Eating, drinking, sleeping in his saddle, the veteran,
eighty years of age, saw his own followers tire one after
another, while he urged on the chase, like the wild huntsman of
Burger, as if endowed with an unearthly frame, incapable of
fatigue! During this terrible pursuit, which continued for more
than two hundred leagues over a savage country, Centeno found
himself abandoned by most of his followers. Such of them as fell
into Carbajal's hands were sent to speedy execution; for that
inexorable chief had no mercy on those who had been false to
their party. *37 At length, Centeno, with a handful of men,
arrived on the borders of the Pacific, and there, separating from
one another, they provided, each in the best way he could, for
their own safety. Their leader found an asylum in a cave in the
mountains, where he was secretly fed by an Indian curaca, till
the time again came for him to unfurl the standard of revolt. *38
[Footnote 37: Poblando los arboles con sus cuerpos, "peopling the
trees with heir bodies," says Fernandez, strongly; alluding to
the manner in which the ferocious officer hung up his captives on
the branches.]
[Footnote 38: For the expedition of Carbajal, see Herrera, Hist.
General, dec. 8, lib. 1, cap. 9, et seq. - Zarate, Conq. del
Peru, lib. 6, cap. 1. - Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 2, lib. 4,
cap. 28, 29, 36, 39. - Fernandez, Hist. del Peru, Parte 1, lib.
2, cap. 1, et seq. - Carta de Gonzalo Pizarro a Valdivia, Ms.
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