voyage. The fleet reached Darien in safety, and the Spanish
adventurers, encased in coats of mail, which the arrows and javelins
of the natives could not pierce, mounted on powerful war horses, armed
with muskets and cannon, and with packs of ferocious bloodhounds at
their command, were all prepared to scatter the helpless natives
before them, as the whirlwind scatters autumnal leaves.

De Soto was then but nineteen years of age. In stature and character
he was a mature man. There are many indications that he was a young
man of humane and honorable instincts, shrinking from the deeds of
cruelty and injustice which he saw everywhere perpetrated around him.
It is however probable, that under the rigor of military law, he at
times felt constrained to obey commands from which his kindly nature
recoiled.

Don Pedro was a monster of cruelty. He gave De Soto command of a troop
of horse. He sent him on many expeditions which required not only
great courage, but military sagacity scarcely to be expected in one so
young and inexperienced. It is however much to the credit of De Soto,
that the annalists of those days never mentioned his name in
connection with those atrocities which disgraced the administration of
Don Pedro. He even ventured at times to refuse obedience to the orders
of the governor, when commanded to engage in some service which he
deemed dishonorable.

One remarkable instance of this moral and physical intrepidity is on
record. Don Pedro had determined upon the entire destruction of a
little village occupied by the natives. The torch was to be applied,
and men, women and children, were to be put to the sword. Don Pedro
had issued such a command as this, with as much indifference as he
would have placed his foot upon an anthill. It is not improbable that
one of the objects he had in view was to impose a revolting task upon
De Soto, that he might be, as it were, whipped into implicit
obedience. He therefore sent one of the most infamous of his captains
to De Soto with the command that he should immediately take a troop of
horse, proceed to the doomed village, gallop into its peaceful and
defenceless street, set fire to every dwelling, and with their keen
sabres, cut down every man, woman and child. It was a deed fit only
for demons to execute.

De Soto deemed himself insulted in being ordered on such a mission.
This was not war,--it was butchery. The defenceless natives could make
no resistance. Indignantly an