ssors in Spain. Truly a prodigious claim,
but one which for a time Spain came perilously near establishing and
maintaining.[3]

[Illustration: "He Threw the Sacred Volume to the Ground in a Violent
Rage"]

Before they left the shore they found some canoes and voyaged over to a
little island in the bay, which they called San Miguel, since it was
that saint's day, and where they were nearly all swept away by the
rising tide. They went back to Antigua by another route, somewhat less
difficult, fighting and making peace as before, and amassing treasure
the while. Great was the joy of the colonists who had been left
behind, when Balboa and his men rejoined them. {42} Those who had
stayed behind shared equally with those who had gone. The King's royal
fifth was scrupulously set aside and Balboa at once dispatched a ship,
under a trusted adherent named Arbolancha, to acquaint the King with
his marvelous discovery, and to bring back reenforcements and
permission to venture upon the great sea in quest of the fabled golden
land toward the south.

III. "Furor Domini"

Unfortunately for Vasco Nunez, Arbolancha arrived just two months after
Pedrarias had sailed. The discovery of the Pacific was the greatest
single exploit since the voyage of Columbus. It was impossible for the
King to proceed further against Balboa under such circumstances.
Arbolancha was graciously received, therefore, and after his story had
been heard a ship was sent back to Darien instructing Pedrarias to let
Balboa alone, appointing him an adelantado, or governor of the islands
he had discovered in the South Sea, and all such countries as he might
discover beyond.

All this, however took time, and Balboa was having a hard time with
Pedrarias. In spite of all the skill of the envenomed Encisco, who had
been appointed the public prosecutor in Pedrarias's administration,
Balboa was at last acquitted of having been concerned in the death of
Nicuesa. Pedrarias, furious at the verdict, made living a burden to
poor Vasco Nunez by civil suits which ate up all his property.

It had not fared well with the expedition of Pedrarias, either, for in
six weeks after they landed, over seven hundred of his unacclimated men
were dead of fever and other diseases, incident to their lack of {43}
precaution and the unhealthy climate of the Isthmus. They had been
buried in their brocades, as has been pithily remarked, and forgotten.
The condition of the survivor