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VOYAGES
A N D D I S C O V E R I E S OF
for shame," said he, " that Spaniards fled before savages, and left a comrade in their hands !"
Pizarro felt the rebuke, returned to
the scene of combat, and brought off Francisco Hernan in safety. Nothing having been heard Qf Nieuesa since his departure, Vasco Nunez dispatched two brigantines for those followers of that unfortunate adventurer who had remained at Nombre de Dios.
They were overjoyed at being rescued from their forlorn
situation, and conveyed to a settlement where there was some prospect of comfortable subsistence.
The brigantines, in coasting
the shores of the Isthmus, picked up two Spaniards, clad in painted skins, and looking as wild as the native Indians.
These
men, to escape some punishment, had fled from the ship of Nieuesa about a year and a half before, and taken refuge with Careta, the cacique of Coyba.
The savage chieftain had treated them with
hospitable kindness ; their first return for which, now that they found themselves safe among their countrymen, was to advise the latter to invade the cacique in his dwelling, where they assured them they would find immense booty.
Finding their suggestions
listened to, one of them proceeded to Darien, to serve as a guide to any expedition that might be set on foot ; the other returned to the cacique, to assist in betraying him. Vasco Nunez was elated by the intelligence received through these vagabonds of the wilderness.
He chose a hundred and
thirty well-armed and resolute men, and set off for Coyba. The cacique received the Spaniards in his mansion with the ac足 customed hospitality of a savage, setting before them meat and drink, and whatever his house afforded ; but when Vasco Nunez asked for a large supply of provisions for the colony, he declared that he had none to spare, his people having been prevented from cultivating the soil by a war which he was waging with the neigh-