgive thee!
See, if thy lady-love shall so readily forgive thee, in making her
ready to attend thee to the altar. Thou shalt be duly warned
of the time when it shall please my wife to see thee wedded to
thine. Meanwhile, prepare thee with all dispatch, for there must
be no needless delays in our expedition. Our departure is at
hand.”

Some farther conference ensued between the parties, and

when the young cavalier had left the presence, which he did without
rendering necessary the commands of his superior, De Soto
resumed as follows:

“This passeth my hope! I had feared a struggle with the hot
passions of this youth. Few men tolerate compulsion in affairs
of love; still fewer the necessity of an alliance with the thing
they have dishonored. Strange that we should be so heedful of
a stain which is of our own making: but verily such is man's
nature. That Nuno de Tobar is so easy in this matter,—though
it likes me as repairing the shame of the Lady Leonora, and relieving
me of some of the trouble in my path,—yet somewhat
lessens him in my favor. He seemeth to me rather heedless on
the point of honor.”

“Nay, your excellency is now unreasonable,” was the answer
of Don Balthazar; “Nuno de Tobar is a philosopher somewhat
after my own fashion. He hath made no large calculation upon
the sex; therefore he shall not suffer greatly from experience
hereafter. Thou wilt do well to suffer him to see no diminution
of thy favor. Hast thou not declared him thy lieutenant-general?
Wilt thou revoke thy trust? If thou dost, the offence were more
grievous than the command which weds him to this damsel.
That were not so readily forgiven. Trust me, he is one to
resent a wrong done to his ambition, where he might submit to
one inflicted on his heart.”

“It may be so,” was De Soto's answer to this suggestion,
“yet I have resolved that he goes no longer as my lieutenant-general.
I think of this office for another. It shall certainly be
his no longer. He shall win his way to favor ere he gains it.
What thinkest thou of Vasco Porcallo for this station?”

“Does he join the expedition?” inquired the other.

“Will such an appointment fail to persuade him to the enterprise?
Such is the bait which I have passed before his eyes.”

“His treasures are an object, surely!”

“He is brave also, and full of spirit.”

“But he is old and capricious! a single skirmish with the red-men
will suffice for his ambition.”

“Be it so; but he shall have made his investments! His castellanoes
will have embarked in the expedition. These are not
easily recalled. He may retire from toils which are too great
for his years; but what shall restore him his gold when it shall
have been expended in the enterprise?”

De Soto had made his calculations shrewdly. One of his
vices—the greatest—was avarice. This impaired the dignity
and virtue of his ambition. Don Balthazar was soon persuaded
to see, in the argument of the adelantado, good reasons for confirming
the office of lieutenant-general on the rich hidalgo, Vasco
Porcallo de Figueroa, and for deposing from it the poor but gallant
young cavalier who had so grievously offended. The subject,
however, was soon dismissed, to give way to another of considerable
interest to both the parties. But, for the discussion of this,
we reserve ourselves for a fresh chapter, as it will need the presence
of another of the persons of our drama.