" (Hist. del Peru, Parte 1,
lib. 1, cap. 41.) Gomara says, more unequivocally, "All condemned
it." (Hist. de las Ind., cap. 167.) The weight of opinion seems
to have been against the viceroy.]
At length, he issued forth on firm ground, and, passing through
Tomebamba, Blasco Nunez reentered his northern capital of Quito.
But his reception was not so cordial as that which he had before
experienced. He now came as a fugitive, with a formidable enemy
in pursuit; and he was soon made to feel that the surest way to
receive support is not to need it.
Shaking from his feet the dust of the disloyal city, whose
superstitious people were alive to many an omen that boded his
approaching ruin, *14 the unfortunate commander held on his way
towards Pastos, in the jurisdiction of Benalcazar. Pizarro and
his forces entered Quito not long after, disappointed, that, with
all his diligence, the enemy still eluded his pursuit. He halted
only to breathe his men, and, declaring that "he would follow up
the viceroy to the North Sea but he would overtake him," *15 he
resumed his march. At Pastos, he nearly accomplished his object.
His advance-guard came up with Blasco Nunez as the latter was
halting on the opposite bank of a rivulet. Pizarro's men,
fainting from toil and heat, staggered feebly to the water-side,
to slake their burning thirst, and it would have been easy for
the viceroy's troops, refreshed by repose, and superior in number
to their foes, to have routed them.
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