*8
[Footnote 8: "Al cabo de muchos Dias aguardando, estaban tan
angustiados, que los salages, que se hacian bien dentro de la
Mar, les parecia, que era el Navio." Herrera, Hist General, dec.
3, lib. 10, cap. 4.]
Meanwhile the vessel of Tafur had reached the port of Panama.
The tidings which she brought of the inflexible obstinacy of
Pizarro and his followers filled the governor with indignation.
He could look on it in no other light than as an act of suicide,
and steadily refused to send further assistance to men who were
obstinately bent on their own destruction. Yet Luque and Almagro
were true to their engagements. They represented to the
governor, that, if the conduct of their comrade was rash, it was
at least in the service of the Crown, and in prosecuting the
great work of discovery. Rios had been instructed, on his taking
the government, to aid Pizarro in the enterprise; and to desert
him now would be to throw away the remaining chance of success,
and to incur the responsibility of his death and that of the
brave men who adhered to him. These remonstrances, at length, so
far operated on the mind of that functionary, that he reluctantly
consented that a vessel should be sent to the island of Gorgona,
but with no more hands than were necessary to work her, and with
positive instructions to Pizarro to return in six months and
report himself at Panama, whatever might be the future results of
his expedition.
Having thus secured the sanction of the executive, the two
associates lost no time in fitting out a small vessel with stores
and a supply of arms and ammunition, and despatched it to the
island.
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