hey were day after day in intense apprehension of the approach of
their outnumbering foes, by whose valor they had already been
discomfited, and so greatly disgraced.

"When the Spaniards looked out towards the mountains and the
plains," writes the Spanish historian Herrera, "the boughs of
trees and the very grass, which grew high in the savannas,
appeared to their excited imagination to be armed with
Indians. And when they turned their eyes towards the sea,
they fancied that it was covered with canoes of their
exasperated foemen."

Uracca must have been in all respects an extraordinary man. We have
the record of his deeds only from the pen of his enemies. And yet
according to their testimony, he, a pagan, manifested far more of the
spirit of Christ than did his Christian opponents. In the war which he
was then waging, there can be no question whatever that the wrong was
inexcusably and outrageously on the side of Don Pedro. We cannot learn
that Uracca engaged in any aggressive movements against the Spaniards
whatever. He remained content with expelling the merciless intruders
from his country. Even the fiendlike barbarism of the Spaniards could
not provoke him to retaliatory cruelty. The brutal soldiery of Spain
paid no respect whatever to the wives and daughters of the natives,
even to those of the highest chieftains.

On one occasion a Spanish lady, Donna Clara Albitez, fell into the
hands of Uracca. He treated her with as much delicacy and tenderness
as if she had been his own daughter or mother, and availed himself of
the first opportunity of restoring her to her friends.

Though De Soto was one of the bravest of his cavaliers, and was so
skilful as an officer that his services were almost indispensable to
Don Pedro, yet the governor was anxious to get rid of him. It is
probable that he felt somewhat condemned by the undeniable virtues of
De Soto; for the most of men can feel the power of high moral
principle as witnessed in others. De Soto, intensely proud, was not at
all disposed to play the sycophant before his patron. He had already
exasperated him by his refusal to execute orders which he deemed
dishonorable. And worst of all, by winning the love of Isabella, he
had thwarted one of the most ambitious of Don Pedro's plans; he having
contemplated her alliance with one of the most illustrious families of
the Spanish nobility.

Don Pedro did not dare to send De Soto to the scaffol