Great was his dismay,
therefore, on learning the issue of the fatal conflict at
Huarina, - that the royalists had been scattered far and wide
before the sword of Pizarro, while their commander had vanished
like an apparition, *1 leaving the greatest uncertainty as to his
fate.
[Footnote 1: "Y salio a la Ciudad de los Reyes, sin que Carbajal,
ni alguno de los suyos supiesse por donde fue, sino que parecio
encantamiento." Garcilasso, Com. Real. Parte 2, lib. 5, cap. 22.]
The intelligence spread general consternation among the soldiers,
proportioned to their former confidence; and they felt it was
almost hopeless to contend with a man who seemed protected by a
charm that made him invincible against the greatest odds. The
president, however sore his disappointment, was careful to
conceal it, while he endeavoured to restore the spirits of his
followers. "They had been too sanguine," he said, "and it was in
this way that Heaven rebuked their presumption. Yet it was but
in the usual course of events, that Providence, when it designed
to humble the guilty, should allow him to reach as high an
elevation as possible, that his fall might be the greater!"
But while Gasca thus strove to reassure the superstitious and the
timid, he bent his mind, with his usual energy, to repair the
injury which the cause had sustained by the defeat at Huarina.
He sent a detachment under Alvarado to Lima, to collect such of
the royalists as had fled thither from the field of battle, and
to dismantle the ships of their cannon, and bring them to the
camp.
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