ailed away from Antigua on that enforced
voyage from which he never returned, Vasco Nunez de Balboa was supreme
on the Isthmus. Encisco, however, remained to make trouble. In order
to secure internal peace before prosecuting some further expeditions,
Balboa determined to send him back to Spain, as the easiest way of
getting rid of his importunities and complaints.

A more truculent commander would have no difficulty in inventing a
pretext for taking off his head. A more prudent captain would have
realized that Encisco with his trained mouth could do very much more
harm to him in Spain than he could in Darien. Balboa thought to
nullify that possibility, however, by sending Valdivia, with a present,
to Hispaniola, and Zamudio {32} with the Bachelor to Spain to lay the
state of affairs before the King. Encisco was a much better advocate
than Balboa's friend Zamudio, and the King of Spain credited the one
and disbelieved the other. He determined to appoint a new governor for
the Isthmus, and decided that Balboa should be proceeded against
rigorously for nearly all the crimes in the decalogue, the most serious
accusation being that to him was due the death of poor Nicuesa. For by
this time everybody was sure that the poor little meat-carver was no
more.

An enterprise against the French which had been declared off filled
Spain with needy cavaliers who had started out for an adventure and
were greatly desirous of having one. Encisco and Zamudio had both
enflamed the minds of the Spanish people with fabulous stories of the
riches of Darien. It was curiously believed that gold was so plentiful
that it could be fished up in nets from the rivers. Such a piscatorial
prospect was enough to unlock the coffers of a prince as selfish as
Ferdinand. He was willing to risk fifty thousand ducats in the
adventure, which was to be conducted on a grand scale. No such
expedition to America had ever been prepared before as that destined
for Darien.

Among the many claimants for its command, he picked out an old cavalier
named Pedro Arias de Avila, called by the Spaniards Pedrarias.[1]

This Pedrarias was seventy-two years old. He was of good birth and
rich, and was the father of a large and interesting family, which he
prudently left behind him in Spain. His wife, however, insisted on
going {33} with him to the New World. Whether or not this was a proof
of wifely devotion--and if it was, it is the only thing in history to
h