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repel attacks by the natives. And they are not a fighting unit now, but a small group of men sick with fever and staggering with the last of their strength—Balboa himself is near death, and has to be carried in a hammock by the Indios. After four months of terrible stress and strain, he gets back to Darién on 19th January 1514. But one of the great deeds of history has been done. Balboa has fulfilled his promise, all who ventured into the unknown with him are rich now; his soldiers have brought home from the coast of the southern sea treasures never known to Columbus and the other conquistadors, and all the other colonists get their share. One-fifth is put aside for the Crown, and no one begrudges the conqueror the fact that he treats his dog Leoncico like any other warrior as a reward for tearing the flesh from the bones of the unhappy natives, and presents him with 500 gold pesos. Not a man in the colony now quarrels with Balboa’s authority as governor after such an achievement. The adventurer and rebel is honoured likea god, and he can prepare with pride to send Spain the news that he has performed the greatest deed for the Crown of Castile since Columbus. The sun of his good fortune, rising steeply, has broken through all the clouds that have loomed over his life until now. It is at its zenith.
    But Balboa’s happiness does not last long. On a radiant June day a few months later the astonished people of Darién flock down to the beach. A sail has been sighted on the horizon, and already it is like a miracle in this forsaken corner of the world. And look, a second sail appears beside it, a third, a fourth, a fifth; and soon there are ten, no, fifteen, no, twenty—a whole fleet making for the harbour. Soon everyone knows: all this is the work of Núñez de Balboa’s letter, but not the letter with the news of his triumph—which has not yet reached Spain—but the earlier letter in which, for the first time, he described the native chief’s account of the nearby southern sea and the land of gold, asking for an army of 1,000 men to conquer those lands. The Spanish Crown did not hesitate to equip such a mighty fleet for that expedition, but no one in Seville and Barcelona thought of entrusting so important a task to a rebellious adventurer with such a bad reputation as Vasco Núñez de Balboa. Their own choice of governor is sent. A rich, aristocratic and highly regarded man of sixty, Pedro Arias Dávila, usually called Pedrarias, comes with the fleet to act as the king’s governor and restore order to the colony at last, do justice for all the crimes so far committed, find the southern sea and conquer the promised land of gold.
    The situation is an awkward one for Pedrarias. On the one hand he has the mission of calling the rebel Núñez deBalboa to account for his earlier hunting-down of the first governor, and if he is proved guilty putting him in chains or executing him; on the other, he has to discover the southern sea. However, as soon as his boat comes ashore he learns that this same Núñez de Balboa, whom he is to bring to justice, has done the great deed himself, that the rebel has already celebrated the triumph meant for him, and has done the Spanish Crown the greatest service since the discovery of America. Of course he cannot now put such a man’s head on the block as if he were a common criminal; he must greet him courteously and offer honest congratulations. From this moment, however, Núñez de Balboa is lost. Pedrarias will never forgive his rival for having done the deed that he himself was to do, and that would have ensured his eternal fame through the ages. Of course, he must hide his hatred for their hero from the colonists for fear of embittering them too soon; the investigation is adjourned, and Pedrarias even makes a show of peace by betrothing his own daughter, whom he has left in Spain, to Núñez de Balboa. But his hatred and jealousy of Balboa are in no way mollified, only heightened when