Pedrarias, the
governor, was preparing to lead an expedition in person against a
rebellious officer in Nicaragua; and his temper, naturally not the most
amiable, was still further soured by this defection of his lieutenant, and
the necessity it imposed on him of a long and perilous march. When,
therefore, Almagro appeared before him with the request that he might
be permitted to raise further levies to prosecute his enterprise, the
governor received him with obvious dissatisfaction, listened coldly to the
narrative of his losses, turned an incredulous ear to his magnificent
promises for the future, and bluntly demanded an account of the lives,
which had been sacrificed by Pizarro's obstinacy, but which, had they
been spared, might have stood him in good stead in his present
expedition to Nicaragua. He positively declined to countenance the rash
schemes of the two adventurers any longer, and the conquest of Peru
would have been crushed in the bud, but for the efficient interposition of
the remaining associate, Fernando de Luque.
This sagacious ecclesiastic had received a very different impression from
Almagro's narrative, from that which had been made on the mind of the
irritable governor. The actual results of the enterprise in gold and silver,
thus far, indeed, had been small,--forming a mortifying contrast to the
magnitude of their expectations.
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